|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 08/10/2006 : 02:56:08
|
I just now noticed this alarming item at CNN. Looks like we were lucky this time. Scotland Yard is being credited for a long investigation which lead to the arrest of 21 people. Obviously, little of the story is yet public, but there are expected to be major disruptions at airports worldwide: quote:
Police: Plot to blow up aircraft foiled
Thursday, August 10, 2006; Posted: 5:35 a.m. EDT (09:35 GMT)
LONDON, England (CNN) -- British police say they have arrested 21 people in connection with a terrorist plot to blow up aircraft flying from the United Kingdom to the United States.
Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the plot was "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale," and the UK's threat warning level was raised to "critical" -- meaning "an attack is expected imminently."
London's Heathrow airport was closed to most European flights Thursday morning, causing chaos for thousands of travelers. The closure to incoming traffic at the world's busiest international airport applied to flights of three hours or less, a spokesman said.
The British Airports Authority said no hand luggage would be allowed onto planes leaving UK airports. (Full story)
Major delays are also expected at key airports around the world, with Brussels Airport in Belgium among the first to cancel flights to the UK.
The aim of the alleged plot was to explode devices carried in handheld luggage -- especially on flights from Britain to the United States, according to Scotland Yard.
. . .
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/10/2006 03:22:12
|
|
|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 07:22:40 [Permalink]
|
Rather disturbing. My significant other was to arrive today from Italy via London. That is, untill she called me at 4 in the morning to tell me that her flight out of Milan wasn't going anywhere due to terrorist plots in London. Now she'll be arriving on Sunday-- and with no carry-on luggage, I'm guessing.
In addition to the inherent terror associated with blowing up planes, it's also distressing that certain US political factions which run every branch of government will now use this as a chance to dust off the "you're safer because we're in charge" routine. |
 |
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 10:49:05 [Permalink]
|
quote:
In addition to the inherent terror associated with blowing up planes, it's also distressing that certain US political factions which run every branch of government will now use this as a chance to dust off the "you're safer because we're in charge" routine.
I can't help but note the odd coincidence that this plot was foiled just at the start of the midterm election campaigns here in the US.
The primaries are over, the candidates known, and now we have something to scare the shit out of people with, something nice and fresh.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 12:45:05 [Permalink]
|
Without some sort of extraordinary evidence, I'm not going to make any conclusions regarding the "timing" of these arrests. Al Qaeda and the jihadis in general have their own ideas of scheduling, and they doubtless have been working to repeat the 9/11 spectacular ever since they pulled off that massacre.
The British intelligence services are very professional. They no doubt deserve great credit for their nearly year-long investigation, and probably had a bit of good luck which tipped them off in the first place. But, as has been said repeatedly by terrorism experts, we have to be lucky all the time. The terrorists only have to be lucky once.
Perhaps significantly, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 is upcoming. 9/11/2006 would have been an ideal symbolic date for another mass slaughter.
"Something happened" to cause Scotland Yard to rapidly arrest the suspects under surveillance, early news items said. Maybe a double agent got blown, surveillance was discovered, or something gave the investigators a hint that the planned date of action might have been moved up. Whatever "happened," I suspect that the plane from Heathrow that was recently turned back in mid-Atlantic from landing in the US was related, directly or indirectly, to do with this "something." [Just found this: "Information gathered after recent arrests in Pakistan convinced British investigators they had to act urgently to stop the plot, sources told CNN."]
Some emerging details: At least 24 have now been arrested. Some have been arrested in Pakistan, where local intelligence services have assisted the Brits. Plotters are said to have planned to use a "British version of Gatorade" mixed with explosive gel, setting the explosives off with (modified?) MP3 players or cell phones. Some of those arrested worked at Heathrow. Five suspects are still at large.
I feel as though we have just been narrowly missed by a bullet. It's great that this was a miss, but more shooters are still out there, with many more bullets.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 13:22:10 [Permalink]
|
I got a chuckle out of, " I just now noticed..." There has been nothing but this story on all the stations all night long despite the fact there was about 1 minute's worth of information actually reported.
