Police Find Explosives in an S.U.V. in Times Square

I'm kind of under the impression that the Fed held back to lure out others and watch him make moves. I don't think they want to spook him. The arrest of 8 men in Pakistan that might have been related to this may end up validating this theory. However, Pakistan does have a **** record of just handing over people to the US Gov to look helpful (even if they aren't guilty of anything.

T
K
O

Didn't you also advance a "theory" that this was the work of a right-wing extremist? Not sure anyone should bet on your hunches.

Coming late to this thread has provided for an interesting perspective.

#1 - The banal nature of the majority of posts is, frankly, surprising. This was a very real attempt to sow death and destruction, yet again, in NYC. The fact that it was unsuccessful is a matter of pure luck. If the terrorist had been only a little more competent this thread would, I hope, not be so filled with so much banality: eg - the argument that the street vendors didn't deserved any credit

#2 The discipline of the majority of posters in not addressing the fact that this was yet another Islamist terrorist. Sure, early on no one knew what anyone with common sense suspected but the early post that indicated the Taliban took credit was virtually untouched as if it was radioactive.

#3 As someone who suffered the slings and arrows of outraged Liberal A2Kers when I suggested very early on that those involved in the Mumbai and Ft Hood massacres were muslims, I find it both amusing and telling that no one took any umbrage with the entirely unsubstantiated "theory" of Diest that it was the handiwork of Right-wingers.

To be fair, no one jumped on Diest's rickety bandwagon, but neither did anyone scold him for prejudice or premature ejaculation (maybe the latter was in consideration of his youth).

This was, YET AGAIN, another attempt by Islamists to kill Americans and spread terror.

If we were scoring Islamists against all other varieties of terrorists (let alone the Right-wing variety), the Islamists would be kicking ass, and yet it remains taboo among those on the Left to touch reality.

So much Left-wing effort (Including the current and past president's) has been expended of late to paint the Tea Parties as incubators of violence that I'm sure there was a massive, collective sigh of disappointment when it was revealed that, yep...it was another Islamist.

"Why couldn't that evil billionaire Blumberg have been right?!"

Didn't hear a word from you about the guy that crashed a plane into the building in Dallas.
Incidentally, who ever said the vendor deserved no credit? I don't recall anyone saying that on this thread.

It was Austin, not Dallas, but how is it relevant that I didn't post anything concerning that incident?

You also didn't "hear" a word from me about the guy in Dallas who tried to take a building down with a car bomb, but you did "hear" from me on the Michigan militia that planned a massacre of law enforcement agents.

What's your point?

What's yours?

I'm torn.
Really.
My background is in television news.
I love cops.
I love the First Amendment.
I want the FBI to do it's job,

I want the news.....
but
this is nuts.


In brief, the story relates how, because of FBI vs. NYPD rivalries, reporters were able to broadcast tip after tip to the PERSON under surveillance. He could find out that the police had located the secondary VI-Number, he could find out that the police were looking for a man from Shelton, CT. Duh. Might take the surprise out of things for him.



Meanwhile, the cops are trying to figure out whether the guy will try to shoot his way out. (They do try to plan different strategies if they are going to be under fire.) I'm shocked a reporter didn't go knock on the guy's door and maybe get himself taken hostage.

aRRGGH.
Please call or email your local station and tell them to stop telling the other terrorizers precisely where this guy got it wrong.
(Now here's Pat McDougal in our newsroom to show exactly how the bomb should have been wired.
Thanks, Doug and Karen. Well, this should have been a really simple bit of circuitry. Here are the components: wire, a battery for a power source, the actual explosive material and a clock to act as a primitive timer. We have a graphic we can put up now....)

(Yes, he did a dry run into Times Square last week and left himself a get-a-way car, BUT he left the keys to that car in the smoking SUV. !!)

