Posted on 08/12/2006 7:59:14 AM PDT by knighthawk
The thwarted plot is further evidence of the difficulty and importance of staying one step ahead of extremism
HAD the plotters succeeded, the horror would have been almost unimaginable. Bombs would have exploded on as many as 10 airliners high over the Atlantic Ocean, sending several thousand people spiralling to their deaths. The scheme's two dozen suspects arrested on Thursday by British police after a massive surveillance operation allegedly planned to evade security by smuggling gel explosives in sports-drink bottles and detonating their bombs with ordinary electronic devices such as MP3 players. Only days from now, police allege, the so-called bottle bombers were going to make a dry run. The raids prompted an immediate, and possibly permanent, revision to carry-on baggage rules. Air travellers in Britain and the US are now banned from carrying all but a few essentials in a clear container. And increasingly onerous security restrictions will inevitably apply to Australian airline passengers. But beyond sparking fear among and inconvenience to travellers, the plot suggests that, five years after 9/11, al-Qa'ida's operational capabilities are still a force to be reckoned with.
The use of liquid explosives to blow up multiple airliners in mid-air is not an original idea. In the early 1990s, al-Qa'ida developed a plan called Bojinka. The operation – which included plans to assassinate pope John Paul II and crash an airliner into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia – called for terrorists to plant liquid nitroglycerin bombs with digital watch detonators on 11 airliners around Asia in 1995 and bring them down over the Pacific. Had it succeeded, it could very well have resulted in 9/11-level casualties as plane after plane exploded over the sea. Fortunately, Bojinka was uncovered in Manila a few days before a scheduled visit by the pontiff when a fire in a conspirator's apartment alerted authorities. But the plot just uncovered in England is different from Bojinka in a few key areas. These most recent alleged conspirators appear to have been willing to die in the course of the plan, suggesting an ultimate level of fervour and commitment; Bojinka's bombers were to get off their flights at early stops and make for Lahore, Pakistan. Bojinka's plotters were all from the Middle East, while this week's appear for the most part to be homegrown Britons of Pakistani descent. That Britain has a homegrown terror problem is no secret. Mounting evidence suggests its Muslims are increasingly radicalised. When a British television station commissioned an opinion poll earlier this month to probe local Muslim attitudes, it found that almost a quarter of British Muslims felt the London transport bombings on July 7 last year were justifiable, almost half thought 9/11 was a conspiracy between the US and Israel and a third said they would rather live under sharia law than British common law and parliamentary democracy. British jihadis have been probing aviation security for years – recall the failed shoe bomb attempt of Richard Reid – and have travelled to Iraq to participate in the insurgency.
Action must occur on several levels to detect and prevent such threats. Terrorists have an understandable fetish for aviation. Blowing up a widebody jet or turning it into a flying bomb does not just kill hundreds or thousands, it resonates fear in a way other forms of mass slaughter cannot. And something like a Boeing 747 represents so much about modernity that Islamic radicals simultaneously love and hate, from Western technology to freedom of movement. Security measures such as those introduced in the past two days make sense in the short term, but also feel a bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. Since Reid's December 2001 shoe-bomb attempt, air passengers have routinely been forced to take off their footwear for screening. But terrorists have since moved on, as this most recent case proves. By their very nature, airports are the most public of places and it is hard to imagine that any security regime will be foolproof. Recall that last year The Australian published a classified report detailing illegal behaviour by baggage handlers, security screeners and other workers; later, Customs officers were warned off co-operating with a parliamentary inquiry into aviation security. At this stage, it appears that the plot was uncovered thanks to the sort of global surveillance of communications and financial transactions that is often treated as a violation of civil liberties. If this is the case, it serves as a sharp rebuke to critics of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication database program. Also claiming credit for heading off the attacks is Pakistan, which arrested several suspects over a week ago. But Pakistan is part of the problem, having long maintained a two-faced attitude towards the war on terror that has had it talk tough while allowing al-Qai'da and Lashkar-e-Toiba to operate within its borders and cross to and from Afghanistan. Ultimately, the war will not be won unless we can name our enemy. We should not shy away from calling Islamic terrorists what they are. The fact that George W Bush was taken to task by some Muslim groups for referring to Islamic fascism is disheartening, for the fifth column of terrorists within that faith are as dangerous to ordinary Muslims as they are to everyone else. Muslims in the West should be encouraged to do their part and not let radicals hide behind their communities or let advocacy groups hijack their sympathies.
Finally, those who would link the latest plot to the present conflict in the Middle East miss the broader narrative that has had radical Islam replace communism as the totalitarian rival to Western freedom. Bojinka and 9/11 were conceived (as were a string of successful attacks of the 1990s) when American foreign policy under Bill Clinton was going in to bat for Muslims from Bosnia to Somalia to the Palestinian territories. Likewise, plans for the first Bali bombings were drawn up before Australia joined the coalition of the willing. Around the world, Islamic terrorism has as its ultimate enemy the freedoms we enjoy, whether they are the ability to get on a plane and travel anywhere in the world or lounge on a tropical beach and enjoy a beer. In their place, it would impose a violent theocracy as anathema to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who treat their faith as a private confession as it would be to everyone else. Those on the Left who succumb to the totalitarian temptation and romanticise terrorists as freedom fighters must understand it is the freedoms they most cherish that Islamic fascists most hate. Those who rallied yesterday in Canberra to "stop the war" and put the onus solely on Israel have things similarly backwards. And cynics who create a no-win situation by claiming the latest British raids were a government set-up and distraction, while blaming officials when terrorists are successful, do no one any favours. For the rest of us, then, the challenge is to keep seeing things clearly and continue living our lives unbowed.
Yet Another Awesome article! Thanks! I will be printing this for the next three months and distributing it to as many people as I am able.
Ping
At your service!
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