"Taking over a ferry on the Seattle-Bremerton run is an excellent method for taking out one of our aircraft carriers. "How big are these ferrys? 100 people? 1000 people?
If they are big enough, they could sieze 3 or 4 ferrys at once and have as big an event as 9-11.
Would the National Guard Jets bomb a ferry full of civilians, in order to keep it away from an aircraft carrier, while news helicopters hovered over head? It would certainly make for some dramatic footage. Just what Al Quaida would like.
This is an excellent post and I think gives a very real scenario for a ferry hijacking. Load a truck bomb on the ferry and steer it at full speed toward a carrier or perhaps a cruise ship. The carrier commander then has the Hobson's choice of firing on the ferry full of civilians, or sustaining damage to his ship.
I remember during the military base closing arguments a while ago that many naval officers thought it was a big mistake to close Alameda Naval Air Station (San Francisco Bay) and relocate carriers to Bremerton, Washington. Naval ships on Puget Sound have to navigate over a hundred miles of inland waterways before they hit blue water ocean. At Alameda it less than 10 miles. They are much more vulnerable to attack in Puget Sound.
An Islamic attack resulting in several thousand deaths and severe damage to a naval ship would be a huge coup for their cause. It would likely result in in Bush being boted out next election.