Boy howdy did we open up some troll bait or what? I apologize for not responding in a more timely manner to the flood of comments but I was in
Williamsburg, Virginia attending the wedding of a CIA colleague’s daughter. Great wedding and terrific barbecue. But I digress.
So where do we stand? Maybe it is time to give Tony Blair and George Bush some credit for a solid achievement in the war on terror–the current lot
of muslim extremists in the UK had major problems building a reliable, effective incendiary device. Is Al Qaeda on the decline? Remember when they
could do a simultaneous bomb attack in Kenya and Tanzania? And now? they could only torch one Land Rover and part of the overhang at Glasgow’s International Airport.
Looks like we have yuppie Muslims who, despite a medical education, don’t understand fundamentals about how to build and detonate quality improvised
explosives. They obviously spent all of their cash on the Mercedes and neglected to sign up for the suicide bomber course. Thank your deity or religious object of affection for their fecklessness. Or, thank your lucky
stars.
These latest events will further erode the capability of Muslim extremists in the U.K. British and Scottish police certainly have new leads to follow. And the ham handed execution of this plot is not going to attract eager copycats. What genuine fanatic is going to be inspired by amateur terrorists who have trouble igniting gasoline? Not many. Meanwhile, business as usual goes on in Iraq (credit icasualties):
07/01/07 MNF: MND-B patrol struck by IED, small arms fire- 1 Soldier killed A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed in a small arms fire attack that followed an IED strike targeting a joint combat patrol in a western section of the Iraqi capital July 1. 2 Iraqi National Police officers were also wounded…
LA Times: Anbar province bombings kill seven Iraqi police officers- Explosions at police checkpoints in western Anbar province killed at least seven Iraqi police today, with scattered violence elsewhere in Iraq resulting in the deaths of at least 15 others, several of them in the capital
07/01/07 KUNA: One Iraqi killed, four wounded in blast near Baghdad bridge- One civilian was killed and another four were wounded on Sunday when a suicide bomber detonated the booby-trapped car he was driving near Al-Jadriya Bridge, southwestern Baghdad.
07/01/07 Reuters: Car bomb kills at least five in Ramadi- Iraq police A suicide car bomber killed five policemen in Ramadi on Sunday in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, Iraqi police said. Police Captain Abbas al-Dulaimi said the attack was aimed at a police station in the eastern side of Ramadi…
07/01/07 AP: Bullet-riddled body of a senior police commander found in Basra- the bullet-riddled body of a senior police commander was discovered in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city. Colonel Nasser Hamoud was in charge of the city’s prisons. He had been kidnapped along with 3 of his guards the day before…
AP: 2 policemen killed by roadside bomb, drive-by shooting- Two Iraqi policemen are dead after a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in eastern Baghdad today. Police say after the blast, gunmen sped by in a car and showered the men with machine gun fire. 3 policemen and 3 civilians…were wounded.
And what is the media focusing on? Not the two American soldiers who died today in Iraq. Not the hundreds of Iraqis killed and wounded by real terrorist attacks. Nope. They are furiously hyping two cars that did not burn or explode and one car that, while on fire, crashed into a trash can. No one died, but several in the media are fanning the flames of fear. Osama Bin Laden does not need a press agent. Hell no. He can just squat on his rug in Pakistan and let CNN, MSNBC, and FOX blather on endlessly hyping the capabilities of Al Qaeda.
I am confident that British and Scottish authorities will fully investigate the yuppie terrorists. I am less confident that we will devote our energies to the task of actually killing or capturing Bin Laden. Our leaders and a pliant media seem content to talk endlessly about non-events and turn away from the bodies being piled up in Iraq. And for those of you who soiled yourselves over the events in the U.K. it is time for a nappy change.