01 November 2010

First Freeze


(Toner Cartridge bomb element. Dubai Police Photo via European Pressphoto Agency)

There is no getting around it. Frost tonight, here in Arlington. I need to start thinking about bringing in the plants from the balcony, and will have to lay out some warm clothes to stand in line at the Polls tomorrow. I am having trouble with my metaphors this morning. Maybe it is the cold, so bear with me. It is either election day and explosives, or the climatic chill and my below-freezing outlook on the future.

It will be a long day tomorrow. The mid-term elections are tomorrow, of course, and the day concludes with the annual Condo meeting. At least there will be wine at the latter, as they attempt to anesthetize us before voting on proposed a 4.1% increase in the already steep monthly fee we pay to those incompetents at the Management Company.

Actually, both elections are strikingly similar in topic, just slightly different in scale. Remember to vote. This is important.

I took a break from thinking over the weekend, hoping the smart guys would come to some conclusions about the two bombs that were found on cargo jets on Friday.

I mean, what could be suspicious about Synagogues in Chicago ordering Hewlett-Packard print toner cartridges from the Empty Quarter of Arabia?

Anyway, it strikes me that this is so wildly improbable and so sophisticated at the same time that we have indeed arrived in Wonderland.

I think we can generally agree on the attribution for the devices, and the intent. Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri is likely the bomb-builder. His devices continue to evolve, and since practice makes perfect, sooner or later one of this bombs will actually go off.

Hassan refers Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN for short.

They have tried PETN attacks with human agents before, including the 2001 wild-eyed Richard Reid and his exploding sneakers. Last Christmas on final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had three ounces of the same stuff in his tighty-whiteys, and I sincerely hope that although the bomb failed to detonate, something at least got burned off.

Al-Asisir actually dispatched his brother on a suicide mission to kill Prince Mohammed bun Nayef, the Saudi intelligence chief, also with PETN in August of 2009. The only one who died was the bomber, and goodness knows what Hassan’s mother thought about that.

As to the intent, I think it was undoubtedly to detonate the devices over Chicago, not deliver them to the Synagogues. One of the devices featured nearly two pounds of explosive, a feature of this new technical approach, since the human bombers were useful for the terminal targeting phase of the attack in precision positioning the devices near structural members in the cabin.

Since the bombers could not know where the packages would wind up in the cargo hold, and because the containers have been strengthened over time, they have to be bigger and more powerful.

PETN has seventy-percent more bang-for-the-buck than ordinary TNT. One of the devices had a cell-phone detonator, so presumably some asshole of the ground would have to sight the aircraft on final to make the fatal call.



(Charismatic New Mexican Imam Anwar al-Awlaki. Photo Linda Spillers for the New York Times.)

With bomb-builder New Mexico-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, assorted indigenous Yemeni militants, and former Saudi prisoner at GTMO, al-Asiri makes up the leadership of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Many of them were part of the catch-and-release programs- either here in Cuba or in Yemen. It is quite astonishing.

Anwar al-Awlaki has had a controversial Presidential Finding issued against him, which directs the CIA to take him out when identified. There is some poignant hand-wringing here about that.

There somewhat bizarre debate is over the legal and political limits of Predator UAV missile strikes. The discussion hinges on the notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence. Some legal authorities are deeply uneasy. I assume that none of them live under the approach paths to major airports.

This even after Citizen al-Awlaki incited the shooting by the deranged Army Major at Fort Hood and the loony Nigerian Fruit of Kaboom attempt last Christmas.

I think it is pretty clear that we should have done the right thing when we had them. I doubt if it is on the ballot, but if there is a bond issue to buy some more Predators and Hellfire Missiles, I would definitely put my “x” right there.

I am going to be at the polls early to find out.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
vicsocotra.com | Subscribe to the RSS feed!