Clearly news overkill going on here. Not saying it isn't newsworthy but the way these guys go to all live 24 hour coverage of events when there isn't much to really say is disgusting considering how many important stories are out there. Anyone see any coverage of the spreading oil slick across the entire Lebanese coast and into Syria from the Israeli bombing of the fuel tanks at Lebanon's power plant almost 2 weeks ago? |
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 14:26:39 [Permalink]
|
I don't want to entirely dismiss what Dude wrote. Though I'm convinced (without contrary evidence) that this latest airline plot was not merely an invention of Bush & Co. for political reasons, Bush is very good at swiftly reacting to news in such a manner that he promotes himself and his power. He's certainly doing that now, calling the terrorists "Islamic fascists."
Not a bad term. It seems the head theonazi recognizes kindred spirits.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 16:29:29 [Permalink]
|
| Funny how it comes out now, but it is the Brittish who did all the hard work. Why is it that other countries find plots and we don't seam to find any until it happens to us? |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 16:42:51 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
I got a chuckle out of, " I just now noticed..." There has been nothing but this story on all the stations all night long despite the fact there was about 1 minute's worth of information actually reported.
Clearly news overkill going on here. Not saying it isn't newsworthy but the way these guys go to all live 24 hour coverage of events when there isn't much to really say is disgusting considering how many important stories are out there. Anyone see any coverage of the spreading oil slick across the entire Lebanese coast and into Syria from the Israeli bombing of the fuel tanks at Lebanon's power plant almost 2 weeks ago?
I first learned about the plane-exploding plot just before 3:00 AM last night, because I'd been playing CoV and had my TV off. But sooner or later, CNN will learn how to interrupt computer games with news bulletins.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 21:11:23 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Perhaps significantly, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 is upcoming. 9/11/2006 would have been an ideal symbolic date for another mass slaughter.
For what it's worth, a lot of the world doesn't actually refer to dates by the month/day/year convention. In fact I find the practice rather annoying in some instances, but that's another matter entirely.
Please don't misinterpret this as any attempt to downplay the significance of the events themselves, it's just that the numerology isn't particularly compelling. I'm not sure that the instigators of any potential terrorist acts would find anniversaries of past events particularly noteworthy, even assuming they had some link to the perpetrators of past events. |
John's just this guy, you know. |
|
|
|
Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2006 : 22:41:25 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
He's certainly doing that now, calling the terrorists "Islamic fascists." Not a bad term. It seems the head theonazi recognizes kindred spirits.
YO, Halfmooner: I've noticed the GOP talking points today more often incorporating a vernacular that connects to Hitler and his beasts of WWII: fascist, nazi, putting an Adolf mustache on a photo of Howard Dean, etc; the most significant one being G. War's usage of Islamic fascists, as you've pointed out.
Bush is always talking past people like us to others who aren't able or won't make connections or parallels. Yes, G. War: we've got Islamic fascists, we've still got germanic fascists, Christian-fascists, there are bunches of American fascistic/corporate types everywhere. (What about the Vichy French of WWII?) There are also neo-con-fascists or nazis. The fundamental ingredient for all of these various fascistic groups is unrelenting authoritarianism. The best example I can offer for a modern day fascistic persona is G. War Bush.
One of the most blatant clues is Bush's obvious misunderstanding of the essence of Freedom. He's always talking about the terrorists who hate our freedom. One of the fundamental desires of any human being, whatever his or her politcal stripe or position in society, is to live free and unfettered.
Those blowing up Americans and other people don't hate freedom, they hate wealthy, elitist, secular people who only have a stong affinity for comfort and exhibit disdain for them. It may be the ones in that zealous bunch of wackos who survive their own explosives really love freedom and feel more free when they know there are fewer of us on the planet.
G. War spends his rhetoric to mollify and suck-up to the unthinking. He strives to wedge and outrage the rest of us, and counts on fear to weaken the will of us all. Hitler would be jealous.
