Yes, there are a lot of shadowy connections. In Southeast Asia, we have Jemaah Islamiya, which is a known “subsidiary” of al-Qaeda. They’re heavily involved in the Muslim insurgency that’s been raging in our deep South for the past four years.
Are you referring to the incident on Bali? If so, I believe that was in October 2003. That was Jemaah Islamiya, which again has strong links to al-Qaeda. Indonesia seems to be where thet’re most active, with some other bombings in Jakarta over the years.
Let’s not forget that incident in Spain on March 11, 2003. Wasn’t that al-Qaeda, too?
The source for my statement is a 1960’s Jule Pfeiffer cartoon where, not long after Russia got nukes, every other tinhorn dictator expected to have one, too. Where would it stop? Pfeiffer predicted that pretty soon Westport, Connecticut would be in the lineup.
When it comes to sources, I use nothing but the best, you betcha.
It is probably being planned by the two saudi terrorists released from Gitmo. What a coincidence-thos poor, misunderstood detainees-who were totally innocent and confined by the evil Americans…who wooda thunk it?
Hope the apologists have a good story when these two wind up murdering a few thousand innocent people.
What I wonder is, what’s stopping AQ from just getting ten or so operatives, give them machine guns, and tell them to go nuts on a few random elementary schools across the nation. Something like that wouldn’t have that much economic impact, but it would certainly scare the living shit out of the American people. Look at Columbine. Only 15 died, but the American education system practically shit itself in response. And this hypothetical AQ attack would likely have far more than a Columbine-level death toll.
I guess what I’m saying is, AQ doesn’t need to do big-budget attacks with explosions that look like something out of a Jerry Bruckheimer flick. There are literally dozens of ways to terrorize America that are far easier than something like 9/11.
Not to be rude, but whoever said that has no freakin clue and that’s the polite version. The 9/11 attack was not a large attack. In fact, it was the exact opposite of a large attack. When you break it down to the basic elements it was 10 people with box cutters. No money was spent on the actual attack. Let me repeat that, NO MONEY WAS SPENT ON THE ACTUAL ATTACK. The weapons used (aircraft and fuel) were assets of the country attacked. The seats on the flight were paid for by Visa (again, the assets of the country attacked). The result of an attack by 10 people was over a half trillion dollars in economic damage, a direct attack on the seat of military power and a failed attempt to kill a substantial percentage of all members of Congress.
9/11 represented asymmetrical warfare with no standing army. Put another way, there was no direct army to fight when attacked. The closest thing to an Al Qaeda nation was Afghanistan and that did not represent a union that could be conquered in the sense that an enemy could be compelled to surrender.
9/11 was not an attack of conquest. No attempt was made to acquire land or wealth. The mindset behind the attack was motivated by religious dogma where suicide is a virtue. The entire “army” intended to die. The end result was an attack with the goal of destruction, using the assets of the target country, by a suicidal asymmetrical army with no base of operation. If this method of operation is combined with a nuclear state exporting terrorism then the result is a nuclear attack without a return address. While a ground based nuclear detonation isn’t as destructive as an air based explosion it can be greatly offset by deliberately dirtying up the weapon rendering the surrounding area uninhabitable. Above the loss of life, the economic damage would be incalculable if just one city were attacked.
Soon after the attack, some internet professional forum (engineer forum?) got a certain level of publicity because soon before some guys had discussed there the issue of what would happen if an airliner crashed in a tower. The hypothesis that the tower would collapse was mentioned as well. (*)
So, it’s not impossible that they too could have envisioned the towers could collapse if they did their homework. They had some quite fairly well educated people at their disposal, after all.
(*) Which remembers me the ominous “Could all planes in US airspace be grounded at the same time?” thread that was running in GQ at the time of the attacks and IIRC ended in a post that essentially said “Well…Now, we know”.
Curiously, “franchise” is exactly the word that crossed my mind when the long-standing Algerian Islamist movement (who authored several bombings last year) recently announced that it was renaming itself “Al Qaeda Algeria”.
I was under the impression (but my memory may be faulty) that they had expected the towers to be knocked over by the planes and were disappointed, then pleasantly surprised a short time later.
I had a conversation about building materials with an engineer many years before 9/11. I knew from that conversation that the WTC would collapse given the amount of damage. I have zero doubt that this was the intent. Bin Laden came from a background of construction and would have been aware of the outcome.
