The original dirty bomberHe sounds like a wonderful human being.....just because he wanted to kill innocent people in the name of religion we shouldnt hold it against him
The original dirty bomberIf Mohammed Atta or any of his 9/11 co-conspirators had been caught in time, it would have been soooo easy for gullible liberals to portray them as bumbling fools with no serious plan....... (1) the raw intent to participate in a terrorist conspiracy, especially when accompanied by attending training camps, etc. should be enough to put these scumbags away for life; (2) we do not need to wait for someone to ‘prove’ they really were capable of pulling off a mass terrorism incident to regard their efforts with extreme seriousness.
You’d think a magazine named “Reason” wouldn’t feature an article based wholly on handwringing emotional hokum.
Question to Jacob. . .was the above comment by Wolfowitz offered as a 'confession'. . .a begrudging admission of sorts or was this perhaps MR. Wolfowitz response to a question or just his 'explanation'.
This entire analysis is a stretch to invite us to ascribe sinister motives to the Government and those investigating; rather than the perp himself.
The fact that this was loose talk; and far from execution does not remove this man from having been a 'real threat'. . .in real time if only in due time. Am not sympatahertic to 'terrorist wannabe's'. . .even if 'taken out early' in their game.
He told his questioners that Mr. Padilla was ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material."
That does it. . .Padilla is obvioiusly innocent and deserves only 'reasonable doubt' and not anything beyond.
Come on! Move on. . .am sure Scooter Libby did not get such a nuanced analysis. . . If you want to take on an injustice commited by 'the Government'. . .just call him. A story, far more worthy. . .
The longer we go without another attack, the more that others believe the danger was all hyped up.
-pJ
The implication being that Bush should have first sent this Padilla idiot to The Institute of Nuclear Technology so he could learn how to make a dirty bomb in order to justify the arrest.
My guess is that if there was a bomb threat against “Reason” headquarters the fact that the person making the threat wasn’t schooled in bomb-making would have little impact on their decision as to whether or not to seek prosecution.
The pride of the American public education system. I don't think nuclear physics was the only area in which Senor Padilla was a few bricks shy of a load.
Gee, he had such a promising future, he planned to work as teacher in an American inner city school. You wonder why the kids drop out, when they have such fonts of knowledge, wisdom and reason before them.
There's also the little matter of the dirty bomb plot morphing into a plan to blow up 20 US apartment buildings simultaneously -- but hey, according to this so-called "writer," Padilla was just a dumb-ass, in contrast to all those Rhodes scholars who daily blow up people in the name of Allah.
A little light reading here on Padilla, Mr. Sullum, you idiot.
This is so unfair. I admit we made mistakes with the 9/11 bombers...we just let them go too far.
I think we should have let Mr. Padilla gather some radioactive istotopes and at least purchase the components to the bomb before we busted him. Even better would have been just to watch him to see how he built it...or even how he deployed it.
We trampled over his rights of free speech.
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