You don’t think so? I’ve lived in the US all my life and I have no idea where I would buy explosives to blow up a building. I travel internationally for work and it’s enough of a pain without having an ID that won’t pass an FBI check. It’s not impossible but it’s still not all that easy to pull off an attack in a foreign country that will have enough of an effect to justify the risk and expense of the mission. It seems like it would be easy, but you have to remember that in places like Iraq, Ireland and Israel, the bombers know the local terrain and can blend easily into the population. Ya think someone might get suspicious of the five arab guys in appartment 1D who keep to themselves and always smell like fertilizer and diesel fuel?
Really? Easy as pie, really. Buy a few bags of high-nitrogen fertilizer (they make it easy by listing the nitrogen content in big letters) at a few different garden centers so a large buy isn’t reported and add some motor oil or diesel fuel to suit (I won’t tell you the ratio because I value my membership here). This will give you a “secondary explosive” that will be detonated by the shockwave from a much smaller “primary explosive” (one that explodes on its own). These can be purchased from neighborhood adolescents around major summer holidays–listen for the loudest ones. A method to light the fuse on the primary explosive can be complex if you wish to delay the explosion until you get away (modern cigarettes seem to have been modified to not keep burning on their own as long as they used to) or real easy if you don’t mind dying right away. And you need surprisingly little if you are looking to cause mayhem instead of dropping an entire building. Ammonium nitrate is actually more powerful than gunpowder.
Jeeze, I’m surprised that while growing up in this country you had so little experience with explosives. I blame video games and the sedentary an well-supervised lifestyles of modern children. Back in my day taking a hunk of shrapnel from a pipe bomb was almost a rite of passage. :eek:
And my kids wonder why I make sure I know where they are and what they are doing. 
You might , if your trying to co-ordinate your truck bomb , with several other events going on at the same time. Its a military axiom to strike on several different axis of attack , rather than one predictable one.
Second point is that their logistics base might be all fudged , from the people that buy or rent those trucks to the people that supply places of employment for these terrorists , so they can blend in.
Third point is that some sleepers got subverted and went native.
Follow the money , part of the offensive on AL Q was the locating and freezing of monetary assets. How many of Al Q are hard core and how many are mercs, drying up the money tap would put a serious crimp into who they can hire , or contract.
Declan
I believe 9/11 was equivalent to a lottery win for terrorists.
Not only did they catch us with our pants down and unsuspecting, even Osama at the time was rather amazed that both Twin Towers went to dust - which was later shown to be a defect in building design, if I am not mistaken.
Few people win the lottery twice in a lifetime, and I think any further terrorist attack in the US will be on a smaller scale - and as others have already pointed out, could easily be done by a right-wing fanatic from Boise as easily as a dude from Kabul.
That said, I noticed on the drive home today that a single 1986 Chrysler that broke down on the freeway caused a major headache for the drivers in Las Vegas. It doesn’t take much to screw up our infrastructure, and with local news reports noting that water systems, electrical grids and bridges are all is sorry need of repair and security…let’s be honest. Three drunk cowboys and a truck full of cow shit could probably cause havoc in most major cities.
There will certainly be another “terrorist” attack in the US. No doubt in my mind. I just don’t think it will be on the grand scale that 9/11 was, but then again - it doesn’t have to be all that grand to score terrorist points and force us to walk naked through airport terminal security.
My understanding is that it was not a defect, it was just the unusualness of the design. Because of their design (the columns were all around the outside of the building), the Towers were strong enough to withstand the impact of the planes. But for the same reason, the fire from the burning fuel melted the support columns and the tops of the Towers fell onto the remaining structure. I would guess that if anything, the fact that the buildings fell down directly into themselves instead of collapsing all over the place is a testament to good design.
Some comments:
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Most americans barely know what their government has done in the Middle East nor try to learn… so its not hard to say they attacked for “no valid reason”. Still government should know better…
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If the “world is a more complicated place” wouldn’t you agree that Bush is doing a mighty disservice by portraying in simplistic manners the war on terror ? Its not about Good vs Evil… Us vs Them… Civilization vs Terror.
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Your comment on “have a stake in the political and economic system” works very well as a comparison to the UN. No UN means that Arab countries as a whole have less stake in the system and less reasons to dabble with terrorism.
As for the Democratic Domino theory… that has been amply bashed in this board. It doesn’t hold much water… especially when the US set a terrible example by invading Iraq despite contrary evidence… and lack of respect for the UN and international laws.
I’d love to be idealistic about it all… but the last time people set about doing experimental reforms in an entire country we had the Soviet Union and other wierd communist experiments.
IIRC, the French opposition was to Bush’s timetable and the particular UN resolution he wanted, not to the use of force against Iraq in general.
Making bombs like dropzone described earlier is ridiculously easy. My dear old Dad showed me how to make one out of stuff around the house when I was 15. For a sawbuck, you could put together 2 or 3 bombs like this in an afternoon, conceal them in bookbags, throw in a couple pounds of nails, then find some young recriut willing to carry it into a crowd (mall, concert, rally), and you’ve created terror, cheap and easy. Back in May I saw about a half ton of suitable fertilizer in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly. I’m really surprised that it hasn’t happened.
According to the 9-11 report these are the harder of the two things to come by.
It warms the cockles of my heart to see fathers passing down to their children skills that might otherwise be lost! Did he also teach to to not use self-striking matches when stuffing matchheads into empty cartridges from your CO2 gun? THAT is a good one to remember if you don’t want to go through life setting off metal detectors.
As for the difficulty finding young martyrs, this is another thing I blame on Nintendo, our valueless educational system, and rampant moral relativism. Why, in my day kids BELIEVED in things and someone older and wiser would have less difficulty finding one fervent, naive, and stupid enough to carry out this mission. I swear, this country has gone to Hell in a handbasket. 
“How To Get the FBI To Open a File On You” - 101.
You have a point blowero sharing knowledge in this day and age can be a bad thing and I do live within 50 miles of Goose Creek. I might find myself saying, “Move over Jose.” :smack:
Colophon - thanks for starting this thread. Ive been asking myself the same question for ages now.
The only good answer i can come up with is this:
In the UK ,there is no more of a terrorist threat now, than there has been for the last 40 years / during the Irish troubles.
I just dont believe that AQ or any other similar organisation will hit the UK in the next 2 or 3 years. I think it is all hype.
Some nutters pulled off the stunt of a lifetime with the WTC, and all of a sudden ( because they “woke a sleeping giant” (yawn)) we are all supposed to be ready for a dirty bomb going off in Leicester Square at any time. The two things do not follow.
If anyone does attack the UK, I think it will be a “small” event - a one off - killing less than 20 people. No way will it be anything like WTC.
However, as the US is steaming ahead with its world alienation program - i think you guys might be in for more attacks. Again, they will only be “small” and you will loose more of your rights / freedoms because of the guaranteed over-reaction by your govt. Obviously, i dearly hope i am wrong.
I do not know what France has to do with the OP.
Sin
Feh! My scoutmaster was Chicago Bureau Chief. After what I did to make his life miserable, if he didn’t open a file on me I’d be surprised.