Ever since I heard Bush was going to be attending the Pope’s funeral on Friday, the first president to do so, all my brain has been thinking about is: Al Queda…and a plot to wipe out loads of dignitaries and whatnot.
It’s not that I don’t have faith in Italian Military, but…If I were a Evil Overlord, Friday would be a day to do some major damages to the Evil Christian Front (even if they are Papists.) 
Just thought I would share my train of thoughts.
::oh shit, she’s on to us!::
If we were planning a Doper Takeover, it would involve beer and chips, and as we know Dopers are peoples with short attention spans, our operatives would get distracted by gathering the Goats for the trebuchet.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…C’mon…yer so purty…baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
What about the Swiss Guard? They look funny, but they can probably kick some ass.
I’m glad (or sorry) to see that I wasn’t the only person to have this response. A close, soft target, with world-wide coverage. <shudder> I sometimes worry about my ability to think like one of them.
Forget the Italian Military, the Swiss Guard will have every thing covered. With those striped & poofy uniforms & the giant pikes… they’ve got enough repressed anger to protect the globe. 
They’re actually pretty handy - so best not call them “poofy” eh?
Crap. If I can’t respond first, the least I can do is provide a cite
You know, I keep thinking about what Buckminster Fuller once said, “Send all the engineers into space, and everybody dies. Send all the politicians into space and everybody’s happy.”
This is a most excellent way to look at this…but those Swiss Guards…they look like members of Cirque de Soliel.
Well, as detailed in this thread, the Swiss guards are not the kind of guys you want to fuck with.
Hey, it’s the Pope’s freaking funeral. God would probably send down a Holy Flaming Bazooka of Death or something if anybody tried to attack the guests.
You could make an opportunity out of anything if you want to. I’m sure they’d love to try it, but outside of Iraq AQ has been on kind of a cold streak lately.
I came for the refreshments, but I stayed for the revolution!
The Wiki on the Swiss Guard. They’re supposed to be real hardacres, but there certainly aren’t enough of them to provide security for the various world leaders that will be present.
I daresay that there will be plenty of security forces at the Vatican in addition to the Guard. (Not the Italian military, however; the Vatican is a sovereign state.) I don’t think Al Queda has it together enough to knock over a grocery store at this point, but there are other groups who might take advantage of the opportunity. Still, you can’t worry about every damn thing.
I’m sure Bypass Dick is secure in a non-disclosed location. I hope that inspires you to some degree of confidence. :dubious:
Stranger
When Al Queda does pull off major operations in ‘other’ countries, it takes months/years of plannning and prep. I’m not worried.
Actually, I’d be willing to bet that the Italian military will be there. The Vatican might be a soveriegn state, but they’re not stupid. With nearly every world leader coming to see JP II get filed in the catacombs, they’re not going to want to take any chances. No doubt the various leaders will be bringing their own security details with them as well to provide additional protection.
The easiest target for the terrorists would be the thronging crowds outside and not any of the world leaders.
The dignitaries will certainly be under tight security. A terrorist group could wipe out scads of ordinary mourners, however. Just machine-gun the crowd. Those who don’t get shot could be trampled in the panic.
In order to pull this off, however, AQ would need to have planted a cell in Rome, supplied them and got them trained for such a mission. I doubt they even thought of it until they saw the crowds on TV like everyone else. So it’s probably too late to bring the whole thing together, but you never know.
On the other hand, it’s been general knowledge that the Pope wasn’t long for this world for quite a while, and if there is an Al Q sleeper cell in Rome, now’s the time to wake 'em up.
Well, unless the West’s religions are all wrong. For all we know God will strike the security forces collectively blind at the right moment to permit an Aum Shinrikyo agent to slip through.