Let us assume for a moment that the parcel bombs sent to Jewish targets in Chicago were viable devices and this was a real attack by anti-Jewish, and probably Islamic, terrorists. There are other possible explanations, but it is not improbable this was a real attempted attack.
We are looking at low level, workaday terrorism. Parcel bombs were not infrequent in the UK in my youth, and the Unabomber caused extraordinary levels of alarm in the United States. Any loss of life is deplorable, but the scale of this threat appears to have been small.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69S37420101030?pageNumber=1
It is hard to believe that a parcel bomb would have killed more than a couple of people – there have been a large number of parcel bombs used over decades, and they do not cause mass casualties. Now two or three dead or injured people is too many, but the worldwide media coverage is completely disproportionate to the threat – if they covered every two or three actually, not potentially, dead Afghans in this depth, they would never cover anything else.
It is of course possible that the media coverage was the aim rather than two or three unfortunate people in Chicago. The easy and extremely detailed tip off from the Saudi security services is very interesting. If publicity rather than death was the aim, that rather widens the field of people who might have been behind it.
Alan you are wrong to have that ‘feeling’ – an ‘eye for an eye’ resides in the minds of terrorists, the pathologically disturbed and corrupt leaders (including their administrators) – I believe in Craig’s supporters and contributors – nobody here condones violence, death and destruction (attempted or not) in whatever form and I *also* have a feeling you regret saying that.
I prefered it before alan’s self righteousness killed the humour.
Technicolour is right. When I put my shopping bags down when I’m in town, I have this stupid fantasy of what I’d do if some security guard said it was a bomb, and how I’d try to stop them doing a controlled explosion on my groceries. That’s what I worry about, not a bomb going off in the High Street.
Look, it’s always better to have a dialogue than either just a shouting-match or a sort of unending wise-cracking riposte scenario. At the risk of sounding hopelessly ‘Islingtonian’, I’m pleased Alan’s actually talked to other people on this thread, given that he’s been posting on the site for quite a while. It’s much appreciated, by me, anyway.
Clark, I’m just about to go shopping – don’t freak me out! The question is, should I, or should I not, buy a large orange pumpkin for Halloween? Might it be mistaken for… something else. A Templar head, perhaps? Or, returning for a moment to the tzaddiks of Chicago, a golem?
Population of Yemen: 28 million
Number of people in Yemen prepared to cobble together some kind of explosive device with used toner cartridges: 5 (estimate)
Conclusions to be drawn: the Yemeni police should get on this case and the rest of us should tell jokes.
Sadly of the two I know, one is unprintable (even with a fresh cartridge) and the other takes 5 minutes to tell properly.
Yes, I’m pleased alan talked too – it must be brave, in fact. Hope we put his fears to rest. Buy that pumpkin, Suhayl – you can always carve it into a smiley face 🙂
Suhayl, I think you’re safe with pumpkins, but at this time of year only. When I bought a spade handle at the hardware shop, they insisted that I put it in a plastic bag, so the public “wouldn’t get the wrong idea”, whatever that meant. It was just after that man had been shot by police in London (I think) for carrying some chair legs in a carrier bag – the cops apparently thought it was a gun.
Pervasive fear. I’m off dog walking.
Technicolour, please send me your unprintable joke!
A socialist counting money before counting lives?
Alan is to socialism what Zionism it to Judaism.
Hell I jussa got da news dat Larry anna Massa Campbell dun gawn on dat flite wid da helpa dat smart lookin’ dude from da Israel Massage people.
Dey bofe sunnin’ deysel’ onna da beech by Lake Erie.
Dey mussa be freezin’ dey rocks off.
Evidently nyther da vest nor da shoos what I giv ta Larry dun blew up yet.
An’ Massa Alan Campbell wid dem implodin’ pants on under hissa kilt is jussa still tickin’ away hisself too….
Nun dem Chicago lifegards dun come neer nyther dem two guys wile dey still tickin’ an awl.
Reckon iffa Larry gessa blowed kingdom come me anna Massa Tungstein gon ‘herit alla hissa wurly goods. Thassa include hissa wife an’all who weez bofe joyin’ rite now!
Dey say affa dey go off dey gon ship Larry anna Massa Cannonbell’s bits back down hear to San Lou.
Weez all tinkin’ dey gone get blew way up Canada way an ain’t no-one gone go lookin for em neider!
Now dat be sum Helluva false-flag op gawn rong yawl!
Go, on, technicolour, give us the unprintable one! You can do it – go on! I dare you!
Clark, spade handles, now, according to the Terrore Expertissimo oracle of Professor Wilkinson’s Sword of Santa Andra, one cannot be too careful in relation to certain types of gardening equipment. Spade handles resemble the ears of a very small rhinoceros and therefore, on an average High Street in fading October light, might be mistaken for the approach of an aggressive and horned vegetarian.
