Is it just me, or does anyone else think he’s not actually a well-trained terrorist on a mission from an organized group?
I mean, sure, apparently the guy did go poking around Waziristan, but so far all the evidence we have of his getting training there is basically his say-so. His only connection with Al Qaeda could well be having been told “go away, we don’t want you” after they found out how psychologically unstable he was on their first meeting.
And the guy has apparently said quite a lot to law enforcement since his arrest. Wouldn’t part of terrorist training involve how to resist interrogation techniques?
And what about that bomb? It was very crude. A bunch of tiny1 firecrackers, some apparent fertilizer,2 some gasoline, and some propane tanks. Yes, the firecrackers could have conceivably set off the gasoline,3 which would have lit the car on fire, and then could have exploded either the vehicle’s gas tank4 or the propane tanks.5 But it was hardly certain; the design — from what has been disclosed — was very failure-prone. Not surprisingly, it did fail.
No, what we have here looks like much more like the work of a mentally ill person crazy for some attention.
And he seems to be quite pleased to have gotten it. More than likely, much of what he’s said so far is going to turn out to be lies.
1An “M-88” is a cheap marketing ploy designed to make the gullible think they’re getting something that packs the power of an M-80, which is illegal to possess without a license from the BATF. It doesn’t have any more of a bang to it than any other normal consumer-grade firecracker. In fact, they typically have less of a bang than the tiny flash powder firecrackers, which despite their size contain a more energetic explosive (albeit in small amounts) than plain old gunpowder.
2Based on how it was described as obviously looking like fertilizer, and the general ineptitude of the bomb-maker, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be Scott’s Miracle-Gro, which possesses approximately as much explosive potential as a bag of sand. Ammonium nitrate (the fertilizer used in Timothy McVeigh’s truck bomb) doesn’t look like standard consumer-grade fertilizer at all.
3A firecracker is not a very practical way to light a container of gasoline on fire. It provides only a momentary blast of fire. Some gasoline-soaked rags piled around the container would have worked better, because they burn far longer (and if you live in a state that bans all fireworks like NJ does, you don’t have to visit a neighboring state to buy them).
4This depends primarily on how empty the vehicle’s fuel tank was. A mostly-empty tank contains more vapor, and it’s gasoline vapor (mixed with air) that’s explosive, not plain old liquid gasoline. So far, I haven’t heard anything as to how full the fuel tank was.
5Whether or not the propane tanks would have exploded into a fireball depends on how well the pressure relief valves (required by law) on them would have worked. It’s very likely those valves would have simply blown open (as intended) which would have turned the tanks into giant flame throwers. Nasty, but not a fiery explosion. Notice we’ve heard nothing about whether or not those valves were tampered with. Why do I suspect that this guy probably wasn’t even aware of the existence of such valves, and thus left them intact?
From the AP via a Huffington Post article:
The vehicle identification number had been removed from the Pathfinder’s dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine, and investigators used it to find the owner of record. The discovery was paramount to the investigation.So he’s too incompetent to know that there’s VIN’s stamped in spots other than the obvious one on the tag just under the windshield.
A metal rifle cabinet placed in the cargo area was packed with fertilizer, but NYPD bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate grade fertilizer used in previous terrorist bombings.As they say in Guadalajara, “¡Qué una sorpresa!”
If, at this point, anyone is still certain this crime is part of a plot by a well-organized terrorist group, they really need to get their heads examined.
From another AP article:
The Pakistani-American accused of a failed car bombing in Times Square is believed to have worked alone in the United States on the plot almost immediately after returning from a five-month visit to his native land, authorities said Wednesday. They said they have yet to find a wider link to extremist groups.And I seriously doubt they ever will. Well, not a meaningful one: like I said before, he may have actually managed to get in touch with someone from an actual terrorist group and been told to take a hike.
Really, this sorry excuse for a so-called “Left” political party needed to be flushed back in 2003, when Tony Blair decided to ally Britain with the imperialist foibles of the US right wing. Even some non-insane conservative European leaders (think of Chirac) wanted nothing to do with the Iraq War, yet Blair was out there every day, being only a hair less bad than Dubya in baying for the blood of brown people.
Sure, there’s the very real possibility that the budget cuts pushed through by any LibDem/Tory coalition will hurt the vulnerable in Britain. However, it’s virtually impossible that they will get hurt as much as the victims of the Iraq War will. This is because, unlike with imperialism, those hurt will be in the same country as those doing the hurting. Thus the victims be better able to resist it, and those responsible will feel queasier about it because they won’t have the crutches of racism and nationalism to help them ignore the suffering they are causing.
Eventually, some Establishment center-Left movement will rise to replace New Labour. The odds of it being as pathetic as its predecessor are pretty low, for the simple reason that its predecessor was so extraordinarily pathetic.
And if the whole exercise helps produce a new generation of militant Britons willing to think outside of the box of electoral politics, so much the better.
This, quite frankly, is not believable. As has already been discussed here this month, the bomb was very crude and amateurish; it is hardly evidence of anything other than an intent on the part of someone who knew nothing about bombs to make and use one.
If Faisal Shahzad really was in significant contact1 with a actual terrorist group,2 he would have quite simply built a better bomb.
Either the interrogators are stupidly lapping up bullshit from the interrogated, or those higher up are deliberately exaggerating (and grossly so, doubtless for political purposes) the threat that Shahzad posed.
Choose one: incompetent or Machiavellian. Note that “forthright and competent” is not amongst the choices.
1Which, remember, is more than just having a casual meeting or two with someone who just happens to be a member of a terrorist group. And, for that matter, more than contacting such a group, then being told to get lost because they quickly realize you don’t have what it takes to execute a successful mission.
2In other words, a group that is actually willing and able to execute successful attacks. If the group willing but not able, it is merely a potential terrorist group, not an actual one.
Most of what you see in the above picture is prairie shooting-star (Dodecatheon pulchellum). The occasional blue flowers are common camas (Camassia quamash), whose roasted roots were once a staple food for indigenous peoples.
The most endangered ecosystem in Oregon is not old-growth forest (though lowland old growth is another endangered ecosystem), it is Willamette Valley grassland. Less than 1/10 of 1% remains. This patch was saved by virtue of there being plow-breaking basalt bedrock barely under the surface of the soil.
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