The anatomy of a plot

Bojinka part deux was thankfully no more successful than it's predecessor but did manage to stir up more political waves. We had the spectacle of democrats running to the nearest podium to begin blaming the newest round of Islamohate on Bush and making sure nobody forgot about Iraq before the plot details were fully known. Think they had any inkling?

The AP even did the politicos one better--they released a story about Abu Ghraib. But let's be fair. Cheney spun the plot on behalf of the right:

The vice president suggested that Lamont's victory might encourage "the al-Qaida types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task."

True or not, they may want to go easier on the rhetoric. After all, Lieberman's bi-partisan approach to fighting terrorism was what appealed to most of us. The Cap'n beat me to this, but hey--he's the Cap'n, I'm just some squiggling amoeba gnat according to that teddy bear chart thing.

But what about the plot itself? Let's get it straight upfront--I have the utmost pride and respect for the folks in the CIA, FBI, NSA, MI5, MI6 and other state intels involved in bringing this down. They've taken a lot of Shiite over the last few years and deserve a standing-O.

Caveat number two--the following isn't designed to take away from the horrific nature of the plot and the pain and suffering that would have been left on the families. Yet somehow I can't help but wonder how it would have played with the public had it been successful.

Assuming they managed to bring down seven of ten planes (passengers or crew fighting back on the others) we'd have seen several thousand killed--gut wrenchingly horrific--but not quite to the level of 9/11.

Nothing so far has matched the shock-terror of watching the towers crumble down in real-time. The only thing worse was seeing people jumping off a 110 story building to their deaths immediately before, therefore it's hard to view this operation as greater than 9/11 (although we aren't privy to all the data). For instance, had they exploded all the planes over the open ocean the impact would have been muted due to lack of live TV. Even getting a TV crew to the scene would have been hard.

Maybe they were planning to wait until over land to set off the bombs, but that would have been a gamble. BOS, LGA and JFK are occasionally configured for over-water approaches, same for LAX. Waiting would give passengers a chance to watch the sweat beads forming on their foreheads or to notice the many trips to the lavatory, heightening suspicion. People of Middle Eastern appearance already have a built-in suspicion as it is.

Waiting would also give them less time to get the mix right, running the risk of not exploding their ordnance before touchdown. Such a small scale explosion on the ground would not be nearly as spectacular and many might have survived.

Thinking back, had the original Bojinka been successful it would have represented the worst terrorist attack in history to that point. It was eclipsed by 9/11, but unfortunately AQ has placed themselves in the position of having to either explode a nuke, dirty bomb or set off a chem-bio attack in a civilian area to garner a reaction worse than in 2001.

That kinda bothers me, since we don't know what else might be brewing out there. But assuming this was AQ's 'big one' for the present time, and seeing how easily we sniffed it out and capped it, that surely says something about their current capacities, and ours.

MORE 8/12/06

Right Truth points to a UK Telegraph article stating the plot was to have been August 22nd, not the 16th. Debbie has been less impressed all along with the sectarian division argument posed by others and routinely advanced here.

If confirmed it seems to disturbingly suggest the Islamists are now working towards the vision projected by the former Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi, who preached that Islam should set aside divisions and come together in an effort to defeat the great Satan.

Yet, recent evidence doesn't bear that out. From what we know Hizballah hasn't invited Hamas or Islamic Jihad onto the Lebanese battlefield with them. Usama bin Laden has been completely silent on the Lebanese Jihad, and while Zawahiri's message proclaimed AQ would not remain silent on the issue, it stopped short of naming Nasrallah or attributing hero status to anyone other than al-Zarqawi.

According to the internets some believe the two sects are closer together than the west makes it seem, while others believe the gap is insurmountable. The enigma of our time.

It's more likely the average Ali, both Sunni and Shi'a, have been kept relatively uneducated and stirred up for the purposes of manipulation at the hands of corrupt leaders and others without their best interests at heart. At any rate, there is little we can do about it now, so whether idealistically divided or even just using Islam as a cloak for murder and self-aggrandizement, this enemy cannot be ignored.