[sminch]

whenever there's a terrorist attack against a western country the media seem to tell us that the attacks were amazingly well planned, deviously conceived, virtual miracles of organisation. the thing is, i'm not at all convinced that this is the case.

for example, september 11 - is it really that hard (or rather, was it really that hard) to get a small group of men on to a couple of planes at the same time and then take control simultaneously? of course it will be harder than just doing this in a single plane but is it that hard to book yourselves on to flights that are airborne at the same time? that hard to all whip out your knives at the same time? i assume terrorist do have competent travel agents and watches that work, right?

ditto for the recent bombings in london - the papers seemed to be telling me that this was a brilliantly coordinated attack, but i don't see it. make a couple of bombs, give them to a couple of guys, agree to set them off at X:00 o'clock, and you're sorted. it turns out that the guy who set off his bomb on the bus didn't do this so that he could cunningly target those who had to take a bus after the subways were stopped, but did it because the subways were stopped and that meant he couldn't get onto the train he was meant to target.

so my point is, and please feel free to point out where i'm wrong, attacks like this aren't all that amazing, and i'd wager that any group of non screw-ups could have managed them. i reckon we're told that these attacks were brilliant just to make us feel better - they must have been brilliant or they couldn't possibly have managed to carry out an attack against us!

or am i missing something?

sminch

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

I am rather impressed that a bunch of easterners can attend American flying schools and get taught how to fly but not land or take off yet no red flags went off.

Not to mention handling a large plane they have never flown before and nailing a narrow target like the WTC and the very low to the ground Pentagon.

So...
1) They are smart for planing all this and nobody reacting to it.
2) A small group of terrorists have pretty much ****ed over the US and all it's people in many ways.

[black bear theory]

getting on a plane in america was not all that difficult. even with several people who knew each other to be on the same plane, it isn't difficult to make it so that it doesn't appear suspicious. hijacking a plane _is_ difficult, but if you have four people working with you, it's that much easier. even then the 'success' rate was 75%. not foolproof.

the ingenious part _was_ it's simplicity. it didn't involve smuggling or buying illegal weapons rather simply doing what any person could do over the internet. they exploited what we take for granted - free movement.

and i thought this was about the incident in iraq today, where a mere whisper, a rumour, whether intentional or not, caused 100's of death. now that is the definition of terror, a mere idea put in someone's head leading to such a great loss of life.

[black bear theory]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

I am rather impressed that a bunch of easterners can attend American flying schools and get taught how to fly but not land or take off yet no red flags went off.

IIRC an FBI agent did raise concerns but they were ignored.

[sminch]

I am rather impressed that a bunch of easterners can attend American flying schools and get taught how to fly but not land or take off yet no red flags went off.

surely this was more luck than anything - if anything it was actually a stupid thing to do, and they should have done the training somewhere they'd be less likely to get picked up (couldn't they have done it in asia?). if an fbi agent raised concerns but was ignored, then even more so.

definitely it was a cunning plan to use planes as bombs, and it took a fair bit of skill / luck to hit a small target when you've never flown before.

and i thought this was about the incident in iraq today, where a mere whisper, a rumour, whether intentional or not, caused 100's of death. now that is the definition of terror, a mere idea put in someone's head leading to such a great loss of life.

very very true - get people scared enough and they'll panic easily enough to do the killing themselves.

sminch

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by sminch

ditto for the recent bombings in london - the papers seemed to be telling me that this was a brilliantly coordinated attack, but i don't see it. make a couple of bombs, give them to a couple of guys, agree to set them off at X:00 o'clock, and you're sorted. it turns out that the guy who set off his bomb on the bus didn't do this so that he could cunningly target those who had to take a bus after the subways were stopped, but did it because the subways were stopped and that meant he couldn't get onto the train he was meant to target.

i reckon we're told that these attacks were brilliant just to make us feel better - they must have been brilliant or they couldn't possibly have managed to carry out an attack against us!

Yep. That's my take on it all too. Give me some bombs, the will to die for a cause, a few mobile phones and a few stupid youths and I'd whip you up another London bombing for tommorrow morning.
The UK government has been spinning this something rotten in an attempt to make us all feel safe.

Check here for some people noticing the government spin:
http://www.ukipforum.co.uk/about5362.html

I rather suspect that a lot of this cover-up which has been going on is to prevent civil war.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I've thought the same thing. We give terrorists way too much credit for being cunning, when in reality they pull off sucker-punch 'pranks' (albeit, deadly ones) that aren't in reality all that intricate or even very imaginative.

Most of the stunts terrorists pull don’t take above average wit, or intellect- it takes an ability to be a complete mean-spirited asshole prick above all else. Being mean spirited and therefore willing to pull off nasty sucker-punches against innocents does not in any way equate to being shrewd, crafty or even very intelligent.

Politicians make a big deal of overselling terrorists as shrewd masterminds because they'd look even worse admitting that a bunch of brick-skulls could out maneuver them and cause such ruckus.

I guess we should all be thankful the terrorists aren't generally all that clever or creative. Anyone who actually is can think of any number of horrific ways they could pull off terror stunts if they were ever so inclined. I'm sure any of us, at some point has found themselves in locations/situations where we've thought "If I was a terrorist and I pulled off thus and such right now, it'd cause absolute havoc. WHY don't real terrorists ever think of this?"

Thankfully, they don't.

[Millennium]

Osama bin Laden put it best: American law enforcement has to get lucky every time, but the terrorists only have to get lucky once. If we look at 2001 -the year 9/11 struck- then assuming the stats of some 20 threats coming into government agencies per day, only four attacks got through: the planes of 9/11. That's a success rate of over 99.96% at filtering out hoaxes and thwarting genuine threats. If we extend the period out over several years before 9/11, when no attacks were made on US soil, then the success rate is even higher. Is it truly reasonable to expect better than that? People do make mistakes; you cannot achieve a 100% success rate. This was, admittedly, one hell of a set of attacks to get through, but as the only set of attacks to get through, I can't really find much fault in the system.

Terrorists are not sane people, but the stereotype of a psychopath as a raving lunatic isn't valid. Most psychopaths (terrorist and otherwise) are at least as rational as you or I, and in some ways even more so. When a flight school receives a new applicant, their first thought is not how likely that person is to fly planes into buildings, and to be perfectly frank it shouldn't be their first thought either. It takes a fair amount of luck to pull off a surprise attack, but careful planning can reduce the amount of luck you need. Get it low enough, and you can get through.