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August 10, 2006 12:03 AM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

[Newsfilter] Terror plot disrupted. Scotland Yard has arrested about 18 potential terrorists who were planning to blow up UK to USA flights mid-air. The UK threat level is now critical - "an attack is expected imminently". And there's chaos at the airports where hand luggage has been banned from all flights.
posted by featherboa (506 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

The cynic in me wonders if the UK conservative party is coming up for election soon.
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:27 AM on August 10, 2006


"potential"?
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:30 AM on August 10, 2006


The list of things people are allowed to take on the plane appears to be arbitrary and badly thought out.

- contact lenses, but no solutions. WTF?

- according to the list, I cannot take a book, a toothbrush or even a stick of gum on a flight.

- only 'essential' travel documents, i.e. passport and ticket. What about my travel insurance policy? If I put it in my suitcase, and the case is lost, how do I know who to contact to make a claim?

I travel to the US regularly and am fairly savvy about getting through security with a minimum of fuss. As a solo traveller, I can pare my carry-on down to the minimum. But the majority of Brits flying from the UK are families on charter flights to Europe for their annual fortnight in the sun. I anticipate massive chaos at the charter airlines check-ins.
posted by essexjan at 12:33 AM on August 10, 2006


So now that hand luggage is banned, can we skip lining up for the metal detector and X-ray machine now?
posted by Jimbob at 12:33 AM on August 10, 2006


"expected imminently"?

Christ. If they know enough about it to expect it imminently, can't they just stop it?

All those threat levels are nonsense, if fact. It's an attempt to appear quantitative about something that's impossible to quantify. What does a "highly likely" terrorist attack mean, anyway? 90% chance of attack within the next 12 months? 12 days? Hours?

It's fucking meaningless.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:35 AM on August 10, 2006


Clearly a plot by Dell to sell more notebook computers. (as the baggage handlers will destroy hundreds of checked notebooks).
posted by b1tr0t at 12:35 AM on August 10, 2006


No contant lense solutions or other liquids because liquid explosives are suspected. They're even saying on BBC24 baby milk is banned unless you demonstrate (i.e. drink it) it is safe.
posted by Orange Goblin at 12:41 AM on August 10, 2006


It's fucking meaningless.

"We believe that these arrests have significantly disrupted the threat, but we cannot be sure that the threat has been entirely eliminated or the plot completely thwarted," said the US homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff.

Purely on the face of it, this position seems quite reasonable to me.
posted by Wolof at 12:58 AM on August 10, 2006


Clearly a plot by the US Checked-Baggage Handlers Union looking for over time pay.
posted by shoepal at 12:59 AM on August 10, 2006


They have presumably found a group of people making bombs in a flat. These measures will be precautionary in case they haven't found all involved. In the circumstances I can understand why they have been implemented.
posted by bap98189 at 1:00 AM on August 10, 2006


Wolof writes "Purely on the face of it, this position seems quite reasonable to me."

It's reasonable, but it's inconsistent with the wording describing the threat level, which speaks to certainty ("imminently expected") rather than the claimed uncertainty.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:00 AM on August 10, 2006


For those travelling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger)

I'm thinking pre-expressed milk ..... and seeing an unsympathetic check-in clerk.
posted by strawberryviagra at 1:02 AM on August 10, 2006


Do we have a dial as well as the US now? Is it colour-coded? And how much fear and misinformation does it need before it starts to flash?
Sounds like another stab at security in the world, a gesture that keeps us on our toes, but keeps us thinking less..
posted by fsimeta at 1:03 AM on August 10, 2006


It's reasonable, but it's inconsistent with the wording describing the threat level, which speaks to certainty ("imminently expected") rather than the claimed uncertainty.

Agreed, the wording is exceptionally poor.
posted by Wolof at 1:07 AM on August 10, 2006


No b1tr0t it's a plot by Ryanair to get more money from checked in baggage.
(Ryanair is an Irish airline that charge for every bag you check into the hold).
posted by bap98189 at 1:08 AM on August 10, 2006


I presume the range of explosives which could:-
a) Have enough power to terminate a plane in flight (or at least cause a level of damage beyond "humiliatingly inconsequential" for a suicide bomber wannabe).
b) Be reliably carried onto a plane through security checks - even assuming on-plane final assembly.

is quite small?
posted by rongorongo at 1:08 AM on August 10, 2006


The cynic in me wonders if the UK conservative party is coming up for election soon.

The puzzled Metafilter reader in me wonders what on earth this is supposed to mean.
posted by flashboy at 1:11 AM on August 10, 2006


Security at Canary Wharf is jumpy this morning. First time I've seen the vehicle blockers raised since coming to work here.

Purely on the face of it, this position seems quite reasonable to me.

I think the point that is being made is that there appears to be little sense in raising 'threat levels' retrospectively with the announcement that a terror plot has been foiled. Were they meaningful in any way they ought rightly to have been raised prior to the disruption of the cell and lowered after this morning's announcement. I accept that for operational reasons that this is impracticable but I have some sympathy with the fucking meaningless comment above.

A frightened population is a pliant population. We're back at tanks round Heathrow and the Power of Nightmares, aren't we?
posted by dmt at 1:12 AM on August 10, 2006


Just announced on Sky News - Heathrow closed to all incoming and outgoing flights.

No 'liquids' to be brought on-board. Baby milk allowed - if tasted by a security officer(!).
posted by metaxa at 1:15 AM on August 10, 2006


I think the point that is being made is that there appears to be little sense in raising 'threat levels' retrospectively with the announcement that a terror plot has been foiled.

I think that foiled is the media's term. The Home Office is just announcing hightened restrictions and arrests regarding a plot.

Just announced on Sky News - Heathrow closed to all incoming and outgoing flights.

That's odd because the Heathrow spokesman not 30 seconds ago didn't mention a thing about it.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:18 AM on August 10, 2006


Purely on the face of it, this position seems quite reasonable to me.

Turn in your Metafilter posting credentials at the door, Wolof.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:20 AM on August 10, 2006


That's odd because the Heathrow spokesman not 30 seconds ago didn't mention a thing about it.

There it was, in black and white (well, red and white) on the screen 'Do not turn up for flights from LHR'. If I had the ability to take a screen grab, I would.
posted by metaxa at 1:21 AM on August 10, 2006


I think that foiled is the media's term. The Home Office is just announcing hightened restrictions and arrests regarding a plot.

I could be wrong about that thought.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:22 AM on August 10, 2006


Wow, Tony Blair is pulling out the big guns in his desperate attempt to regain credibility. I guess once you get into bed with George W. you are forced to follow his lead straight to hell.
posted by sic at 1:22 AM on August 10, 2006


Airlines could use this as a way to make more money by selling stuff onboard. Do you need baby care supplies? Contact lens solution? Toiletries? The cart will be coming down the aisle in ten minutes.
posted by pracowity at 1:24 AM on August 10, 2006


The Heathrow spokesman just said, "Don't come to Heathrow if it is not essential." He did not say not to come at all. I think I'd listen to him rather than Rupert Murdoch.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:24 AM on August 10, 2006


Wow, Tony Blair is pulling out the big guns in his desperate attempt to regain credibility.

WTF? Tony Blair arranged the terror attempt
from his holiday in the West Indies?

Has anyone ever seen Tony Blair and Dr. Evil in the same
room together?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:27 AM on August 10, 2006


The BBC has the Heathrow closure news - only incoming flights not already in the air though.
posted by jontyjago at 1:28 AM on August 10, 2006


The Heathrow spokesman just said, "Don't come to Heathrow if it is not essential." He did not say not to come at all. I think I'd listen to him rather than Rupert Murdoch.

Yes, because advice isn't worth listening to if it's spoonfed to you from a news conglomerate, no matter how good that advice is.

Seriously, there's *no* chance of anyone who's due to fly out of Heathrow today actually getting on a plane. You may as well stay at home.
posted by metaxa at 1:29 AM on August 10, 2006


From the Heathrow Airport website


"Important Message

10th August 2006 08:22

Due to the heightened security at UK airports, the BAA website is currently experiencing a high level of people visiting the site for information.