As I understand it, they’re going to get real, fair trials, then either released to a country willing to take them or imprisoned. Most of them have not actually done anything, as far as we can tell, other than irritate someone who had the ability to sell them to us. I can’t share my opinion of ralph in this forum, other than that I hope he’d stop spouting ignorance.
First, no government is going to hand a bunch of terrorists nukes. Governments don’t let things like that out of their hands - the Soviet Union, for example, never handed nukes over to Communist terrorists.
Second, while I’m not an expert, as I recall you can figure out where a nuke was made by the composition of the radioactive remains.
And third, I doubt that any government is stupid enough to think that we NEED a return address. If a nuke went off in an American city, we’d probably nuke Iran and Pakistan out of suspicion. It’s not like the death toll would bother us.
I don’t know how many people al-Qaeda thought it would take out in the 9/11 attacks, but since they carried them out during normal office hours, it’s safe to say they thought they’d kill a lot.
The news reports in the early hours were claiming that 30,000 people would be killed.
What is your reasoning behind the idea that Iran would not supply a nuclear device to a terrorist group? Death is a virtue and God apparently has an unlimitted supply of virgins.
The only way we would know where a nuke was made would be if we had the stats on it. I don’t think Iran is going to share that information.
We have a completely exposed infrastructure that suicide attacks could convert into substantial national debt. Imagine the economic damage from an attack of 100 terrorists who WANT to die. Then imagine what a devastated economy would be like if New York was nuked on top of the attacks. Trillion isn’t even a basis of monetary value in the discussion. Again, the 9/11 attack was done with 10 people and ZERO money.
Having worked on the initial data gathering with the National Guard after 9/11, I’d take exception to that statement. Yeah, there are issues with SCADA that show up occasionally in the news, but a LOT of people have given a LOT of thought to protecting our infrastructure. An example locally was a changing of access and logisitcs in one of our railyards to restrict access where a well placed bomb, near ammonia rail-cars could have taken out a large area due to prevailing winds.
Just because you haven’t heard about things, doesn’t mean they’re not happening. In fact, due to the nature of the negative effects, you most likely WON’T hear about these kinds of modifications.
Our State government has spend a not inconsiderable amount of time on disaster recovery to ensure critical infrastructure continues to function in light o natural or man made disasters, we don’t go around yelling about it from the rooftops.
The people who actually buy that don’t live long enough to get into power. Not even over a terrorist group ( you’ll note that it wasn’t Bin Laden himself in any of those planes ), much less a country. Martyrdom is for cannon fodder, not leaders.
And giving nukes to loose cannons is simply something governments don’t do. We haven’t; the USSR didn’t; China doesn’t; and Iran won’t.
And if that’s true, we’d just assume a nuke we couldn’t identify was theirs and massacre them in retaliation. Even if they weren’t guilty, and they know that you can be sure.
I think a lot of people here talking about nukes, dirty bombs, chem attacks etc. are going a bit OTT because of the results of 9/11 rather than the execution.
All they did was carry out co-ordinated hijacks. After that you just need men of will that will pilot the planes to their death. The buildings falling etc. was I reckon way beyond their plans.
Consider the plan of the IRA bomber who carried out the Brighton Hotel Bombing. A long-delay timer was used and the bomb was in place weeks before the conference. His next job was to be the one I’m interested in. He was arrested before he could carry it out but the ordinance and the recon work had already been done.
The plan was to set ~20 devices with long-delay timers in B&B’s and hotels the length and breath of Britain, from small villages to major cities. One bomb a week for 20 weeks. Imagine the panic and uncertainty around the country after a couple of these bombs went off. Not knowing where and when the next explosion would happen.
If a plan like that could be put into action in the US I would imagine that the effect would be huge.
You don’t need nukes etc. to do the damage. You just need to make as many people as possible to question their safety and let human nature take care of it self. Such a plan would be a lot easier to carry out than a “major” single attack IMO and possibly even more damaging to the US psyche.
You’d be surprised what you can find out if you just ask. I’ve heard many items along the lines of what you stated. It’s scary when a follow up question is answered with a blank, far-off stare of realization. Yes, holes are slowly being plugged but you can’t stop the movement of people in a free society. I see no reason to give examples but the methodology of 9/11 can be repeated with an infinite number of scenarios.
But it hasn’t, and I’m certain there’s a logic and critical thinking term for this kind of argument. It boils down to ‘It hasn’t’ oh, ‘but it COULD!’ which burns calories uselessly.
