Let us assume for a moment that the parcel bombs sent to Jewish targets in Chicago were viable devices and this was a real attack by anti-Jewish, and probably Islamic, terrorists. There are other possible explanations, but it is not improbable this was a real attempted attack.
We are looking at low level, workaday terrorism. Parcel bombs were not infrequent in the UK in my youth, and the Unabomber caused extraordinary levels of alarm in the United States. Any loss of life is deplorable, but the scale of this threat appears to have been small.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69S37420101030?pageNumber=1
It is hard to believe that a parcel bomb would have killed more than a couple of people – there have been a large number of parcel bombs used over decades, and they do not cause mass casualties. Now two or three dead or injured people is too many, but the worldwide media coverage is completely disproportionate to the threat – if they covered every two or three actually, not potentially, dead Afghans in this depth, they would never cover anything else.
It is of course possible that the media coverage was the aim rather than two or three unfortunate people in Chicago. The easy and extremely detailed tip off from the Saudi security services is very interesting. If publicity rather than death was the aim, that rather widens the field of people who might have been behind it.
“Sinister” was the word quoted in the media about these explosive devices. And yes the whole episode is very sinister indeed considering other news stories which need to be buried at the moment. And is it the case that there are mid-term elections due quite soon state-side and popularity ratings need to be leveraged?
Plus, the suggestion was made in the UK that airport security might be changed or toned down? Stephen Pound was positively salivating on Sky News ‘review of the morning papers’ last night. Ugh.
Well, here come the conspiracy theories!
Was it
(i) Obama,
(ii) the Republicans or
(iii) the JOOOOOOS?
“Skeptical” isn’t picking a team – apparently he thinks that this was cooked up simply to boost the ratings in general. Come on “Skeptical” – commit!
True to form BBC coverage of these patently staged events was execrable.Pitifully gossamer-thin on any evidence whatsoever.
The only evidence we needed suggested the ugly British-Saudi-Israeli intelligence network had fabricated yet another “terror plot”. Pound of course was the first to congratulate this nexus on their having foiled THEIR OWN PLOT!
As the images panned from frames of domestic UK airports to Yemen to Washington Press briefings the orchestration was painfully clear. It became increasingly obvious just how woefully brain-dead the authorities believe the publics they’re trying to frighten to death really are now.
Anyone who gives one iota of credence to this bollocks wants a fucking brain-scan!
I remember queuing at around 5 a.m. at E.Mids when a hyped terror threat seemed to have coincided with building work at the airport.Neither of which seemed to be assisting the progress of any of us holiday-makers towards our plane.
Lo and behold just to the right of me I noticed another queue sidling quietly towards their aircraft utterly unimpeded. Their destination was Brussels.
In the said smoothly-running priority queue I could quite clearly see Rt Hon Geoff Hoon. He who assured us WE would be ready to launch nuclear weapons against Iraq in the event that Saddam used his ( US-supplied ) chemical arsenal against “our boys”.
“War-monger!” I shouted. “Murderer!”
“Shut up! Do you wanna get on this plane or not!” my wife chided as I looked to the other passengers in our stalled queue for support-moral or vocal I wasn’t really fussy!
Alas,of course they all looked sheepishly at their boots.
Like Hoon at the height of this “terror threat” expect Pound to be bounding on to flights without a care in the world. The terror threat doesn’t apply to the likes of them. No it’s for the credulous and suggestible likes of us and the people we’ve allowed ourselves to become.
Oh and aside from Stephen Pound we had the “honourable” Lord Reid former communist turned New Lab security alarmist and like Pound an LFI Rothschild puppet. He’ll make it unimpeded to the next Brussels junket-the terror threat nothwithstanding.
When are you guys gonna work out how the system works and then finally deconsruct the cultural apparatus that shapes your limited awareness of the real world?
Don’t answer that we know the answer:WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!
LOL!
Freeborn, don’t have time to read, but …
Jews?
“Mohammed al-Shaibah, Air Cargo Director for Yemenia Airways said to Yemen Post, “No UPS cargo plane left Yemeni lands over the land 48 hours. These accusations are false and baseless.” He added, “No UPS or DHL cargo packages heading to Chicago through Yemen took place in the last 48 hours as well.”
http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=2705&MainCat=3
Sounds like a case of the security services securing their budgets.
Spot on Freeborn and Dreoilin. And we know that Yemen is in the neocons’ crosshairs so a little more demonizing doesn’t go astray.
Right, so it was the neocon cabal.
Now why doesn’t Obama expose this dastardly conspiracy?
Hey Cathouse!
Look I got me thissa here smelly ol’ shoo wot Massa Sunstein say he wanyu take to da airpor’.
An’ he givva me thissa speshal vest he say he wan yu to ware.
Massa Sun say dares gon’ be dissa nice sutied and tied security guy at da airpor’ gon’ git yer onna dat plane real quick-no need to queue like dem udder saps.