All BAA airports remain open but passengers should expect delays.

For further information on the security restrictions (link to BAA media statement)"




And from the BBC twenty minutes ago

" Passengers are being asked to be patient when facing delays

Heathrow Airport has been closed to all incoming flights that are not already in the air, following a police anti-terror operation.

Stringent security measures have been put in place at airports across the UK.

Passengers are being asked to check in all hand baggage except for some essential items and travellers are experiencing long delays.

Flights from Brussels to all London airports have been cancelled. Lufthansa has also cancelled flights to the UK.

BAA strongly advises all passengers not to travel to Heathrow airport unless the journey is essential and there is an increased police presence at London Underground stations leading to the airport.

Long delays

Heathrow management took the decision to close to all flights not already in the air due to the congestion at the airport.

Manchester Airport have said there are delays on all flights of between one and three hours.

Donald Morrison, a spokesman for BAA at Glasgow Airport, said there would be delays at security for all passengers. "

posted by talitha_kumi at 1:30 AM on August 10, 2006


Wow... talk about a cynical crowd...

I think the boys at the Yard have done well and are warning people that it is possible that they weren't able to stop everyone involved... Imminent is about as best as you can describe it... there were people that were going to do this today and some of them could still be out there... and if there are still those out there who mean to do harm, that's pretty imminent to me...

They must have specific knowledge of the possible use of a liquid explosive to be making these requirements... it sounds horrid to make a mother taste her own breastmilk, but a taste is all that is required... you don't have to guzzle the bottle...

I may have more thoughts later... but it is 0332hrs and I'm tired...
posted by WhipSmart at 1:33 AM on August 10, 2006


I think security levels are stupid as a means of informing the populace, but don't they also serve to let emergency personnel know what level of security they are currently enforcing?

The Home Office site on threat levels says "The system also helps the police and other law enforcement agencies determine how they should respond to, and prepare for a terrorist incident." So it seems more of a way of saying that security should be batshit-insane for a while because a terrorist strike seems inevitable.

This part of "threat levels" always seemed reasonable to me, but perhaps I have too much trust in the government's intelligence capabilities.
posted by ztdavis at 1:34 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


I for one look forward to my Monday flight from Heathrow to Arizona. Surely this will all have blown over by then, right?

...right?
posted by papakwanz at 1:35 AM on August 10, 2006


Better this than fishing body parts and wreckage out of the Atlantic.
posted by bwg at 1:36 AM on August 10, 2006


This would have to happen in the middle of international conference season for our company. I've got two staff members supposed to fly out from Stansted tomorrow morning. Couldn't the buggers have waited until next week or something?
posted by talitha_kumi at 1:37 AM on August 10, 2006


Airlines could use this as a way to make more money by selling stuff onboard. Do you need baby care supplies? Contact lens solution? Toiletries? The cart will be coming down the aisle in ten minutes.

That's exactly what the Easyjet spokesman on the Today programme said, words to the effect that 'we will of course make refreshments available throughout the flight'.

Also of note on the Today programme: advice not to fly from the US today, on the grounds that the security services there didn't know what they were doing (citing a recent Washington Post exposé which I don't seem to be able to find).

The cynic in me wonders if the UK conservative party is coming up for election soon.

I'm mystefied by this comment, too. Do you think that the Conservatives control the security services when not in power, or something?
posted by jack_mo at 1:37 AM on August 10, 2006


Better this than fishing body parts and wreckage out of the Atlantic.

Couldn't agree more.
posted by jontyjago at 1:37 AM on August 10, 2006


So, they have arrested 18 men but they don't think these are the ones who will be doing the terror thing on the planes?
I am not sure I follow the reasoning behind messing up travel at all the airports, or even Heathrow.
It is hard to see this as anything other than a waste of everyone's time and emotional energy. If they don't think attacks are imminent what is the point in all the disruption?
posted by asok at 1:38 AM on August 10, 2006


asok, I think they may believe that it is possible that they didn't arrest all of the people involved, that some may have not come up in the investigation or the possibility that another cell will take over seeing that this particular one was apprehended... it seems a reasonable statement given the circumstances...

Better this than everyone celebrating and breathing a sigh of relief that "they got them" while planes start falling from the sky...
posted by WhipSmart at 1:40 AM on August 10, 2006


wow,

the tin hat brigade are out in force this morning. It seems reasonable to me to be cautious when you've just foiled a terrorist plot in case you missed people who might just act anyway.

In any case I would prefer over reaction than under reaction. So what if flights are disrupted for a couple of days. I only wish they overreacted when they where tailing two of the London bombers a couple of years ago.
posted by johnny novak at 1:42 AM on August 10, 2006


So, they have arrested 18 men but they don't think these are the ones who will be doing the terror thing on the planes?

Say they managed to arrest 18 and there are 40 total. They seem to be fairly sure there was a plot but not entirely sure they've arrested everyone involved, so they're just making it impossible for anyone they didn't arrest to continue the plot. Simple redundancy.

On preview, ditto on WhipSmart.
posted by ztdavis at 1:42 AM on August 10, 2006


Are you angry yet? Welcome to the rest of your life. This is just the beginning. Your children will live in a police state. The "terrorists" won the moment that fucking shithead Bush rode into Iraq with his fuckwit buddy Blair riding shotgun.

We're in a fistfight with a big, angry, wasps' nest. The interests of the individual wasps are of no concern, just the survival of the colony as a whole. There is no way at all to protect against a cloud of angry wasps. We just keep swinging stupidly and shouting at the air, while the wasps go about doing the thing that they are programmed to do: Inflict pain on the perceived aggressor.
posted by Optamystic at 1:45 AM on August 10, 2006 [6 favorites]


Better this than fishing body parts and wreckage out of the Atlantic.

Couldn't agree more.
posted by jontyjago at 1:37 AM PST on August 10 [+]
[!]

Yes we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud over Heathrow after all!
posted by sic at 1:55 AM on August 10, 2006


This adds a new color to the missing egyptian story from the other day...coincidence?
posted by Osmanthus at 2:08 AM on August 10, 2006


Although this is a good time to do an attack on the UK/US as regards sympathy amongst the Muslim community who might see the situation in Lebanon as another attack on Muslims, why would a group continue with their plan when they have been half busted? Why do they think that it is possible to get a bomb on board in cabin baggage now, was this impossible yesterday?

Why would you bother trying to get stuff onto a plane when anyone can walk into Heathrow with a trolley full of bags and blow up the entire departure lounge. I suppose it is a challenge.

If they have been following these people for months, maybe they have some idea what they look like?

Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be yet another mistake by the Yard. Their credibility is at stake (again). On the other hand, let's hope it is all a storm in a teacup.

Maybe it's an elaborate plot to give us an incling of what it might feel like to be in Lebanon at the moment.
posted by asok at 2:08 AM on August 10, 2006


departure lounge check-in area
posted by asok at 2:10 AM on August 10, 2006


I don't see how anyone can say that the authorities are over reacting here. A potential plan to blow up nine planes simultaneously using liquid explosives sounds pretty serious to me.
posted by gfrobe at 2:10 AM on August 10, 2006


I would argue that Optamystic's wasps nest is interested in rather more than Dubya and co. If you listen to their pronouncements, their quarrel with the West runs deeper than foreign policy (though I agree it has been provacative) or social exclusion (which also exacerbates this in the UK). What is scary is if you listen closely and read their ideological texts (check out some Al Banna or Qutb) you can see it is an existential question - they hate liberal democracies and open, tolerant societies as both run contrary to a global, theocratic fascist project. When I was at Uni during the Freshers Fair there I was shocked to see fellow students handing out leaflets that could have come from the Third Reich and got curious to what it was all about. This plot come from a similar place...