Clark, maybe 😉 Otherwise they took my free range eggs away at the airport in case they were used for ‘terrorism’. and one of the panel on Any Questions was shaking with indignation as she related her awful ‘having to put her stuff into one small plastic bag to go through the airport scanner after which she was allowed to put them back into two small plastic bags again’ experience.
it’s this kind of head-fuck which slowly destroys sanity and intelligence and questioning i think, as much as the serious voiced propaganda. Seen it happen on National Express too, so avoiding flying is no answer.
maybe if we all stayed indoors…
juniper, tell me, right now, about your views on the Ritual of the Blood Eagle and on the likelihood that we will see Avalon this side of eternity. In this context of soil and blood, you may assume the name, Hengist, if you so desire. Cynewulf is speaking through me of your epic exploits on the northern wave. Cynewulf and Caedmon always speak the truth.
But lo!
The longhsips are coming!
I’m thinking of hiding in the garden shed in case something goes off course. You just can’t be too careful.
“Then why do I have this sneaking suspicion that a lot of posters on here, whenever they hear of an attack or attempted attack, be it Bali, Mumbai, 7/7, Atocha etc are thinking: yeah, we/they deserve it.”
Perhaps because that is your policy towards your enemy, you support assualt as the method of overcoming historical enemies. Most of us support peacebuilding, humanitarian law, interventions that are non-lethal, constructive.
You welcome news of terrorists being killed and you accept collateral damage of neighbours. Those are brutal degenerate instincts which are an essential *part of the terrorism*, the fighting breeds terrorism, it doesnt decrease it. Most of us believe that is even part of the ‘defence’ strategy of fighting terrorism with airstrikes and assasinations and condemnation and demonisation – to perpetuate the conflict.
We believe sincere peaceful efforts to decrease terrorism would succeed if the big guns were called off, and that most people know this in their hearts.
dreoilin you made me laugh!
The ‘longsips’ are what happens in the average Glasgow pub on Saturday night.
Technicolour, the questions is:
1) Were the eggs organic?
2) Were they ‘Small’, ‘Medium’ or ‘Large’?
3) Were they laid by a hen, or by a duck (ducks have amphibious capacity)?
4) Did you fry, poach or boil them, or id you whisk them briskly into the the rubric for a scrumptious cake?
5) Was it Easter (pagan festival, extremely suspicious, esp. if you had dyed-red hair and were carrying a stone in your pocket)?
6) Was it Ryanair (in which case, if you’d been carrying bomb, they’d simply have charged you extra)?
7) You clearly are not from Islington and are not vegetarian. Therefore, one must conclude, based on the anti-terrorist algorithm, that you are either an egghead or a lapsed rhinoceros.
crab, at 4:30pm, beautifully put.
Now, off for that pumpkin.
Suhayl Saadi: “The USA introduced the concept of suicide bombing to the anti-Soviet Afghan Resistance during the late 1980s in Afghanistan.”
Did you personally make that up? Or are you just blindly stupid?
I have no sense of humour about the eggs: they were delicious eggs laid by loved chickens, who were in no way affiliated to any terrorist organisation. So I can’t see the yolk.
Crab, see what you mean, as usual. Cheers.
Craigs ban on certain little gnomes is akin to a liberal dem promise.
‘The Wasted Vigil’, by Nadeem Aslam. Excellent book.
StefZ – funny too btw
Perhaps the security guards are simply egg-thieves. Perhaps they had a fry-up after you’d left.
Perhaps you ought to send them a dozen raw eggs, in a parcel marked, ‘Best-quality, organic, free-range eggs from Yemen! If undelivered, please return to sender: Mr Mustafa al-Qaeda’, Po Box, The Desert’, as a token of your profound appreciation for their hard work in saving you from yourself.
Now there is a Yippie-style suggestion.
Perhaps a million people from around the world should send parcels filled with raw eggs to Langley, Virginia.
Sulphurous, a whiff of the Deil, no?
SOMEONE provided eggs to those anti-Tony Blair terrorists in Dublin. And there’s a shoe company called “Clark’s”.
I report, you decide.
Silence from ‘Joo-nipper’. Come on, man. Get that great Saxon mead-butt into swing! But beware! Grendel is watching!
I found this thread a hoot, mostly. I don’t think Alan got it at all.
How could we look at (e.g.) the photo on the previous thread, or those on Mark’s site, if we didn’t find something to laugh at occasionally? If we can’t laugh, better just give up now.
See y’all later. Thanks to everyone for the light relief. 🙂
Thanks, StefZ – great fun.
dreoilin; have a grand saturday