Posted on 09/22/2007 6:37:50 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
It doesn't resemble a bomb. I know you cannot understand that, but it doesn't. It doesn't matter what you think. When expert witnesses testify what a bomb looks like and why this doesn't look like a bomb, and when they examine Ms Moncayo and discover she has no clue what a bomb looks like, and when they examine the troopers and discover they have not training to identify what a bomb looks like, despite being responsible for airport security it won't matter what you think.
The experts will establish that it doesn't look like a bomb and the folks that thought it did are ill-trained morons who haven't a clue.
Was Ms Moncayo wrong to call in her suspicions? No. Was Pare wrong to check it out? No. Did it require a horde with automatic weapons to respond and threaten deadly force? Well there we start running into questions, especially when Pare suggests she might have been killed. What is clearly wrong is that when it turned out to be nothing they should have let it drop with an apology. Instead they have chosen to make a federal case out of it.
She fled. She did not answer the question about the device. When questioned about it -- she left. In other words, she fled.
"She cooperated"? LOL. Only after she was cornered and had several guns pointed at her head. You could claim she cooperated if she had answered the question about her improvised electronic device back when she was still in the airport, but she didn't.
And she is not charged with having a detonable device -- she is charged with having a hoax device -- the very definition of which requires that it not be detonable.
No, my invitation is slightly different and worded to Iran and Syria - get your nutcases under control because the next time this stuff happens, Iran, you are next, and Damascus, we might lose a few bombs on our way over.
The best defense has inevitably been a strong offense based on mobility and firepower. I believe that is in large measure why terrorists are not attacking soft targets such as schools, trains and shopping malls. Their hosts, cousins and uncles won't like it when the Marines pay the return visit.
Next up, det cord necklaces with peace symbols.
“No, my invitation is slightly different and worded to Iran and Syria...”
Well, OK. But what does that have to do with security members responding to a fake bomb?
She isn't being charged with having a bomb -- she is being charged with having a hoax device that was intended to resemble a bomb to non-experts in order to create a panic among the travelers at the airport. If you were to bundle some road flares together with duct tape and put an LED blinky on it would you be let go if you were caught placing it on the steps of your local courthouse or would you be charged with a crime?
Seriously, Airports have become land mines for all sorts of folk who exhibit harmless idiosyncrasies in other environs. Indeed, it seems that it is open season on anybody stepping out of line in these places. Or even having something or acting in a way some person might be suspicious of.
Star was wearing this gadget around MIT, perhaps many students had similar silly (or perhaps trend setting) fashion inventions. I guess the MIT security guards were more sanguine. How did the LED sneaker get its start? After the shoe bomber, one might think better of wearing such a thing.
Anyway, I'm with you. Paranoia is spreading through this country.
Are you really this dense - well either you are guilty, or we have this other law making you guilty. If your flashing light shoe turns out not to be a bomb, well then it is a hoax bomb. If your laptop is not a bomb it is a hoax bomb.
Flee - def: To hurriedly run away from or escape from;To pass swiftly away; vanish
Leave - def: To go out of or away from
Not the same thing at all, at least not to literate speakers of the English language. We use differing words when we are trying to express differing ideas, which is why we have different words for these things. Subtle, I know.
She left. She did not escape. She was not running away when confronted. She was waiting outside the building.
Furthermore, we can look up the definition of hoax and here is what we get: play upon the credulity of ...so as to bring about belief in or acceptance of what is actually false and often preposterous
It is intentional and deliberate. It isn't a hoax simply because it wasn't real. She had to be trying to get people to believe she had a bomb, but clearly she wasn't trying to get anyone to believe she had a bomb. She didn't say boom, or I have a bomb, or give me all the Milky Ways or I blow this place to smithereens. She simply left the building and waited outside.
Oh really. You know that was her intention how? She screamed I have a bomb and will blow the whole place up? She ran around waiving her arms around like a mad mozzie gurgling boom sounding sounds? Please tell me. I really want to know.
Furthermore, it sounds as though she did a really poor job at creating panic since it sounds as though no one panicked except some state troopers on the safe end of a lot of firepower.
If you were to bundle some road flares together with duct tape and put an LED blinky on it would you be let go if you were caught placing it on the steps of your local courthouse or would you be charged with a crime?