As others have said, better to be disrupted than dead. Though no matter what, I am sure plenty of Gallowayistas will find a way to see it as some kind of liberation struggle (or MI5 conspiracy etc etc, Yawn.).
posted by The Salaryman at 2:17 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


.
posted by public at 2:19 AM on August 10, 2006


The cynic in me wonders whether this is a cunning plot to get the check-in areas of all UK airports to fill up with people so that when someone standing in the middle of the crowd detonates a bomb in the un-checked-in suitcase they've got in their trolley will kill/main the maximum numbers of people. Reports on the radio are talking about crowds so dense at Gatwick that people can't get off the moving escalators. It reminds me a little of the IRA bomb that went off at one end of a busy street, and then another went off ten minutes later at the other end of the same street, thereby catching all the people who'd just run away from the first one.
posted by talitha_kumi at 2:19 AM on August 10, 2006


talitha_kumi - I hope you are wrong.
posted by handee at 2:21 AM on August 10, 2006


Fun fact: The UK home secretary John Reid used to be a communist.
posted by randomination at 2:22 AM on August 10, 2006


Better this than fishing body parts and wreckage out of the Atlantic.

Fun fact: The UK home secretary John Reid used to be a communist.
posted by dmt at 2:29 AM on August 10, 2006


I hope so too. The death toll if that happened would be awful. The crowds are apparenty so bad that there's major health and safety risks already just from the number of peple in one place. Hillsborough crowd crush anyone?
posted by talitha_kumi at 2:29 AM on August 10, 2006


"Fears of a Parallel Terror Group"

Tomorrow is my last day at a job that had me on a plane to somewhere in Europe every day of the week. For the last four weeks (my notice period) I've been parked in the office, doing pretty much nothing and surely enjoying not flying a great deal.

Heathrow is not fun even when things are running smoothly. My sympathies to anyone caught up in this.
posted by Mutant at 2:30 AM on August 10, 2006


I think security levels are stupid as a means of informing the populace, but don't they also serve to let emergency personnel know what level of security they are currently enforcing?

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the Government recently merge the public and official warning systems into this single, unified one?

Oh, and to all the haterz: you just don't get it. Now where have I heard that before?
posted by ninebelow at 2:31 AM on August 10, 2006


Fun fact: The UK home secretary John Reid used to be a communist.

Many senior members of the British Labour party who are now ardent Blairites were, for instance Jack Straw.
posted by dmt at 2:33 AM on August 10, 2006


The Salaryman You rock. A voice of clarity amongst all the noise.
posted by vac2003 at 2:33 AM on August 10, 2006


From your link, ninebelow:
The home secretary yesterday gave the thinktank Demos his strongest hint yet that a new round of anti-terror legislation is on the way this autumn by warning that traditional civil liberty arguments were not so much wrong as just made for another age.

"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world," he said.


No. Just, no. Who was it that said that people who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither?
posted by talitha_kumi at 2:35 AM on August 10, 2006


The Salaryman writes "I would argue that Optamystic's wasps nest is interested in rather more than Dubya and co."

Very true. But Dubya and Tony have proven themselves to be excellent recruiting tools. (heh).

Mass murder is insanity. Systemic, organized, mass murder-suicide doubly so. It takes a highly motivated individual to commit to such a course of action. Motivation such as seeing daily photos of fellow Muslim civilians killed by American, British, and Israeli forces. Prisoners tortured, women raped, families murdered in cold blood. Those images and stories will be remembered for many years to come. We are fucked, our children are fucked, and their children are probably fucked, too.

Sleep tight.
posted by Optamystic at 2:36 AM on August 10, 2006


pessamystic
posted by johnny novak at 2:47 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


Dear Lord, I hate Heathrow with the fire of a thousand suns. I have never once had a smooth, convenient time flying into, through, or out of that damned airport. I can't imagine what it must be like now. And my home airport is LAX, to give you some idea of my threshold for tolerating inconvenience.

On the other hand, I can just imagine the carnage produced by even a small bomb going off in that godawful communal holding pen Heathrow seems to call a waiting area. Or in the un-fucking-believably long customs lines.

As a bonus, I'm flying from LAX to OTP Bucharest in just under 12 hours. I can only hope the US hasn't yet flipped its shit over this. I'd at the very least like to take a book on the flight.
posted by quite unimportant at 2:51 AM on August 10, 2006


Remember when tanks patrolled Heathrow airport in February 2003, five weeks before the start of the Iraq war?

The then home secretary, David Blunkett, was reported by his biographer as being furious at the tanks' deployment. He ordered their withdrawal.

I don't know who ordered the tanks. Blunkett says it wasn't him, which seems as good a reason as any to believe the government was involved somehow. But now I find it discomforting to hear that John Reid, far from standing aside from the police as is his job, has taken the opportunity of the current situation to call for even more civil-liberty-busting legislation.

Who said "democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend"? It breaks my left-wing heart to admit it was Margaret Thatcher.

Our government has got to stop granting 'terrorists' more publicity than they deserve and they have got to stop meddling with the police.
posted by randomination at 3:11 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


From the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority:
Effective immediately by order of the TSA, passengers may not bring liquids or gels of any size at the security checkpoint or in the aircraft cabin - including beverages, shampoo, suntan lotion, toothpaste, hair gel, and other items of similar consistency. Such items may be transported in checked baggage. Passengers may have baby formula, breast milk, or juice if a baby or small child is traveling. Passengers may also have prescription medication labeled with a name which matches the name on the passenger's ticket, insulin, or other essential non-prescription medications. Beverages purchased beyond the security checkpoints must be consumed before boarding the aircraft. For further information, please go to www.tsa.gov. Thank you.
posted by SteveInMaine at 3:26 AM on August 10, 2006


Beverages purchased beyond the security checkpoints must be consumed before boarding the aircraft.

Some people are going to be regretting picking up that cheap litre of duty free vodka.
posted by biffa at 3:30 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


Why would you bother trying to get stuff onto a plane when anyone can walk into Heathrow with a trolley full of bags and blow up the entire departure lounge. I suppose it is a challenge.

Actually, asok, its difficulty is part of the point -- as if to say no matter what security measures you employ, and I'd posit that air travel has had the most beefing up since 9/11 of all public spaces, they can still strike and kill there. "Your modern attempts at safety are useless and pointless. Feel our wrath regardless of what you do."

Remember when war was about two armies fighting over a plot of land? Ah, the good ol' days.
posted by incessant at 3:33 AM on August 10, 2006


But emphasizing how easy it is to get to anyone in the public arena would be just as effective as getting through tight security cordons. I'm surprised no-one's trying to blow up shopping centres more often. Oxford Street's got to be a tempting target.
posted by talitha_kumi at 3:36 AM on August 10, 2006


they hate liberal democracies and open, tolerant societies as both run contrary to a global, theocratic fascist project.

To an extent, that may be true. Permissive societies suck if you want to ban the sight of women, for example. But this isn't happening in Denmark (or Sweden or Iceland or Canada or Australia or Japan or...), is it? It isn't Copenhagen airport being shut down. It looks like someone specifically wants Americans and their "special relationship" buddies to feel a little of the terror that people in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere feel.
posted by pracowity at 3:37 AM on August 10, 2006


Here comes the draft.
posted by Marla Singer at 3:41 AM on August 10, 2006


[...] as if to say no matter what security measures you employ ... they can still strike and kill there

So far, at least, that tact doesn't seem to be working. So far.
posted by CodeBaloo at 3:42 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


A few disconnected thoughts... How many think that the airline industry (or business travel in general) would survive if these bastards were succesful in executing another large scale attack on, or using, commercial airliners? With all the talk about attacks on chemical plants and the power grid, this still seems like the most obvious place for another strike in terms of terror, economic impact, etc. No reason to believe it's not for real... at this point.

The occasional cynicism on this thread is disappointing (but entirely understandable, given the shoddy way the Administration has conducted its War on Terror(tm) and managed Homeland Security communications), there still are actually people out there that mean to kill us in numbers, lest we forget.
posted by psmealey at 3:49 AM on August 10, 2006


U.S. Threat Level has not been raised, of course. Since there is no presidential election coming up... (Although you'd think with the mid-terms they'd be on the ball. Oh well)
posted by delmoi at 4:04 AM on August 10, 2006


Um, the utter lack of detail regarding the plot seems really dubious. It really sounds like another attempt to whip 'em up in to a fearful frenzy on both sides of the pond. This administration is so heinous that my doubt threshold is pretty much shot when it comes to whether this may be some sort of political theatre.
posted by moonbird at 4:09 AM on August 10, 2006


Scotland Yard has arrested about 18 potential terrorists

This is factually incorrect. And premature. This is a criminal investigation and Scotland Yard has arrested individuals in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation.

