Posted on 06/07/2007 9:19:23 PM PDT by jdm
Before the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, al Qaeda targeted another U.S. destroyer. It wanted to hit the USS The Sullivans. But as recounted in Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower, the terror operatives overloaded their skiff with C-4 explosives, causing it to sink harmlessly into the surf.
They had to shoo away Yemeni locals who discovered the boat and started throwing the C-4 bricks around. Anyone discovering the operatives at that moment would have concluded that they were buffoons whose ambition to sink an American ship of war far exceeded their capabilities. Of course, nine months later, they nearly succeeded, blowing a 40-feet-by-40-feet hole in the Cole, killing 17 sailors.
Foiled terror plots often will seem ridiculous and unlikely, especially when they are preempted. What could be stupider than Ahmed Ressam, “a petty thief” according to Wright, running from border guards in Washington state after explosives were discovered in the trunk of his car? He wouldn’t have seemed so risible if he had exploded his bomb at Los Angeles International Airport. If the 9/11 plot had been disrupted at its very inception — with jihadis playing flight-simulator games in Afghanistan — it would have seemed laughable.
This is why even foiled plots deserve to be taken seriously. The New York Times notoriously played down the scheme to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy Airport on Page 37, pleading that the amateurishness of the plot limited its newsworthiness. As former prosecutor Andy McCarthy points out, the FBI is a victim of its success here. Moving from an emphasis on prosecutions to an emphasis on pre-emption necessarily means that terror cases will be weaker, thus tempting us to discount the threat altogether.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
Atta and his band of "wanna learn to fly, but not how to land" guys would have looked silly too... But we know better now. If a terror plot - or when a terror plot succeeds - the New York Times will be the first to condemn our guys for not catching it... What a world.
I forget where I read it, I think in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, but it was about an Indian who decided to do something about the “Iron Horse”. On his first try, he lassoed it and tried to pull it off the tracks. That didn’t work. On his second try, he tore loose a rail.
Richard Reid trying to light his shoe-borne-explosives (SBE) on fire sounded pretty funny at first too. When I realized what would have happened if he hadn’t failed though, it made me sick with dread at how close to death the hundreds on that plane were.
Mr. Lowry hits a home run with this one.
They only have to “get lucky” once.
Ever notice how the “threat of international terrorism is exagerated” crowd did their OWN exagerating about the “horrors” of Abu Ghraib when we compare what the wayward soldiers did versus what Saddam authorized? And when we compare the US military against the war crimes committed by the so called “freedom fighter insurgents”?
Wow - imagine being so ignorant of physics that you would try to stop a locomotive with a rope. Oy!
If the Global War on Terror is a “Bumper Sticker” then John Edwards is just “a bug on the windshield”...
Imagine! - Like trying to bring down a skyscraper with box cutters!
I’m not convinced that the plot failed every time.
Plane Crashes in Queens, New York
November 12, 2001 — American Airlines Flight 587 crashed on takeoff in the borough of Queens in New York City. The Airbus A300 was headed from JFK International airport to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It was not immediately clear whether there were any survivors, as rescue crews rushed to the scene. Homeland security surveillance flights in the area reported no unusual activity, according to the Pentagon.
The flight carrying 255 people went down at 9:17 a.m. EST in the Rockway section of Queens, about five miles from Kennedy Airport. At least four buildings are on fire, according to local media reports. Approximately 44 trucks and 200 firefighters have been dispatched to the scene.Mayor Rudy Giuliani said there were two crash sites — one where the plane landed and another where an engine landed. According to firefighter reports, an engine dropped from the plane.
“.....pleading that the amateurishness of the plot limited its newsworthiness.”
It is a mistake to regard this as “amateurish”. Forget the “pipeline” part of it. Rupturing and igniting just one of these tanks would have begun a chain reaction (albeit a slow one) until most of the tanks on the farm were ruptured from the heat. There are simply too many tanks too close together in this age of terror. Rupture, ignite and spill just one of them and it would be like a roomful of pingpong balls on mousetraps. You do not and cannot extinguish 500k or a million gallons of anything spread on the ground before the next one bursts and ignites, etc etc.
The first rule of science is experiment.
As a child, I lived in a subdivision that mostly housed people working at a liquid rocket fuel plant (think John F. Kennedy and the space program for timing). The plant was ringed by storage tanks. One night a tank did ignite and explode - an experience I’ll never forget. All the windows blew out - my bed sort blew across the room - the sky lit up with the flames - sirens and whompers going off - people running out of their houses and getting in cars and peeling out to go to the plant.
Several of the tanks blew before they could get them (i) disconnected from one another; and (ii) enough fire trucks there to keep the other tanks cool. I remember them hosing down those tanks for most of the next day. They also used some kind of foam.
The plot did not sound all that foolish to me either.
Bookmark bump
A terror plot can be something as simple as flying here, renting a car, and then plowing througho a crowd of people on a pedestrian mall in a city.
That's what the liberal idiots choose not to grasp. The terroristic intent, once revealed, needs to be shut down with extreme prejudice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.