Will the Millau Bridge - the world’s tallest bridge become a target for terrorism?
New bridge raises French pride higher than Eiffel
Frances 9/11? When?
Why would al Qaeda attack France in the first place?
Besides, if you´d start not building large structures because they may be targeted by terrorists, sorry for the cliché, the terrorists have already won.
It is a spectacular construct, just as the twin towers were.
Surely you don’t think France is immune from an attack by al Qaeda?
The bridge was not built to be a target .
It has a projected life of 120 years, the builders collect toll for 75.
The Twin Towers and the Pentagon (and the Whitehouse, if it had been hit) were icons. That bridge, while being newsworthy right now, isn’t an icon. If you wanted to attack France in the way America was attacked on 9/11, you’ve got to go for the Eiffell Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
(And in any case, the ‘big statement’ is old-hat…were the Madrid commuter trains an obvious target? You’re missing the point of terrorism, if you think it’s all about finding the achilles heel of your enemy. That doesn’t even begin the ‘terror’ part of it.)
Technically, they already did. The crude oil tanker Limburg was a French ship.
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There are hundreds and hundreds of big, important things the terrorists could try to blow up. There’s no point in avoiding building anything big.
Didn’t Mr. bin Laden essentially declare a truce on countries not actively involved with Afghanistan or Iraq?
France is actively involved in the Afghan campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida. (French troops kill Kabul gunman – BBC News, 26 November, 2004: “The French troops are in Afghanistan as part of a 17,000-strong US-led international force hunting Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.”)
Oh yea, like you are going to take his word for anything. He did promise not to attack states that voted for Kerry, I guess NYC is now safe.
There’s some dispute about this interpretation of bin Laden’s pre-election videotape.
Sheesh. In addition to the Linburg attack, France has long been the target of Islamist fundamentalist terror (albeit the rest of it more related to Algeria than al-Qaeda. Add in France’s involvement in Afghanistan.
And, of course, France’s current ban on headscarves in schools has pissed fundamentalists off all the more, and has already been used to justify the abduction of French nationals.
Sua
You may recall that Algerian terrorists already took a shot at flying a plane into the Eiffel Tower and failed.
Damn but that’s a pretty bridge.
As to the OP, so what if it does become a target? We can’t go around not building beautiful or noteworthy structures because the bad guys might be attracted to blowing them up. You provide whatever level of security you think is appropriate and practical and get on with the business of (in this case) passing over valleys.
Uh, just kidding. I just recalled something relating to the Madrid train-bombings about focusing on countries that were actively involved in Iraq, but perhaps I was wrong. Not really a truce, per se, but a direction to triage?
Depends on how easy the bridge is to take down. If you study terrorist events you will find they share a common denominator of poor planning and low skill level. The Eiffel tower is an easier target and far more endearing to both French citizens and the world-at-large.
Hopefully this ugliest of bridges will fare better than French aircraft carrier’s or airport terminals.
Yet they manage to be quite inventive. Take note of the mess tent blast killed about a dozen and scores of injured.
The portions of the 1/2 hour video of a suicide ‘vest’ has been shown only once or twice. The vest intself was quite simple. What appeared to be “BB” shot was embedded in epoxy or similar material to hold them in a large flat array, bound in cloth with, presumably sheets of Cordex or similar explosive.
All in all the terrorists are under estimated.
The tent suicide bomber would have caused more damage in a building. The tent released all the energy and there were no walls to bounce the shot around. It’s another example of poor planning.
It’s not that terrorists are under estimated. They rarely do the damage a real army can create. What makes them a problem is the act of TERRORISM. Fear is the real goal, not the death of people. If you look at the kill ratio of the US Army it makes more sense.