Those arrested -- Blair, Reid, Britain's police notwithstanding -- under British law remain innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
posted by Mister Bijou at 4:11 AM on August 10, 2006


yeah, exactly, delmoi... I just checked the US threat level at the DHS -- and it's the first time I've ever checked it... It hasn't been updated since August 5th?? Is Washington asleep? WTF? Shouldn't it be raised NOW? I mean ORANGE tells me who to vote for in the Fall.
posted by mhh5 at 4:11 AM on August 10, 2006


Some people are going to be regretting picking up that cheap litre of duty free vodka.

There's nothing else to do so you might as well drink it while waiting in the 4 hour queue.
posted by bap98189 at 4:19 AM on August 10, 2006


Mister Bijou - yes, of course you're right, that's why I put "potential" in there, but I realise it wasn't clear. In my defence, I'd just woken up and I was all freaked-out from hearing it on the radio.
posted by featherboa at 4:21 AM on August 10, 2006


Bully for Scotland Yard!!!!
posted by spirit72 at 4:27 AM on August 10, 2006


Wow, the terror color code thing is still around? Who knew? It sort of disappeared after the 2004 election for some reason.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:27 AM on August 10, 2006


I guess the US threat level has been raised now.. for just UK flights to the US.
posted by mhh5 at 4:27 AM on August 10, 2006


Pracowcity, I think you will find that the Danes picked up some heat (literally if you count Embassy and NGO office burnings) over those unfunny cartoons. The UK has long been the European base of Islamism for a variety of reasons and its supporters have been allowed to run riot more than in other EU states for another set of complex reasons. The US has been seen as the 'leader' of Western barbarism in Islamist ideology (seriously, check the texts) since the 1940s, followed by the UK (think of its long association with Middle Eastern elites) Sayyid Qutb had many of his key epiphanies in Greeley, Colorado.

One can argue about how foreign policy can be a spark, but the fuel of the fire is what many seem unable to confront or understand. There was a lot of this terrorism going on before 9/11 (Paris Metro, anyone?). Turn down the emotion about recent wars and look deeper. This hate is more about how we live, love and are than many are prepared to admit.
posted by The Salaryman at 4:30 AM on August 10, 2006


Remember when tanks patrolled Heathrow airport in February 2003, five weeks before the start of the Iraq war?

Seems somewhat useless. What is a tank going to do at an airport?

I don't know who ordered the tanks. Blunkett says it wasn't him, which seems as good a reason as any to believe the government was involved somehow.

Of course, in the US people use the word "government" to mean anything paid for with tax money. The idea of something not the government sending tanks to the airport seems rather strange :P
posted by delmoi at 4:30 AM on August 10, 2006


Either we live with this "security" approach forever, and I throw my iPod and all my books in the hold, or we go back to flying as I remember it. If it's the former, and this is Just How It Is Forever, I'll believe this is a genuine security measure, not a PR stunt from the perpetual warriors. However, if this passes, then it's no more than the shoe bomb response: a temporary, ill-thought-through reaction that does nothing either for our security or our transit arrangements.
posted by imperium at 4:31 AM on August 10, 2006


WTF? Shouldn't it be raised NOW?

The national threat advisory was raised over at tsa.gov.
posted by quite unimportant at 4:32 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


I think the point that is being made is that there appears to be little sense in raising 'threat levels' retrospectively with the announcement that a terror plot has been foiled.

I think raising the alert falls somewhere between genuine concern that there may still be co-conspirators unaccounted for, and a pure cover-your-ass exercise.

At the moment we are all thankful to the authorities, and rightly so, for having stopped this massacre in its tracks.

However imagine what would happen if they thought they had gotten everyone, had announced it, and then 3 planes were blown up straight away afterwards because of relaxed security? Bad news all around.
posted by LondonYank at 4:33 AM on August 10, 2006


Some people are going to be regretting picking up that cheap litre of duty free vodka.

There's nothing else to do so you might as well drink it while waiting in the 4 hour queue.


The last thing the English need is any kind of encouragement wrt getting drunk. The guys with machine guns in the airports aren't actually there to protect you from terrorists, it's to subdue the drunken yobs coming and going from the Costa del Sol
posted by Flashman at 4:34 AM on August 10, 2006


Turn down the emotion about recent wars and look deeper. This hate is more about how we live, love and are than many are prepared to admit.

Look deeper? Why not just ask these people what's upsetting them? I think you'll find it mostly has to do with the Israeli aggression in the region. As an aside, an (al-qaeda) terrorist attack in the US/UK would really be bad for Hizbollah and the Lebanese, as it would probably (unfairly, IMO) sour western sympathy for the civilian casualties there.
posted by delmoi at 4:35 AM on August 10, 2006


"Um, the utter lack of detail regarding the plot seems really dubious."

Well, I'm willing to give the authorities more than the nine hours or so it's been since the arrests to fill in the blanks. If more details aren't released by this evening (GMT), I'll start to be suspicious.
posted by Mutant at 4:37 AM on August 10, 2006


I can't wait until you have to strip naked, have your anal monitoring probe inserted, and submit to a polygraph before getting your boarding pass.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:37 AM on August 10, 2006


The national threat advisory was raised over at tsa.gov.

Still yellow at DHS.gov. Heh.
posted by delmoi at 4:37 AM on August 10, 2006


how come nobody has mentioned Bojinka yet?

multiple bombings, liquid explosive "converted fourteen bottles of contact lens solution into bottles containing nitroglycerin"

they have known that terrorists planned using liquid in bottles 11 years ago. why suddenly stop all liquids in carry-on now? why not 11 years ago? or 5 years ago? will liquids be "safe" in a few months time when this blows over?
posted by toffee at 4:40 AM on August 10, 2006


Here comes the draft.

I kinda doubt that'll happen, Marla, n the US, at least. The military would rather have people who -- initially, anyway -- are there because they wanted to be, and volunteered, out of whatever motivations, than people who are there because they didn't want to go to jail instead. That means the US pool of military recruits is missing out on a lot of college-bound upper-middle-class kids, but it's also missing out on a lot of snivellers and lowlife oxygen thieves too.

/derail

I'm waiting for a suicide bomber realizing he can hit a Greyhound/Trailways bus station in a big city at the beginning of a holiday weekend. Or a food court at a suburban shopping mall at lunchtime.
posted by pax digita at 4:42 AM on August 10, 2006


why would a group continue with their plan when they have been half busted?

I can see how it would get you extra points actually. "Look, they arrested half of us and we still followed through." Who knows, though.

I find the general sentiment in this thread that this is some sort of fake-out by the UK government quite puzzling. Do you really not believe that there are people currently plotting to blow up civilians in the UK, US, and pretty much everywhere else? That seems, frankly, like willful ignorance.

And regarding the civil liberties issues, I don't see currently any special rush to limit them, unless you consider the right to fly with contact lens solution a fundamental civil right. To me, this sounds like the government in still trying to figure what the plan was and who was doing what. Sure, the terror alert thing is a little CYA, but cracking down on liquids carried onto planes after learning of a specific plot to use liquid explosives is pretty logical considering the circumstances.

Almost my entire family flew back to the US from London two days ago from attending a Bar Mitzvah of my cousin. I'm pretty damned glad that the UK security services are actually investigating credible threats, as opposed to the US ones, which seem more interested in setting out press releases alerting terrorists to possible targets in Indiana.
posted by miss tea at 4:44 AM on August 10, 2006


Of course, in the US people use the word "government" to mean anything paid for with tax money. The idea of something not the government sending tanks to the airport seems rather strange :P

Interesting. I don't want to stray off-topic, but in the UK at least the theory is that government != police. A crucial part of our architecture is the clear division between those who make the laws and those who enforce and interpret them.