Suppose instead of deliberately concocting something that looks like it is composed of sticks of TNT, I do something that does not really look like a bomb. Suppose I put one of those blinking buzzing christmas card things on the courthouse steps singing Merry Christmas? Am I guilty of a crime? Suppose, even though no expert thinks it is a bomb, and I didn't think it was a bomb, but merely wished to entertain the local bums, you think it is a bomb because you don't know what a bomb looks like. Is it a crime?
“And as for the Play Doh, even if it were actually C4, it would be completely harmless the way Star was carrying it...”
Apparently, not everyone was willing to bet their lives on that.
Maybe they should always take a close look at all clothing-attached circuit boards, to see if the wires might go through the hoodie, down the sleeve, and into the hand carrying that clay-like substance, before we stop the person wearing it.
I’ll bet the Israelis might have a slightly different take on what to do in a situation like that.
And some day, if we run away from another difficult war, the jihadists may manage to make you change your mind, when they bring the war home to us.
Careful, your bias is showing.
My dad was an MIT alum and I know a lot of his fraternity brothers. This sort of thing, and much much worse, goes way way back. If the campus police don't have a sense of humor they find their car on top of the MIT dome, complete with dumbies with a box of donuts, and a freshly made out parking ticket (True story)>
Next time you see a tape of an F-22 standing on its tail 15 ft off the ground, think about where all of the people who make that stuff happen come from. This is the spirit of invention that made our country (well ok the fashion statement is a bit corny). Lose it and we will be like many third rate countries in the world -though I guess we will FEEL safe and orderly with all the sheep mozzying along contentendly.
The sneering here about how smart people behave comes from a lot of folks who don't even begin to know.
I guess what really scares me is lack of morality among half the posters on this thread who think it quite acceptable to talk about shooting a 19 year old not too uncute goofball female MIT student (there are a few redundancies to sort out in here) "first and ask questions later."
My god, what have we become? I mean she is just a college student for cryin' out loud.
You on the other hand, I suppose, feel a moral supperiority to man and God and are quite willing to take on the role of Great Moral Reaper.
America is becoming such a land mine of paranoia about nothing. It is very very sad. We excuse it apparently by the lingering collective post traumatic stress from 9/11, as some have expressed it. This kind of wallowing in self-pity as an excuse for moral lassitude is an insult to people who had genuine losses from 9/11 and its aftermath. I am not one of those and I suspect we are not hearing from many who were.
Let me guess. You used to write for or draw cartoons for MIT's student paper "The Thistle"?
Nobody shot her. They asked questions -- she ran away. Then they detained her to get an explanation. I thought she said she was proud of her "art" work? Why did she not want to explain it?
So you're saying your reaction would be completely different had she been an unemployed 20-year-old Arab male?
And I guess to you Gudrun Ensslin was also "just a college student"?
Look, you mental midget, it doesn’t take genius to figure out that when you take a fake bomb into a big city airport, you are risking your life, and if you did it on purpose, you deserve to be punished.
Your endless list of excuses all seem to hinge on the fact the this fake bomb looked too fake for anyone not to immediately dismiss as an obvious joke. You follow this with vicious derision of the security forces who made the arrest.
I don’t accept that, and find it a very dangerous way of thinking, in this post 9/11 world.
I know she was just a goofy college kid...now. But at first blush, I don’t accept that any reasonable, non-retarded person should instantly assume the most innocent motive.
You focus on the flashing lights, the fact that it doesn’t conform to your idea of what an IED should look like, and you take this idea and run with it, automatically condemning anyone who took a more cautious approach.
You defend this idiot child as if she were your own, and you were protecting her from ravening wolves, instead of seeing the obvious problems with her behavior.
I think you have some other agenda at work here, and I suspect it has something to do with a core hatred of authority figures in general.
The bones of her hand would be suboptimal shrapnel.
I’ll bet the Israelis might have a slightly different take on what to do in a situation like that.
Check out this video for an example. A fourteen-year-old Pali boy packing 15 or 20 pounds under a bulky red sweater approached a checkpoint. When spotted, he decided he didn't want to blow up after all. But he couldn't get his vest off, so the Israelis ordered him to freeze while they had a robot bring him scissors so that he could cut it off. Then they made him strip to his underwear before arresting him and setting off his bomb in a controlled environment.
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.