Bomb intercepted in UAE, while en route to US

Is any comment appropriate?

Good catch, I guess.

Nicely timed illuminati scare tactics. Now onto Yemen.

The bomb plot is most likely authentic, but Islamic terrorism in Yemen is nothing new. It's been going on since at least 2000 (remember the USS Cole bombing).

edited 31st Oct '10 9:07:21 AM by Shichibukai

And people say leaving Afghanistan and Iraq would have lessened shite like this...

I Told You So just doesn't cut it.

^ No, not supporting Israel in the first place would have lessened the reasoning for Islamic terrorism against the west, even if plenty of Islamic fundamentalists are determined to Islamise the whole world anyway.

The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were, I believe, just in the principles of removing tyrannical regimes. However, Iraq was built on a falsified casus belli (Bin Laden and WMDS) and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was itself a product of Western support for Zionism. Islamic extremism is largely the result of a complicated chain of events which have their origins well before 9/11, and the 2003 Iraq invasion was carried out in the name of petrodollars.

edited 31st Oct '10 10:10:16 AM by Shichibukai

^ You realize Al Qaeda formed not because of Israel right? Their beef was with us over us alone.

ON TOPIC CONVERSATIONS

^^ Yes, it isn't just a Single-Issue Wonk, it has other causes. Yet it would not have been nearly as successful if anti-Zionist sentiment had not been so prevalent in the Middle East, united with a belief that the US is the enemy of the Muslim world for supporting Israel.

edited 31st Oct '10 10:13:42 AM by Shichibukai

And if we hadn't supported it ourselves back in the 80s?

Nicely timed illuminati scare tactics.

Illuminati? Lolwut?

^^ Al Qaeda was never funded or supported by any US entity, neither during the Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan nor after. Pakistani intelligence agencies however....

Shut up about Al Queda.

Good catch, oh yeah, we're obviously the bad guys.

Obviously we must invade Yemen and raze it to the ground in order to stop Al-Qaeda. Also the UAE, because the bomb was found there. And any other country that it may have passed through, so Saudi Arabia, Oman, or... hell, let's just kill everyone in the region.

It is the only way.

edited 31st Oct '10 2:02:56 PM by EnglishIvy

Look, I don't think America is the bad guy, the deceptive elite are and that's not exclusive to the USA.

The propaganda is being churned out already

edited 31st Oct '10 2:12:04 PM by Shichibukai

Cut out the strawmanning, EI.

I'm tired of the Al-Qaeda references, too, but something needs to be clarified.

Al-Qaeda was, in fact, funded by the Central Intelligence Agency indirectly. Members of the Special Activities Division received non-discretionary funds approved the Secretary General of the National Security Council, and these funds were transferred to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. The CIA gave the ISI explicit instructions to allocate this budget to training and arming of Afghan fighters for Operation Cyclone. These mujahadeen would go on to become members of Al-Qaeda, among them one Osama bin Laden.

Some of these operatives migrated to the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, the latter of which would become the revitalized staging ground for what the locals call the oil mafia. Some of these gangsters tried to set up shop in Iraq, but were quickly suppressed by Saddam Hussein's secret police. The strange thing is that many former Al-Qaeda members received jobs as mercenaries and bodyguards for the new trade associations developed to cash in on the UAE's oil market.

In short, the UAE's problems have more to do with organized crime than they do with terrorism. There's some speculation that it's purely a coincidence that the UAE was just being used as an intermediary for the bomb, as is the case for most other Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. It's more or less a coincidence that the bomb was located in the UAE.

However, it is undeniable that the United States intelligence community has funded and trained terrorists, or anti-government organizations, to be more precise. They may not have been Al-Qaeda operatives at the time of their funding and training, but that's just playing semantics, and we really don't need to split hairs here. The United Arab Emirates has been fairly cooperative in relaying munitions reports to the United States in anticipation of possible terrorist attacks. Members of a technical intelligence unit actually traced a batch of disassembled FIM-92 Stingers being transported between Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Believe it or not, guys, many members of the Middle East are actually on the United States' side with regard to terrorism, and they're just as frustrated with radical Islam...or what I call a minority of thugs bringing down a decent religion.

Edit: By the way, there are rumors about possible internal strife among members of the Arab Cooperation Council (Iraq, North Yemen, Jordan, and Egypt) that may have been linked to the bombing of the USS Cole. Of course, these are just rumors, but there are also problems that have been going between Yemen and Saudi Arabia in which roughly 850,000 Yemenis were expelled from Saudi Arabia in response to Yemen denying aid program funding for the Saudis, one of their diplomatic constituents in the United Nations Security Council.

Yemen has been pointing a finger at the Saudis for harboring anti-government organizations, but it seems that they are using this as an excuse to more heavily justify international aid abstinence between themselves and Saudi Arabia. Both countries are notorious for accusing the other of anti-US terrorism, including bomb making and distribution, but Americans very rarely hear any of this.

edited 31st Oct '10 4:43:03 PM by Aprilla

Aprilla: I am developing a strong liking for your posts.

I was doing some reading on the bombs components the main charge was PETN which is supposedly metal free but wouldn't there be some sort of chemical signature?

How exactly did they find the bomb in the first place?

^^Why am I not surprised the whole mess originated in organised crime?

@Game Chainsaw: I should warn you again that this is just speculation at the moment. We don't know for sure if it was organized crime, terrorism, or some combination of the two, the latter of which is most likely since terrorism is fundamentally a form of organized crime. I'd take it with a grain of salt and I'll admit that I probably shouldn't have brought it up specifically because of its subjectivity. Having said that, it's not entirely out of the question that the oil mafia might have a hand in this.

@Tuefel: Thanks. I try to be careful and articulate when it comes to politics and culture. I'm also a big Arab studies nut in case you haven't already noticed.

I've heard of phosphate powder detection systems and other chemical detectors that would probably pick up the bomb in the UAE, but those chemical detectors are flawed in that they tend to malfunction in high-humidity environments. Since water is covalently bonded, high amounts of moisture in the air reduce fluid signal clarity unless you isolate the container or use a bomb detection dog. One of my friends works in explosives ordnance, so I'll ask him.

edited 31st Oct '10 4:52:01 PM by Aprilla

Hmm... I'm surprised they don't run everything past a bomb-detection dog first at airports in addition to all the other checks. Would certainly help.

You're astoundingly well informed Aprilla.

edited 31st Oct '10 4:52:18 PM by GameChainsaw

Answered my own question. The explosives are detectable with a chemical swipe and other tests.