Our government seems to be blurring these lines. Once the police and the state have their hands in one another's pockets, you get a police state. Which is what we seem to be wandering into.

The last thing the English need is any kind of encouragement wrt getting drunk.

I live four miles from Heathrow and the only positive aspect to today's news is that I can sit quietly in my back garden with a bottle of wine without being interrupted by low-flying planes.
posted by randomination at 4:46 AM on August 10, 2006


Delmoi, one could argue that is a spark (though given the nature of UK based Islamism it is unlikely Shia oriented groups are involved), though Lebanon is probably too recent to have figured much in their planning, but it is still not the fuel. What kind of societies do these movements want to create and why? Why do issues like Lebanon usually figure much less in most Islamist rhetoric than wider issues? This is what I mean by looking deeper.
posted by The Salaryman at 4:48 AM on August 10, 2006


Featherboa, no sweat. May you spend the rest of the day unfreaked.

Thanks to you, I checked with the BBC News webpage and discovered they are currently streaming News 24. Cheers!
posted by Mister Bijou at 4:49 AM on August 10, 2006


This is an excellent opportunity to have:

  • Due process
  • Explanation of the evidence leading the authorities to learn of this dastardly plot
  • A fair trial

    Pretty sad that these days, I really don't expect the US or UK governments to ever come through with this sort of thing. "We foiled a terror plot" seems to always turn into "we are going to illegaly detain some brown guys for a few years, and I think they once said they'd like to kill people, so they're bad people, just trust us."

  • posted by rxrfrx at 4:54 AM on August 10, 2006


    Do you really not believe that there are people currently plotting to blow up civilians in the UK, US, and pretty much everywhere else? That seems, frankly, like willful ignorance.

    When your only source of information is the government, and the government has misled you on this subject so many times before, you tend to stop believing uncorroborated information of this type.
    posted by rxrfrx at 4:55 AM on August 10, 2006


    > Either we live with this "security" approach forever, and I throw my iPod and all my books in the hold,
    > or we go back to flying as I remember it.

    Just get used to staying where you are. Mass air travel is on the way out, terrorism or no terrorism. Aircraft emissions are hideously bad for the planet and utterly dependent on a wasting resource that will only become scarcer and scarcer. Take this advance opportunity to rearrange your life so as not to depend on flitting hither and yon. If you wait, one day you'll look up and discover you're living by raising chickens in the alley behind your flat.
    posted by jfuller at 5:00 AM on August 10, 2006


    I find the general sentiment in this thread that this is some sort of fake-out by the UK government quite puzzling. Do you really not believe that there are people currently plotting to blow up civilians in the UK, US, and pretty much everywhere else? That seems, frankly, like willful ignorance.

    Well, there have been quite a few bogus arrests and over-reactions that have happened in the US and Canada since 9/11, the government has just cried wolf too many times. But I think there would be a much higher risk in the UK then the US.
    posted by delmoi at 5:05 AM on August 10, 2006


    Yeah, I think the scepticism from here in the UK is less that this is some entirely invented theatrical production on the part of the security services and the government, more that we've absolutely no confidence that this isn't yet another cock-up based on bad intelligence and a willingness to see terrorists around every corner.

    It's perfectly understandable when you consider the recent record of high-profile "terrorist incidents" in the UK - Jean Charles de Menezes (not a terrorist); the Ricin plot trial (there was not Ricin plot); the Old Trafford bomb plot (there was no Old Trafford bomb plot); the Red Mercury plot trial (there was no Red Mercury plot because Red Mercury is an entirely fictional substance); and most recently, the Forest Gate shooting (there were no terrorists, there were no chemical weapons, there might have been some kiddie porn).

    If this was the real thing, then a big woo yay to the good folks of the security services, and thank goodness the hideous bastards didn't manage to carry their plan out. But it's an entirely understandable and reasonable response to recent history if your first instinctive reaction is, "yeah, right."
    posted by flashboy at 5:10 AM on August 10, 2006


    Agreed, Delmoi. I don't mean to dismiss what's gone over here, or imply that I condone guantanamo or any of the other horrible violations of human rights and the US Constitution this administration has perpetuated since 9.11. But considering that there already were subway attacks in London, it just seems like an odd "knee jerk" response to dismiss the idea that the reports of a plot are valid out of hand.
    posted by miss tea at 5:11 AM on August 10, 2006


    The military would rather have people who -- initially, anyway -- are there because they wanted to be, and volunteered, out of whatever motivations, than people who are there because they didn't want to go to jail instead.

    You mean people like the Aryan Nation?

    "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."

    The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."
    posted by Fuzzy Monster at 5:14 AM on August 10, 2006


    If you wait, one day you'll look up and discover you're living by raising chickens in the alley behind your flat.

    Yup. Happened to me once.
    posted by Flashman at 5:17 AM on August 10, 2006


    The TSA Assistant Secretary just broke it down: no liquids on the plane, de-clutter your bags, and "enjoy your trip."
    posted by tsarfan at 5:19 AM on August 10, 2006


    Amazing how this comes out the day after Lieberman loses, right in the heart of primary season.

    We can't question the president. We're at war.

    Nevermind Tony Blair facing a backbench rebellion over Lebanon

    I wish I didn't have to think this way. But the Bush and Blair administration have this track record of pulling stunts when the news is going against them.

    I would not be surprised to find this was completely fake.

    Now, flying is going to be hell, people with no understanding of risk will piously intone that "we need to do this, the risk is too high" and will continue to die in the thousands from smoking, heart problems and car wrecks.

    I presume the TSA will be walking behind me, holding a lightning rod over my head, given that *lightning* has a better chance of killing me than a terrorist attack.
    posted by eriko at 5:25 AM on August 10, 2006


    I would argue that Optamystic's wasps nest is interested in rather more than Dubya and co. If you listen to their pronouncements, their quarrel with the West runs deeper than foreign policy (though I agree it has been provacative) or social exclusion (which also exacerbates this in the UK). What is scary is if you listen closely and read their ideological texts (check out some Al Banna or Qutb) you can see it is an existential question - they hate liberal democracies and open, tolerant societies as both run contrary to a global, theocratic fascist project.

    This may be true in some cases, but I don't think it's the statistical norm. First up, because until US troops turned up in Saudi Arabia terror attacks by Saudi Arabians on US soil were conspicuous by their absence. Second up, because for all the rhetoric there have been nearly three decades since the Islamic Revolution in Iran and we're still waiting for the first Iranian citizen to attack. The line between religion and mental illness is certainly a pretty thin one at times, but in general suicide terror seems to have fairly clear strategic aims. Robert Pape has analysed a mess of suicide bombings on this.
    posted by tannhauser at 5:26 AM on August 10, 2006


    This is an excellent opportunity to have:

    # Due process
    # Explanation of the evidence leading the authorities to learn of this dastardly plot
    # A fair trial


    Except, in the UK, the proper response to a terror suspect is to pump several 9mm bullets into his body at close range.

    Right?
    posted by eriko at 5:27 AM on August 10, 2006


    Now, flying is going to be hell, people with no understanding of risk will piously intone that "we need to do this, the risk is too high" and will continue to die in the thousands from smoking, heart problems and car wrecks.

    True. That'll happen regardless, though, of whether this thing turns out to be real or not.

    At the end of the day, the only thing we can trust in (hope for) is the professionalism of good people at Scotland Yard and the FBI, and hope their efforts aren't being torpedoed by political nonsense, as well as our own common sense.
    posted by psmealey at 5:31 AM on August 10, 2006


    i_am_a_jedi: You took the words right out of my mouth.

    I'm a bit young, so I am asking honestly, but what was the reaction like after PanAm flight 103 blew up? All this no liquids, no books, on the heels of no toenail clippers, leave your suitcase unlocked stuff just seems stupid and arbitrary to me. The word "terrorists" is used in hushed whispers the way "boogeyman" is used to get your kids to shut up and go to sleep at night.