Other terrorists take note, make sure you take the keys.
====
After the Oklahoma City bombing, the folks down there broadcast the interesting tidbit that the reason Tim McVeigh had gotten stopped by the Hwy Patrol was he didn't have a license plate on his car. (he was a nutjob who believed such things were an invasion of rights by an oppressive State govt.) After that word got out, I thought, well, any chance we had at nailing some other gun-nuts are gone. They are going to shoot up or bomb down some other symbol of government jackbootness, slap a license plate on their rusted-out 1991 Chevy Bel-Aire and drive off into the sunset.

Joe(Yes, it was completely covered in camo paint and had the slogan "Daeth before Disthoner"* on it, but Sarge, it had a plate.)Nation

*Actual Tea Party Sign

One other tid bit they passed along to potential bombers, too: The vin number is also on the bottom of the engine. I didn't know that and the guy in NYC apparently also did not know.

Finn, I wouldn't go that far, but thanks for showing up to bathe us in your impotent fury.

Given that there have been real efforts by right-wing extremists to do harm in the USA, it was perfectly fine to note as a possibility. I certainly was honest that it was only a possibility. I'm talking about groups the like the Christian militia Hutaree in Michigan and Ohio.

It's funny to hear you talk about the banal nature of the posts here. you've been rather banal about the right-wing attacks/attempts made here in the US. As it's been pointed out in another thread here on A2K, two large terrorist plots have failed in the USA recently.

1) A bunch of white Christians want to attack and kill police officers to start a violent coup de tat. They got out on bail.

2) An American from Pakistan attempts to make a car bomb and it fails to go off. 8 arrests made in Pakistan the next day with a potential relation. McCain argues that the man should not have been read Miranda rights.

I'm glad both were caught, but it seems only the guy from Pakistan is being labeled a terrorist.

Besides, in the same post that I made the suggestion, I even said that it was unlikely. You're just doing your usual search for something to make you into a victim.

How does it go again?..


That's right.
K
O

Update: It looks like I spoke too soon (perhaps). In MI, they've currently stopped the release of the 9 Christian militia Hutaree plotters!

T
K
O

That you don't have one.

You come in here being a rude ass to people and then expect to be greeted with open arms?

I don't think anyone has a banal attitude toward terrorists. And yes this thread would have been a very different thread had this terrorists plan worked. However, when I read this thread I was reminded of the rounding up of Japanese and German citizens during the WWII in Canada and the US. This proved to be a grave mistake made by both countries.
Now, while the latest attempted bombing was done by a Islamist (your word not mine) I'm not for the wholesale tarring and feathering of one specific group. I don't believe all right wingers are interested in the tea party or in militias either. I also haven't under estimated the American people's intelligence as this thread first opined. At first nobody knew who did this and when we all found out, did we really need it pointed out he was a Muslim??? What else would he have been? A jew from Pakistan. Hardly.

But it is interesting that many in the US are surprised that these events occur. The US is at war with several countries in the Middle East and by definition most of their citizens are Muslims. Far more people have been killed at the hand of the Allies than by the hand of the Taliban. I'm not discounting the damage they've done or the fact that they are a horrible group of people. But it doesn't surprise me there would be attempts to retaliate. It does not mean that every person of this faith/or culture is a potential terrorist.
Just as every person of Japanese background was not a spy in 1942.

This latest guy is singing like a bird and people here want to waterboard him. Why? This sounds more like spite than any real intelligence gathering technique. I've read interviews from intelligence gatherers who say this is not a reliable fact gathering method anyway. In fact, it's been proven torture almost always gets untruths or the intelligence gathered is what the torturer wants to hear.
But because i haven't been tortured, the articles and books I've read from the experts must be wrong, these guys don't know what they are talking about... I guess. Only the armchair quarterbacks have got it right.... I guess. Not.

edgar, you consistently crack me up.

How you've interpreted anything I've written as wanting to be welcomed with open arms is beyond me, but what's really amusing is how you respond to the charge of irrelevance with a comment even more irrelevant than the original.

