Flights Cut on Fear of al Qaeda Attacks (NEW info: WMD use on planes planned by AQ)

Washington Post ^ | FEb. 1, 2004 | Sara Kehaulani Goo and Dana Priest

[FairOpinion]

Intelligence indicating that al Qaeda terrorists are seeking to release a chemical or biological agent aboard an airliner, or transport a radiological device in cargo, prompted the cancellation of six international flights scheduled for today and tomorrow, senior administration officials familiar with the reports said yesterday.

The possibilities, as described by three intelligence officials, include releasing an undetectable biological agent such as smallpox or anthrax aboard a plane that passengers would then unknowingly spread; releasing a chemical agent to debilitate the passengers and crew so the plane could be hijacked, and sneaking a radiological device aboard a plane inside a piece of luggage.

Small amounts of chemical, biological or radiological material would be difficult to detect.

[ChadGore]

Re: It has been in the cards for some time

How dare you try to cast off the incineration of my people, as they sit at their desk doing email, with exploding jet fuel at more than 2000 degrees, forcing their coworkers to jump from windows more than 80 stories up in the air, sending their burned bodies to a splattering death on NYC pavement, only to have their burned dead bodies pummeled under millions of tons of twisted concrete and steel, their bodies hauled out, fleck by fleck, piece by piece to be hauled away to a place called fresh kills land fill, as an "acceptable form of political" speech.

By your twisted logic, the above actions should be given the same deference and consideration of a Washington PAC sending a fax forwarding a politcal view?

[NittanyLion]

Smallpox is contagious, and I'm not making that up.

I never stated otherwise. But anthrax most assuredly is not. When I see a glaring and obvious error at the outset of an article, it calls the integrity of said article into question.

[Sender]

Oh for heavens sake, this is not Rove material or Bush's or neocon smokescreen. If the hyped interest in air threats is anything at all, it is overreaction to the jihadis own disinformation.

Of course I don't have whatever information is making the governments nervous about airline flights. (and probably neither do you) From the info I have read on the net, the airliner thing is probably just an al qaeda smokescreen just to make us stand up and look the wrong way.

[arete]

Just write it off to bad luck and move on. Sounds more like you have a personal problem.

Richard W.

[ChadGore]

Re: Please apologize to me, my family, and the famlies of the thousands and thousands of my people who are victims of this tyrany you attempt to pass off as an exceptable form of political speach.

No.

Yes, apologize for twisting the killing of my people into a perverse form of political speech.

Yes, apologize for not expressing vigilance in the face of obvious tyrany.

Yes, apologize for being on the wrong side of the right to life, and your attempt to blame the victims.

Yes, apologize for trying to justify an act which has no justification.

Yes, apologize for attempting to tell the free world "BPSIOT", as you applaude more of the same.

[Twinkie]

How long is a smallpox vaccination effective? I guess
most of us had one when we started to school. That was
51 yrs. ago for me, so guess it's sort of played out by
now. Now I'm older, the side effects sound about as lethal
as the disease (if one has certain other health problems).

[cyncooper]

I understand about our ability to revoke landing rights and such, but since the other countries are agreeing with our intelligence assessment, especially Britain, not questioning it, as France in fact did about the Christmas Eve flights and then it came out there was a legitimate issue---verifies our government is not pulling the issue out of the political pot.

[arete]

Oh for heavens sake, this is not Rove material or Bush's or neocon smokescreen. If the hyped interest in air threats is anything at all, it is overreaction to the jihadis own disinformation.

Yes, it could be that too. I can imagine a handful of jihadist teenagers making dozens of cell calls to each other and mentioning the word "airline" and then sitting back and laughing their rears off at the reaction.

Richard W.

[NittanyLion]

verifies our government is not pulling the issue out of the political pot.

Sure - I agree. I don't think there's political motivation in this; rather I suspect the concern is well-founded on intelligence.

That said, I also suspect the media enjoys presenting the worst case scenario and inciting a bit of hysteria. Good for business... That's why I jumped on the reference to anthrax being contagious at the outset of this article; it's either incredibly poor writing/editing or a deliberate bit of misinformation.

[ChadGore]

Re: Yes, it could be that too. I can imagine a handful of jihadist teenagers making dozens of cell calls to each other and mentioning the word "airline" and then sitting back and laughing their rears off at the reaction.

Only to be drowned out by your own laughter, no doubt.

How sad.

[arete]

Americans won't stand for anything but cheap oil. That is a reality not lost the the political rulers. If you want cheap oil in dollar terms, the cost will be paid in other terms. That's the reality.

Richard W.

[mathluv]

[Probably threat of legal action for bad reactions concerns the guvmint more than the lives of my family]

Maybe it is the concern of the companies that MAKE the vaccine.

[arete]

Only to be drowned out by your own laughter, no doubt.

I'm not laughing but I will admit to being mildly amused by the continued hysterics.

Richard W.

[ChadGore]

arete: I've got something you might like, an exercise in political speech.

Please go to work on Monday, and when you're sitting in the meeting with all your coworkers, stand up and do a "Joe Peshi" with an aluminum bat on the guy sitting next you, and as you stand over his body with blood splatters on your shirt say "Now that I've got your attention, I'd like to share my political views with you"

Report back to this thread tomorrow night on your findings, as I'm sure the rest of the thread will look forward to your exploration of the philosophy that terrorism is an acceptable form of political speech.

[mathluv]

Americans are getting pissed off at a rate these rag headed idiots won't believe. They might want to ask The Japanese and Germans about that.

But don't bother to ask a liberal or a dim. According to Kerry, there is no threat.

[arete]

Your arguments and examples are now becoming almost preadolescent. You like to wallow in the simplistic "they hate us". One man's terorist is another's freedom fighter. The more we find it necessary to meddle in ME affairs to loot their oil, the more we should expect them to fight back. I find it surprising that anyone would think that the Muslim world would just welcome us given our history.

Richard W.

[cyncooper]

If anything, a 9/11 type event was a somewhat predictable consequence of our meddling in ME affairs. It has been in the cards for some time and I don't think that the administration was all that surprised by it.

Highlighting so everybody can see where you're really coming from.

[cyncooper]

One man's terorist is another's freedom fighter. The more we find it necessary to meddle in ME affairs to loot their oil, the more we should expect them to fight back.

More highlighting.

[FairOpinion]

In Afghanistan they founs something with "smallpox" written on it in Russian. It was one of those news items mentioned once or twice, then disappeared.

Do you think AQ liked labeling their sugar and flour in Russian and putting code names on those cannisters, calling flour "smallpox" and so on?

The point is that we found evidence in Afghanistan which MAY indicate that AQ does have biological weapons.

[templar]

AQ could nuke us and we wouldn't respond in kind, sad to say.

If an AQ cell out of, say, Canada nuked us, who would we nuke back? Better still, if an AQ cell out of NYC nuked LA, who would we nuke then?

The problem with organizations like AQ is that they are not countries, nations, or even peoples; they are multi national (anti-Christian/Jew) religious organizations and no one country is their homeland. Even if we nuked the entire rest of the earth into nonexistance, we would still have AQ here and they would still be the enemy of anything non-muslim.