    And pax digita, there are plenty of middle-class white people in the military, both college-bound, and those who have had at least some college, if not already degree-holders, looking to capitalize on the GI Bill and the Student Loan Repayment Program. I'm a little offended the way people who don't know constantly characterize the military as exclusively poor go-to-war-or-go-to-jail members of the underclass.
    posted by Hal Mumkin at 5:33 AM on August 10, 2006


    From The New York Times

    . . . Vice President Dick Cheney . . . went so far as to suggest that the ouster of Mr. Lieberman might encourage "al Qaeda types."

    Next day, MASSIVE TERROR THREAT.
    posted by eriko at 5:33 AM on August 10, 2006


    Is this the last nail in the coffin for airlines that have been teetering on the brink of economic collapse anyway?
    posted by gimonca at 5:34 AM on August 10, 2006


    At the end of the day, the only thing we can trust in (hope for) is the professionalism of good people at Scotland Yard and the FBI

    I don't know about the UK, but if that's our only hope, we are Seriously and Utterly Fucked.

    I seem to recall the fuckwad that gunned down that guy in the tube was London Met, not Scotland Yard. Maybe there is a liittle hope for the UK -- unless Blair decides this is how he gets ID cards rammed through.
    posted by eriko at 5:36 AM on August 10, 2006


    Amazing how this comes out the day after Lieberman loses

    eriko, your tinfoil helmet has slipped from "reasonable paranoia" to "I am mental".
    posted by ninebelow at 5:36 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


    Some people are going to be regretting picking up that cheap litre of duty free vodka.

    I don't know, they're guaranteed to sleep through their flight, even without an ipod, and as a bonus they probably won't remember the hassle of queuing to get on the plane anyway.
    posted by jacalata at 5:38 AM on August 10, 2006


    It's perfectly understandable when you consider the recent record of high-profile "terrorist incidents" in the UK - Jean Charles de Menezes (not a terrorist); the Ricin plot trial (there was not Ricin plot); the Old Trafford bomb plot (there was no Old Trafford bomb plot); the Red Mercury plot trial (there was no Red Mercury plot because Red Mercury is an entirely fictional substance); and most recently, the Forest Gate shooting (there were no terrorists, there were no chemical weapons, there might have been some kiddie porn).

    I was just compiling this exact list. The "plot" is utter bullshit until proved otherwise.
    posted by cillit bang at 5:40 AM on August 10, 2006


    Except, in the UK, the proper response to a terror suspect is to pump several 9mm bullets into his body at close range.

    The BBC are reporting that 21 people have been arrested - in a manner, no doubt in accordance with due process. Many of them may be tried and the story of what happened today will become evident then. If they aren't tried they will be released.

    I understand the cynicism that a lot of people, particularly Americans, have about this sort of terror alert. However it is simply overestimating the competence of Government to assume that this sort of thing is some sort of dasterdly plot to boost support for wars elsewhere or whatever. Simply too many people are involved for this to take place without a real basis.

    You might be cynical about the timing but even that would be very difficult to influence without the risk of discovery - and the political risks of being caught misleading the public or using the security services for political purposes would far outweigh any benefit. Occum's Razor applies as much to politics as to science!
    posted by prentiz at 5:41 AM on August 10, 2006


    I seem to recall the fuckwad that gunned down that guy in the tube was London Met, not Scotland Yard

    Scotland Yard = London Met
    posted by cillit bang at 5:42 AM on August 10, 2006


    Yeah, that's it, eriko. It's that damned vast right-wing conspiracy.

    Fuzzy Monster, don't forget to mention all the other gang members joining the military and then using military tactics upon returning to "thug life", also. Oh wait, I just saw your reference was the SPLC... nevermind, they probably accidentally forgot to mention those gang members.
    posted by CodeBaloo at 5:43 AM on August 10, 2006


    Really, Prenitz. Look at what your Home Secretary is saying.

    The majority of the public understood its seriousness but there were those who "just don't get it", whose opposition was undermining the struggle. They included:

    · Politicians who opposed the anti-terror measures the police and security services said were necessary to combat the threat.

    · European judges who passed the "Chahal judgment" that prohibited the home secretary from weighing the security of millions of British people if a suspected terrorist remained in the UK against the risk he faced if deported back to his own country.

    · The media commentators who "apparently give more prominence to the views of Islamist terrorists rather than democratically elected Muslim politicians like premier Maliki of Iraq or President Karzai of Afghanstan".


    Amazing, just amazing, how he says this yesterday, then today, MAJOR TERROR THREAT.

    Here's what you need to be thinking about.

    The home secretary yesterday gave the thinktank Demos his strongest hint yet that a new round of anti-terror legislation is on the way this autumn by warning that traditional civil liberty arguments were not so much wrong as just made for another age.


    HM Government has stated, quite clearly, that those civil liberties you're citing need to be changed. And, amusingly enough, the next day, a MAJOR TERROR THREAT appears, to show why things like due process, access to consel, and freedom of speech are just things that help the terrorists.

    I always thought that Ingsoc was over the top, but this is exactly how it happens, and the first step just happened, today.

    Just watch what gets tabled when Parliament sits again.
    posted by eriko at 5:49 AM on August 10, 2006


    Scotland Yard = London Met

    Ahh. In which case, I'd rather take my chances with the bombers, thank you.
    posted by eriko at 5:50 AM on August 10, 2006


    Salaryman- you write as if these ideas are beheld by the majority of Muslims - they are not. Just as the ideas beheld by the Bush administration on how to fight it are beheld by the majority of Americans or non-Muslims. What we have here are a small radical minority on either side dominating the dialogue. 99% of Muslims do not want to destroy Western society, just as 99% of Westerners do not want to destroy Islam.

    Why do we continue to allow the 1% bent on world domination to dictate the actions of the majority? Because just like Clinton said - in politics "wrong and strong" will always trump "weak and right". We need a worldwide populist uprising to end these corporate sponsored wars of avarice disguised as culture wars.
    posted by any major dude at 5:52 AM on August 10, 2006


    Turn down the emotion about recent wars and look deeper. This hate is more about how we live, love and are than many are prepared to admit.

    According to the theory presented in The Power of Nightmares (transcripts) documentary the contempt for non-fundamentalist societies was not born out of thin air.
    Their reasoning was forged in a crucible of CIA propagated torture:

    Egypt, 1954 VO: Torturers who had been trained by the CIA unleashed an orgy of violence against Muslim Brotherhood members accused of plotting to overthrow Nasser. At one point, Qutb was covered with animal fat and locked in a cell with dogs trained to attack humans. Inside the cell, he had a heart attack.

    VO: Qutb survived, but the torture had a powerful radicalizing effect on his ideas. Up to this point, he had believed that the Western secular ideas simply created the selfishness and the isolation he had seen in the United States. But the torture, he believed, showed that this culture also unleashed the most brutal and barbarous aspects of human beings. Qutb began to have an apocalyptic vision of a disease that was spreading from the West throughout the world. He called it jahilliyah—a state of barbarous ignorance. What made it so terrifying and insidious was that people didn’t realize that they were infected. They believed that they were free, and that their politicians were taking them forward to a new world. But in fact, they were regressing to a barbarous age.


    Following Qutb came Zawahiri:

    AYMAN ZAWAHIRI , in cage, shouting: Now, we want to speak to the whole world! Who are we? Who are we? Why did they bring us here? And what we want to say? About the first question: we are Muslims! We are Muslims who believed in their religion, in their broad feelings, as both an ideology and practice. We believed in our religion, both as an ideology and practice. And hence, we tried our best to establish [unintelligible] Islamic state and Islamic society!

    VO: At the trial, Zawahiri was sentenced to three years in prison, along with many others of Islamic Jihad. He was taken to cells behind the Police National Museum, where, like Sayyed Qutb, he was tortured. And under this torture, he began to interpret Qutb’s theories in a far more radical way. The mystery, for Zawahiri, was why the Egyptian people had failed to see the truth and rise up. It must be because the infection of selfish individualism had gone so deep into people’s minds that they were now as corrupted as their leaders. Zawahiri now seized on a terrible ambiguity in Qutb’s argument. It wasn’t just leaders like Sadat who were no longer real Muslims, it was the people themselves. And Zawahiri believed that this meant that they too could legitimately be killed. But such killing, Zawahiri believed, would have a noble purpose, because of the fear and the terror that it would create in the minds of ordinary Muslims. It would shock them into seeing reality in a different way. They would then see the truth.