I can appreciate that my comments might infuriate, annoy, or even frustrate you, but you would be better served by debating or ignoring them rather than tossing off random claptrap that is entirely irrelevant.

Joe, it sounds like law enforcement is the cause of the leaks. Emailing the stations may or may not be productive, but maybe the leakers need to be reigned in first.

"Impotent fury?"

Interesting.

I would call it disdain rather than fury, but in so far as that it is unlikely to change any opinions or attitudes on this thread, I would agree that it is impotent.

Of course I didn't post the comments as an effort to affect change and so their failure to do so doesn't bother me in the way in which your attempted barb was intended.

More interesting though is that you have actually combined "impotent" with "(right-winger) fury." Aren't you of the opinion that the publicly expressed anger of right-wingers is, in and of itself, dangerous, even if the specific right-wingers themselves are not?

If angry Tea Party rhetoric and signs are dangerously close to fueling the violent hatred of some right-wing nut, surely my "furious" comments on A2K put us all in peril --- even just a little bit?

Nothing really wrong with your suggesting the Times Square bomber was a right-winger trying to prove Obama is impotent, except that by any standard, the odds far more greatly favored him being an Islamist. So you were simply, predictably, wrong despite how fervently you may have wished you were right.

Again, any half-way knowledgeable gambler shouldn't bet on your hunches.

I wonder if you know what banal means.

Apparently you either haven't read Hamlet or can't appreciate sarcasm, but I assure you that I do not, in any way, consider myself a "victim."

Why would I, and at whose hands?

A2K liberals?

I pointed out the reaction to my posts concerning Islamists only to illustrate the hypocrisy so clearly evidenced by this thread.

So do your worst young Jedi; heap your scorn and derision upon me. I can take it, for as I am righteous and correct, therefore have I the strength of a thousand.

Oh, no doubt, Irishk, the cops and anybody at the FBI need to be dope-slapped. BUT... editors and news directors have the final say on what goes on the air or the page. They have to be held to the very high standard of common sense.

If you want to see a 'wha?' look in a newsroom, repeat what I said about common sense.

Joe(vs. hot news!)Nation

I agree completely, Ceili.

It shouldn't be surprising that a group of people who are under attack by the US would want to retaliate.

What should be surprising is that some Americans and Westerners view the US and Islamists as moral equivalents.

They attack us and we strike back --- we attack them and they strike back. Hey, same difference!

You obviously have a problem with the term "Islamist." Why?

It is a deliberate attempt to distinguish the terrorists from other muslims while acknowledging that their ideological core and motivating force is their interpretation of Islam.

If Timothy McVeigh invoked the Bible and Christianity as the justification for his heinous act than he would have been a Christian Terrorist or a "Christist"

Arguably the fellow who shot the abortion doctor was a "Christist," and I wouldn't find it hard to agree with such a characterization.

But let's line up the Christists against the Islamists:

Right-wing extremists may be a threat to the USA, but by any measure, it is clear that Islamists represent a far greater threat to the US than Christists.

By any similar measure, Islamists represent a greater threat to this country than do the broader category of Right-wing terrorists.

This doesn't mean that we should ignore actual Christist or Right-wing threats, but it is ridiculous, and clearly political, to suggest that non-Islamist (wrap them all up together) threats are equal in scope to the threat of Islamists.

From a practical standpoint this is important. We have limited resources and if for political reasons we devote the same level of those resources towards protecting us from the lesser threat as we do the greater threat, we're in trouble.

It is utter nonsense to equate a concern with the all too prevalent common denominator of Islam in terrorist attacks on the US with FDR's imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. (But thanks for educating me on the Canuks imprisoning their citizens of German nationality --- I'll be sure to use that one on my smug Canadian friends)

Not to be a smug Canadian, while Canada did indeed intern Germans, they were captured soldiers. The USA interned citizens of the US and Latin america. Slightly different I'd say.

Islamist isn't really a word, but then neither is Christist.

This is not clear at all.