Europhobia

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Missed this earlier - the New York Police Department also agree with my assessment of the 7th July bombers. It's like I'm some kind of terrorism expert or something. Which would be an even more worrying thought...

6 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Regardless of whether the 'second wave' of bombers were connected to the first, or whether they meant to kill people or to create terror, they still broke the law in a major way. They knew exactly what effect they would cause, and knew exactly how to do it. So please forgive me if I don't give a damn about their pleading of 'we didn't mean to kill anyone'. Throw the book at them, and let's never hear from these scum again.; 8/05/2005 12:13:00 am
Anonymous said...: If they seriously believed 'hey, the nice al qaeda man made me a flour bomb, bet it would be funny to let that off on a bus' then they are not exactly the bushiest beard in the mosque.; 8/05/2005 12:46:00 am
Eric S said...: I don't think NM was arguing that they should be treated as minor criminals...just that their work seemed rather amateurish from start to finish.

You're completely right in saying that they knew what effect their wanna-bombs would have. I don't think we should give them too much credit for knowing this, or for knowing "exactly how to do it", though. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to follow their line of thought--essentially it was just a poorly executed attempt to copy the attacks of 7/7. At no point have their actions made them look like anything but untrained, undisciplined amateurs.

Incompetence certainly shouldn't lessen the penalty, of course. Their pathetic attempts to say the bombing attempts were a form of "peaceful protest" certainly shouldn't convince anyone to lighten their sentences.

Of course, the fact that the bombers are 'home-grown' amateurs isn't necessarily comforting...but that's a different issue.; 8/05/2005 01:24:00 am
C. Hedges said...: We have to worry about the copy-cats who will come out of the wood work with the release of another terrorist scare video.

I wonder if the bombers realized that they would galvanize public opinion against them when they made their plans.

Another attack will will be like sticking a hand into a hornet's nest. Despite a peace movement and general disdain for war, if terrorists attack again, they can be sure that most people will support massive retailation.

Look at what happened with the Metropolitan Police and their "shoot to kill" orders in a city run by a left-leaning mayor.

Deliberate Chaos; 8/05/2005 04:46:00 am
Nosemonkey said...: Richie - no doubt. And as Soru says, if they were genuinely trusting enough to take a bag full of "fake" explosives from some nice man at the mosque, they should be grateful that they'll only end up banged up for life. I have no idea whether the second lot were connected to the first (I doubt it, except possibly very vaguely), all I do know is that all of them, those on the 7th and those on the 21st, strike me as being rather crap at this whole terrorism lark.

Chris - When powerless to do anything people often like to hit out in rage. The only question is, against whom, exactly, can we justly retaliate?; 8/05/2005 09:46:00 am
Anonymous said...: Nosemonkey- I do agree with your assessment that these lot are crap amateurs. For instance, the cricket carried on during the second attacks, and these are people who are scared of a bit of bad light, or drizzly rain. Hardly the work of anyone to be legitimatly scared of.

I'm just hoping the extradition of the Italian suspect goes smoothly. I have a nasty feeling in my gut that it's going to go pear shaped soon enough.; 8/05/2005 12:04:00 pm