The fallacy of degenerate statistics. Take an extremely small sample from an extremely large population and you can find a correlation which utterly fails to prove causality.
Yes, it is unsurprising that terrorists who use relatively* sophisticated attacks involving complex* equipment are trained as engineers. THAT MEANS NOTHING ABOUT ENGINEERS. It only provides an obvious anecdote that those motivated to a goal tend to follow their training & experience to get there.
If the author is looking for correlations that mean something (vague as they may be), he should notice that ALL the terrorists are Islamic. Some may be technically trained, but every dammed one of them is motivated by the same religion. Even that correlation means little, as a billion Muslims harmed no one yesterday (a la a common RKBA canard).
* - in this context, “relatively” and “complex” refer to the fact that other terrorists are considerably less sophisticated. The “advanced” attacks used so far are petty to most trained engineers. Box cutters? a mix-and-ignite binary explosive (which BTW failed)? not difficult. Because of the gross simplicity, coupled with frequent failure, of even these “advanced” attacks, I worry little about the notion of terrorists with nukes.
"The bottom line is that while the probability of a Muslim engineer becoming a violent Islamist is minuscule, it is still between three and four times that for other graduates."He takes that into account. And a 3x-4x correlation is worthy enough to mention, even though you might dispute the statistical significance.
The problem isn’t with the folks carrying out the attacks. The problem is with the planners of the attacks. You’re right about Islamists being terrorists, but I would argue that many of these bombers are coerced into action by cowards. Those cowards are the ones with the degrees; slowly perfecting their craft in order to make the ultimate boom on American soil.
This asshat in Detroit was likely “handled” and shipped off at no expense of his own.
They don't really need that much competence to detonate a nuke successively, as a general detonation of the conventional explosive would still spread the radioactive material everywhere, and maybe even cause a dirty nuke detonation.
PETN is not a "binary" explosive. PETN's preparation involves the nitration of pentaerythritol with white fuming nitric acid. Yes, there are two substances involved in it's formulation but "nitration" is definitely not done in the field just prior to use (concentrated nitric acid is not something to pour into your shorts!). PETN is a white crystalline solid, chemically related to nitroglycerin. It is difficult to detonate, as dropping it or setting it on fire will usually not cause an explosion. It finds use as a "booster" explosive in detonators, as the explosive in detonation cord, and a major ingredient of Semtex (East Block plastic explosive, darling of terrorists).
I would think that rather then go through all the work of collecting the precursor chemicals and the required acids and then undertaking the tricky nitration step a terrorist would probably just acquire some det cord or Semtex and dissolve the explosive in acetone, separating the PETN from the other inert ingredients. Then it's just a matter of soaking his "tidy whites" in the solution and waiting 'till the acetone evaporates. Presto, explosive shorts...
Regards,
GtG
PS A Bomb sniffing dog would still find the PETN unless our hypothetical terrorist didn't shower for a month.
PPS Yes, binary explosives exist, and yes, some of them are most powerful. But the chemistry involved does not lend itself to "covert" use. The liquids involved (anhydrous hydrazine, nitromethane, nitrobenzene, &c.) are highly reactive and require special handling. I believe the MSM has found the "binary explosive" adjective lends a sort of faux scientific veneer to their speculative prose.
G