"On the implausibility of the explosives plot."

Gools
don't you think that they should already have pretty good evidence in hand to have made the arrests and sent the whole travelling public into a hysteria?

Yes I do. And I don't mind saying that the government could have done a bit better job of it, (yet I dont have a better short term solution either).

However, I saw the travelers at the airports, and I don't think they were hysterical. Rather calm, and maybe a bit peeved. I think the media was hyserical, and I can't really blame the government for their lunacy.

Gools
I know is that my chances of being the target of a terrorist attack are less than being struck by lightning

Ya know, I keep seeing people write that, and I agree statistically speaking. It sounds really pretty and all, but I don't think it helps the families of those who already died from it. I wouldn't recommend making the case for that statistic with one of them, you may get a black eye from it.

Gools
make me the head of Homeland Security with a big fat paycheck and I'll think of something.

If I only could.
Hey! I can see the headlines now. Chertoff resigns in disgrace. Gools is named as the new Director of Homeland Security.






[edit on 8/18/06 by makeitso]

I'm a little confused. It seems like, regardless of therelevance of the chemistry that Metzger is considering, his main problems are getting the components onto the plane, and then mixing them quickly enough to cause destruction of the plane (too slow, apparently, and you die, but no one else).

If the stuff can't be carried in a 'shampoo bottle', so what? They can't make a glass bottle that can contain it, and then disguise it as a shampoo bottle, just wrap it up in one? I mean, Metzger says we need something out of James Bond, but if glass will contain the stuff, then you just need glass.


On the mixing, I don't understand. Why can't you just wildly dump a couple of soda bottles worth of liquid together? Hell, you could just rip them open and dump them straight down the toilet of the plane if you want, no? Why wouldn't that work?

He goes through some length noting that the reaction is dangerous and likely to kill anyone running it before its made powerful enough to destroy the plane, and notes, 'thats not smart'. So what? Neither is blowing up a plane that you are on. Maybe there's only a 50 percent chance of destroying a plane, rather than just yourself, this way. With a dozen planes targeted, thats still a helluva bad day for the west, and a small price for a suicide agent.

If you open a shampoo bottle and give it a
sniff, I assure you that you'll notice concentrated sulfuric acid very
fast, not that you would want to have your nose near it for long

Everyone, I think, knows that its stupid that people have to get ride of their bottles. But, regardless, it'd be more stupid to allow bottles on planes when there are people plotting to blow up planes with explosives in bottles. Only some of the peopel invovled were caught, who knows if they mocked up their bottle devices or not, the things could be floating around out there, and they could have false compartments that completely contain the chemicals, until some seal is broken.

I find it hard to beleive that a group of a couple of dozen of relatively well educated people can't figure out a way to smuggle dangerous explosives via innocent looking containers.

[edit on 18-8-2006 by Nygdan]

Well. The writer even admits he's just asuming which chemicals are being used rather than waiting for the evidence from officials. The guy dosen't even know the plot and he's calling it implausable. So I'll wait until more details are released before making up my mind.