    Wanted: Financial backer for global Islamic Jihad movement, megalomaniacs prefered.

    But there was a deep rift within the Islamist fighters based in Peshawar—between the moderates, led by Abdullah Azzam, who believed this revolution could be accomplished politically; and the extremists, like Ayman Zawahiri, who saw violent revolution as the only way. And Zawahiri now set out to extend his influence over the movement, and to undermine Abdullah Azzam. To do this, he seduced Osama bin-Laden—and his money—away from Azzam. He promised bin-Laden that he could become the emir, the leader of Zawahiri’s small extremist group, Islamic Jihad.

    This kind of extremism is matched by the US and UK with their 'bomb them into democracy' crusade which engenders further extremism.

    Do you really not believe that there are people currently plotting to blow up civilians in the UK, US, and pretty much everywhere else? That seems, frankly, like willful ignorance.

    There are people all over the world reconcidering the use of violence as a means to an end as a result of the new millenium of war-mongering on the part of the US/UK. They are leading by example.
    What is needed is to make the idea of using violence to acheive ones goals less attractive, most people realise that violence is self defeating. The radicalisation of public opinion in the UK has been lead by the government and the compliant press. The situation in the US is not much different.

    Just call me y2karl, I will take it as a compliment.
    posted by asok at 5:55 AM on August 10, 2006 [3 favorites]


    preferred, milennium and plenty of others no doubt.
    While I am in a quoting mood, here's Jonathan Freedland on the situation in Labanon:


    The result is that the core conflict has been allowed to fester. Had it been solved, or even if there had been a serious effort to solve it, the current crisis would have been unimaginable. Instead Bush's animating idea has been that the peoples of the Middle East can be bombed into democracy and terrorised into moderation. It has proved one of the great lethal mistakes of his abominable presidency - and the peoples of Israel and Lebanon are paying the price.

    posted by asok at 6:03 AM on August 10, 2006


    If I can't bring my mp3 player and book on a plane, then the terrorists have won.

    :-(
    posted by jaded at 6:04 AM on August 10, 2006


    prentiz, once again, much of the scepticism here has nothing to do with overestimating the compentency of the government - the suspicion is of cock-up, not conspiracy. I can't speak for the tinfoil couture brigade, but for my part, the instinct to shout "bollocks" at this is merely a gut reaction based on the fact that it has so often been bollocks before. It may well not be bollocks. But you'd be a fool if you didn't at least consider the bollocks option a possibility.

    The BBC are reporting that 21 people have been arrested - in a manner, no doubt in accordance with due process... If they aren't tried they will be released.

    The trouble is that no, this simply isn't the case. Due process has been violated repeatedly in recent times. People can be detained indefinitely without trial at the will of the Home Secretary. The Ricin plot suspects were acquitted in court, released, then re-arrested almost immediately on the say so of the Home Secretary.

    ...and the political risks of being caught misleading the public or using the security services for political purposes would far outweigh any benefit.

    Yeah, they might get re-elected, like the last time they were caught doing those things.
    posted by flashboy at 6:06 AM on August 10, 2006


    I'm waiting for a suicide bomber realizing he can hit a Greyhound/Trailways bus station in a big city at the beginning of a holiday weekend. Or a food court at a suburban shopping mall at lunchtime.

    Or that he can board a Docklands Light Railway train (there are no ticket barriers on the DLR) and travel all the way into Canary Wharf, bypassing the security checkpoints that stop every car that wants to get onto the estate, and blow the place up. Or travel on the DLR to Bank, in the heart of the city of London.
    posted by essexjan at 6:06 AM on August 10, 2006


    CodeBaloo, you're right that other gang members use tactics they've learned in the military, but white supremacists are joining up specifically to learn the tactics of domestic terrorism, all on the U.S. tax payer's dime.

    Here's another SPLC link:

    Military extremists present an elevated threat both to their fellow soldiers and the general public. Today's white supremacists become tomorrow's domestic terrorists.

    "Neo-Nazi groups and other extremists are joining the military in large numbers so they can get the best training in the world on weapons, combat tactics and explosives," said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project.

    "We should consider this a major security threat, because these people are motivated by an ideology that calls for race war and revolution. Any one of them could turn out to be the next Timothy McVeigh."
    posted by Fuzzy Monster at 6:08 AM on August 10, 2006


    prentiz: The BBC are reporting that 21 people have been arrested - in a manner, no doubt in accordance with due process. Many of them may be tried and the story of what happened today will become evident then. If they aren't tried they will be released.

    Unless the Home Secretary comes up with some other illegal bullshit to keep them locked up/under house arrest as he has with other people who have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism in the UK in recent years. Eight people were locked up without charge for over 4 years in high security facilities, when the Law Lords finally ruled that to be illegal John Reid had them placed under an 18 hour a day curfew, which was then also ruled illegal. He's now imposed 14 hour curfews instead. (Last week in fact, so maybe he's thinking some laws need toughening up.)

    It's also difficult to see how the De Menezes or the Abul Kahar Kalam cases followed due process, but at least the second was only shot and wounded in the total absence of any evidence of wrongdoing.

    Have you been hiding under a rock?
    posted by biffa at 6:09 AM on August 10, 2006


    fuckwad that gunned down that guy in the tube

    Incidentally, they are back on the job without any criminal proceedings or indeed disciplinary action on the part of the police.
    posted by asok at 6:10 AM on August 10, 2006


    I love the way The Power of Nightmares gets quoted again and again as authority for the absence of a militant Islamic threat - watch it again. It doesn't say that. It documents rather nicely the views and the threatful potential of militant islam (as several posters ironically note with their comments on the Muslim Brotherhood, etc) What it does deny is the existence of an organised group with a specific history called Al Qaeda as anything other than an invention of the Western intelligence agencies. So, hands up anyone who still believes in an Al Qaeda = Islamic SPECTRE now? The almost universal vision is of a de-centred "brand" - but that doesn't make it any less threatful, in fact it can make it more so (because of the home-grown autonomous nature)
    posted by A189Nut at 6:11 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


    If I can't bring my mp3 player and book on a plane, then the terrorists have won.

    Regardless of the lists on the news first hand testimony says you can still bring books onboard: "I was allowed to hang onto books if they could be carried loose."
    posted by ninebelow at 6:13 AM on August 10, 2006


    I love the way The Power of Nightmares gets quoted again and again as authority for the absence of a militant Islamic threat...

    Yeah. Who did that in this thread? Oh, that's right. Nobody.
    posted by flashboy at 6:14 AM on August 10, 2006


    Flashboy - I'm not ruling out cock up at all - I'm merely saying that a deliberate conspiracy of the type some people are suggesting is very unlikely.

    Eriko Are you seriously suggesting that, if this is a conspiracy on the part of the Government to bring in more repressive legislation they would carry it out the day after a speach on the subject! In fact the fact that this plot has been allegedly identified and dealt with without further restrictions on our civil liberties could be seen as an argument against restrictions.

    Don't get me wrong - I have no doubt that the Government is planning more draconian legislation in this areas and we must be vigilant in opposing it - but the idea that someone in an office in Whitehall says "We need a terrorist outrage on Thursday to support our legislative programme" and puff, one appears, is fantasy.
    posted by prentiz at 6:20 AM on August 10, 2006


    Thread level elevated to batshitinsane.
    posted by NewBornHippy at 6:22 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


    How the hell am I going to get my snake on the plane now?
    posted by essexjan at 6:23 AM on August 10, 2006 [5 favorites]


    It appears (from a simple random sample) that the immediate reaction of about 15-20% of MeFiers is to assume that any terror plot must actually faked by the government, for any variety of nefarious reasons. That is scary.

    Other news from the Interweb:

    US raises its alert to red for the first time.

    The plot involved liquid explosives.