Massa Sun say yu gotta take thissa package to da synagog on yo’ way too.
Yo wife say yo’ gotta shift yo’ ass boy anna bring home da bacon for her an me….shit…no I din’ mean me did I now?
Iz jussa lookin’ out for yo’ wife anna yo’ licker fine!
Now you bessa git back here boy anna bring uz dat bacon!
P.S. Massa Larry jussa bin on da fone too sayin’ youz don’ need worry bout da cathouse. He say I gon’ take care a dat wile youz away sunnin’ yosel on da beech in yo vest!
Keep it classy, Juniper.
Freeborn Juniper at al are banned from this board for persistent anti-semitism
Yemen is of course the next Iraq, while General Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh is a CIA asset.
Thus a group in Yemen have a main plan “to weaken Yemeni President Saleh’s regime, and defeat his government in the field of security and economy,” says Abdul Elah Shayea, a writer and terrorism specialist who in January conducted an exclusive interview with the group’s leader in Yemen, Nasir Abdul Kareem al-Wuhayshi (a.k.a. Abu Basir).
“They have the capacity to freely move, collect information and recruit new members.”
Following this conspiracy I believe we will see a large number of drone attacks to try and eliminate this group. If these fail then the United States will consider another pre-emptive attack.
There’s currently no way of knowing if the Tonabomber was a Joooo or a Moooslim. However, as threats to our Sacred Freedoms and Way of Life go, and all the billions of associated ‘defence’ spending and war mongering associated with them, this threat is certainly in the same league as setting your underpants on fire
The only worrying thing is that the intelligences services might actually blow up something to heighten their propaganda and silence the sceptics
“Following this conspiracy I believe we will see a large number of drone attacks to try and eliminate this group”
That, or an aistrike on Hewlett-Packard’s Office Consumables/ WMD production plants
Sorry, that should be Hoooowlett-Packard
My Bad
So far, we’ve got:
1. neocons
2. people who want to heighten interest in the election
3. the security services
4. Jews
Whoever it is…
?? thermite be trouble ahead ??
Why Chicago? Why those two synagogues? Why did the explosive leak out of the toner cartridges? And yes, how come Saudi Arabia knew all about it?
I was listening to the Nolan Show on Radio 5 last night (sad but true). Three hours long and devoted entirely to this story. Nolan of course was bristling with outrage at lax airport security and Al-Qaeda, who of course had not yet been demonstrated to have been responsible.
In the phone-in, there was an interesting call from a chap called Peter, a Brit working in the UAE who flies to Yemen regularly. He said he wanted to get some facts straight. He said that very few cargo planes used Sanaa airport. It was hardly the best-served of airports, he explained. Only a few carriers – Emirates, Royal Jordanian and a couple of others – used it at all, he said.
Then he was cut off.
Right, MJ, but DHL does service that country, so packages do get out.
Are you suggesting that the Men in Black cut off his call, and it wasn’t simply that his cell phone dropped?
Of course you are.
Interesting point, MJ.
I also noted that whenever BBC were interviewing a more skeptical expert who advocated a ‘wait and see’ approach, the interviewers were eager to try to encourage him to say something more dramatic and throw his professional caution aside.
You also have to ask yourself if a supposed terrorist mastermind would really put a parcel through an internaional courier company, and give his real name and address? Sounds a bit daft to me.
Then there’s the timing: in the same week as the BA chief criticised the paranoid levels of US airport security, and just days before the mid-terms. Of course it could all be a co-incidence but… And it just so happened that the ‘explosives’ were discovered in pliable nations like the UK and UAE, so US security can’t be faulted?
All in all, you dont’ have to be a conspiracy nut to be more than a little skeptical here.
This modern “terrorism” isn’t a patch on the old-fashioned stuff. When the IRA were blowing up London, they made political demands. They had secret code words so the police would recognise them, and so that their claims of responsibility could be verified. This modern lot just attempt to blow things up, and never tell us why. Weird.
They’ve told us why, Clark. You simply remain ignorant.
Clark, ha!
Apparently the bomb ‘bore the hallmarks of Al Quaeda”. It was a bomb and er –
I just read this valuable piece of analysis on Fox News…
“A used toner cartridge could easily be modified into a bomb, a printer expert told FoxNews.com, underscoring fears that a mysterious object discovered in an air cargo shipment making its way from Yemen to the U.S. was intended as a terrorist attack.”
Next week, Fox interviews a bomb expert and asks him how to deal with pesky paper jams
Larry, enlighten me. Who has claimed responsibility for these alleged bombs, how has this been verified, and what were the alleged bombers’ demands? Links please.
Well, sure. Just about any bomb will clear even the worst paper jam…
Voids the warranty on your printer, unfortunately.
What is the Al Quaeda hallmark, I wonder? A tiny picture of a burkha with “thanks for making us up” underneath it?