More terrorists — more nebulous plots
21 people up in arrested in London connected with a plot to blow up airplanes heading for the United States. Early reports indicate that the plotters may be connected with Al Qaeda. Also, that the perpetrators would use liquid explosives hidden in common drinks like a Coke or Pepsi.
We know that Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, key planner in 9/11, was almost caught, in the Philippines if I’m not mistaken. While in the Philippines he was working on some type of liquid explosive. The plan at that time was to blow up airplanes over the Pacific Ocean. Richard Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, describes the incident.
“And he was planning to blow up US airliners in the Pacific with bomb smuggled on board, bombs we would not notice, using liquid explosives. There assembled on board in the bathroom and then left there. The terrorists gets off at the first stop and the plane continues on and blows up. The Filipinos found some of the bombs, but not all. He had all the flights picked out, United, Northwest… 11 of them, 747s.”
The above incident happened in January of 1995. In the intervening 11 years what have we done to prevent these kind of incidents? If the answer is nothing, many government officials should be fired!!! This should have been a surprise. We were warned about this method!
Pres. Bush said that “homeland security should not be political…” in response it being said that he is trying to win votes in the midterm elections. Riiight…not political. So tell me what is not political about wire tapping, evesdropping, Gitmo, and even appionting supreme court justices for personal gain? He has made everything political during his term! Seems that these days not a single phrase comes out of the president that doesnt end with phrases like “terrorism,” homeland security” or “9/11″
My question is what is next? What can get us out of this hole that has been dug deeper and deeper as sight has been lost in this war of why we went there to begin with. The elections are just around the corner and I wonder if ther will be anyone to run that has the ability, foresight, and leadership to run this country? Or should we all learn to speak arabic and bend over while we spell run?