    And Drudge (I know, I know) is reporting that those held are of Pakistani descent, for whatever that is worth.
    posted by blahblahblah at 6:24 AM on August 10, 2006


    Hannah Pillinger, 24, seemed less concerned by the announcement. "Eight hours without an iPod, that's the most inconvenient thing," she said, waiting at the Manchester airport. (quote from this)
    posted by poppo at 6:29 AM on August 10, 2006


    A similar plot was foiled in Manila in 1995 - Oplan Bojinka.
    posted by riotgrrl69 at 6:30 AM on August 10, 2006


    And Drudge (I know, I know) is reporting that those held are of Pakistani descent, for whatever that is worth.

    Oh shit, we better send some more nukes to India!
    posted by sonofsamiam at 6:32 AM on August 10, 2006


    I love how our leaders are somehow always smart enough to not be near it.

    msnbc.com says blair is in the carribean "on holiday"
    msnbc.com says bush is on his ranch in texas for vacation
    posted by bmpetow at 6:34 AM on August 10, 2006


    I didn't know they recycled in the UK?

    Operation Bojinka from Cooperative Research Commons:
    Responding to an apartment fire, Philippine investigators uncover an al-Qaeda plot to assassinate the Pope that is scheduled to take place when he visits the Philippines one week later. While investigating that scheme, they also uncover Operation Bojinka, planned by the same people: 1993 WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. [Independent, 6/6/2002; Los Angeles Times, 6/24/2002; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002] The first phase of the plan is to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean. [Agence France-Presse, 12/8/2001] Had this plot been successful, up to 4,000 people would have been killed in planes flying to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, and New York. [Insight, 5/27/2002] All the bombs would be planted at about the same time, but some would be timed to go off weeks or even months later. Presumably worldwide air travel could be interrupted for months. [Lance, 2003, pp. 260-61] This phase of Operation Bojinka was scheduled to go forward just two weeks later on January 21. [Insight, 5/27/2002]

    posted by rzklkng at 6:34 AM on August 10, 2006


    Grrr...what rrrriotgrl said. /sulks.
    posted by rzklkng at 6:35 AM on August 10, 2006


    BREAKING NEWS: The liquid explosives involve some sort of combination of minty fresh mentos and some sort of diet cola product. Updates will be posted as information is made available...
    posted by blue_beetle at 6:37 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


    Amazing how this comes out the day after Lieberman loses, right in the heart of primary season.

    Bahahahahahahahahaha! *wipes eyes* Thanks for the laugh, eriko! You made my morning.
    posted by pardonyou? at 6:39 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


    I love how our leaders are somehow always smart enough to not be near it.

    Right, because otherwise they would be flying coach class out of Heathrow
    posted by blahblahblah at 6:39 AM on August 10, 2006


    rzklkng: i mentioned bojinka earlier in the thread, so rrrriotgirl can /sulk as well ;)
    i can't believe the media are not making the connection here. first thing that sprang to mind when I heard about it.
    posted by toffee at 6:41 AM on August 10, 2006


    If Pakistanis are involved, then we must bomb Iran.
    posted by bardic at 6:43 AM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite]


    15-20% of MeFiers is to assume that any terror plot must actually faked by the government, for any variety of nefarious reasons. That is scary.

    You know, I'll agree. But I live in a country where terror threats have been consistently and repeatedly used for political gain.

    We haven't seen the threat level change once since the 2004 elections, until now -- in the leadup to the 2006 midterms, just after a noted supporter of the president was defeated in a primary election.

    Teresa Nielsen Hayden said it best -- "I resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist" -- But only a fool believes them when they say this is a real threat. They have lied about that before, and the timing was always to their advantage. Now, in the face of a major defeat, bam, MAJOR TERROR ALERT. Suddenly, Ned Lamont isn't on the radar at all.

    It is quite amazing that just as the GOP is ramping up the "Lamont victory proves the Democrats are soft on terror" campaign, this large attack magically appears, our threat level leaps, yadda yadda yadda.

    There's an old saying -- you make your own luck. BushCo and BlairCo are the luckiest people I know.
    posted by eriko at 6:46 AM on August 10, 2006


    From the previous Bojinka plot:
    The first phase of the plan is to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean. [Agence France-Presse, 12/8/2001] Had this plot been successful, up to 4,000 people would have been killed in planes flying to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, and New York.

    For the current plot, I didn't get the impression that these explosives were meant to go off over the water; rather, the thinking is that they would have been detonated once the planes were over a metro area, and since these flights were US-bound, that the detonations would have taken place over US cities, thus potentially creating huge ground casualties.
    posted by LondonYank at 6:46 AM on August 10, 2006


    ...is reporting that those held are of Pakistani descent

    Don't remember where I read it, but I saw Brits of "asian descent" I think.
    posted by CodeBaloo at 6:52 AM on August 10, 2006


    CodeBaloo - "asian descent" here can mean Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Indian as well as south east asian.
    posted by handee at 6:53 AM on August 10, 2006


    It is quite amazing that just as the GOP is ramping up the "Lamont victory proves the Democrats are soft on terror" campaign, this large attack magically appears, our threat level leaps, yadda yadda yadda.

    If this had happened on any of the previous 1000 days, you would still be on here saying how it was amazing timing.
    posted by riotgrrl69 at 6:56 AM on August 10, 2006


    BBC said mostly British-born of Pakistani origin.
    posted by riotgrrl69 at 6:57 AM on August 10, 2006


    Yes LondonYank. Here on the news in Australia they've been reporting that the bombs were to be detonated above both UK and US cities.

    I'm as cynical as they come. But, I can't believe they would effectively shut down Heathrow unless there was a real threat.

    Or maybe we should just sit tight and hope nothing happens. At least we get to listen to our ipods.
    posted by Diag at 7:04 AM on August 10, 2006


    "major defeat"?

    Surely you can't still be talking about the Leiberman bit. Can you? I mean, really now. A guy beats the incumbent for a solitary congressional seat -- in a primary, no less, not even a real election -- when everyone (even the DNC) knows that he'll keep the seat anyway as an independent, and that is the so-called "major defeat" that nudged the vast right-wing conspiracy machine into gear prompting another country to pick out 21+ random citizens to arrest and shut down hundreds of flights at an astronomic economic cost -- all so they can raise the terror alert level? Riiiiight.
    posted by CodeBaloo at 7:05 AM on August 10, 2006


    Everybody is a potential terrorist.
    The 18 arrested are suspected terrorists.
    Once our paranoia reaches appropriate levels everybody will be a suspected terrorist.
    posted by spock at 7:06 AM on August 10, 2006


    I can't believe they would effectively shut down Heathrow unless there was a real threat.

    Not to overemphasize the point, but... they'll shut down Heathrow if they believe there is a real threat. And, right now, there's no reason to trust their beliefs.
    posted by suckerpunch at 7:07 AM on August 10, 2006


    "Pakistani descent" from a British source most likely means born in Britain but with Pakistani ancestry. It's not that uncommon, between 10-15% of the population my home town (Bradford) would qualify.
    posted by vbfg at 7:07 AM on August 10, 2006


    Given: Bush/Blair have been the best thing EVAR for terrorist recruitment.

    Result: Terrorists will want Bush/Blair-types to be (re)elected for as long as possible.
    posted by spock at 7:09 AM on August 10, 2006


    will continue to die in the thousands from smoking, heart problems and car wrecks.

    So the issue isn't that this is all becoming too much of a 'nanny state' but its not nanny state enough? Here in hell, Satan even makes sure you dont use too much toilet paper (theres been a shortage). Trust me, you dont want this.
    posted by the ghost of Ken Lay at 7:13 AM on August 10, 2006


    And, right now, there's no reason to trust their beliefs.

    So if the UK security forces are convinced that an event could occur, they should just shut up and see what happens?

    Is that what US security did on 9/11?

    I appreciate your point. But I don't really see any reasonable alternative to what is happening at the moment.

    (sorry, I won't reply - time for bed in my part of the world)
    posted by Diag at 7:16 AM on August 10, 2006