The freedom-usage connects very nicely to his misconception of democracy; which would mean on Planet Bush that it's something that's given to people out of the "kindness" of a privileged-born
elitist like him or anyone in his "magnanimous" family.
Democracy and freedom arise from the genuine desire of people to live unfettered lives; it's never given to the powerless by the powerful. (No Lincolnesque comparisions here, please.) For that means the powerful would lessen the number of slaves they need for their enterprise and there would also be MORE people around them who are likely to have almost as much power as they possess.
You could generalize, I suppose, that some of the powerful hate freedom insofar as it may be enjoyed by those less powerful than they. The disappearing of votes in 2000 and 2004 in Florida and Ohio is an example that this may be true.
OY!
|
"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
| Edited by - Orwellingly Yurz on 08/10/2006 22:47:30 |
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2006 : 03:41:33 [Permalink]
|
I agree with most everything you wrote, OY, except I do think the jihadis hate us with an insane passion, and that they do want to kill us all. By "us," I mean everyone who is not of the extreme faction of the Muslim faith, everyone who is an atheist, everyone living in and supporting a democracy, everyone, Muslim or not, who just happens to get between themselves and their targets. To fanatics like Osama, anything goes in this Holy War, and the really horrible fact is, this resonates with much of the Islamic world.
In the 9/11 attacks, the jihadis showed no discrimination between rich or poor, adult or child, the powerful or the powerless Christian, Jew or Muslim. They simply wanted to slaughter Americans, to cause fear as a weapon in pursuit of their desire to create a vast fundy Muslim empire stretching from Western Europe to Indonesia.
Their goals may be unrealistic, but that doesn't lessen them as their motivations.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/11/2006 03:42:33 |
|
|
|
Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2006 : 04:33:09 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Paulos23
Funny how it comes out now, but it is the Brittish who did all the hard work. Why is it that other countries find plots and we don't seam to find any until it happens to us?
Because of your freedoms.
Joe |
The Circus of Carnage... because you should be able to deal with politicians like you do pissant noobs. |
|
|
|
Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2006 : 10:03:56 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent
quote:
Originally posted by Paulos23
Funny how it comes out now, but it is the Brittish who did all the hard work. Why is it that other countries find plots and we don't seam to find any until it happens to us?
Because of your freedoms.
Joe
Well I was trying to point to the ineptiued of our government to find real terrorists.
Edit for some spelling |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
| Edited by - Paulos23 on 08/11/2006 10:04:53 |
|
|
|
Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
|
|
Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2006 : 19:33:16 [Permalink]
|
Come on...... 6 years? So Clinton did a good job then? So Reagen's cutting and running from Beruit, arming Iraq? Arming the Taliban? Carter beiing so pathetic to allow the hostages to sit there? Such blatent cowardice in the face of the enemy that Russia went into Afganistan? Kerry would have done a better job? Gore?
The president could be doing a damn better job, but why should he break from recent tradition?
Joe |
The Circus of Carnage... because you should be able to deal with politicians like you do pissant noobs. |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2006 : 20:10:52 [Permalink]
|
O.I. said:
quote:
The president could be doing a damn better job, but why should he break from recent tradition?
Your rant about the previous 4 presidents aside....
The president SHOULD be doing a better job, because that is what we pay him to do.
If he wasn't so busy robbing us blind and consolidating executive power maybe he would have some time to concentrate on the actual governing of the country.
And there is just no comparison to this fucking shrub of a president to Gore, Kerry, or any of the last 10 presidents. Bush is a sub-par, below average intellect. He is a dry drunk (maybe dry, who knows). He is the single most clueless imbecile to ever be appointed president of this country. He physically assaults leaders of other nations, he speaks demeaningly to the British PM (Yo Blair!, with a mouthful of food), he has only the most simplistic grasp of what he is supposed to be doing.... He is a disgrace, and I am disgusted and embarrassed that this "C" student is the leader of my country.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
