 | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
« Better Than The Rest | Main | What is Justice? » April 27, 2004Al Qaeda Planned Jordan WMD Attack in IraqJordan has foiled a planned attack by al Qaeda that was to involve chemical weapons and could have killed tens of thousands of Jordanians. A few key points and questions. 1. Al Qaeda planned to attack Muslims. This is not the infidels vs. Islam, this is civilization vs. barbarians. 2. Al Qaeda had chemical weapons, i.e., weapons of mass destruction, brought in from Syria. It's worth investigating whether those weapons came into Syria from a neighboring country. Iraq is a neighboring country. 3. In debriefing of the suspects, it was revealed that planning for the operation took place in Afghanistan but also involved a meeting with top al Qaeda planner Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But of course the war in Iraq is unrelated to the war against al Qaeda and the general War on Terror. Nothing to see here, move along... Comments
"debriefing of the suspects"? Ah, Bill, what a flair for euphemisms you have! I wonder whether the suspects brought PowerPoint slides with them? Posted by: Donald Sensing at April 27, 2004 12:20 PMHow come I'm hearing about this in the news? Posted by: La Shawn Barber at April 27, 2004 2:38 PMIf Al Zarqawi is in Falluja then it might be time to root out the terrorists. No mercy. No pain. Posted by: Ricky Vandal at April 27, 2004 6:16 PMOf course they were de-briefed, my dear Reverend! You don't think they'd torture them with their clothes on, did you? Posted by: Random Numbers at April 27, 2004 11:50 PMA couple of things spring to mind. I think it would be prudent to let this item cook for awhile before swallowing Jordan's story whole. There are a couple of reasons for that. First: the details of the attack are, frankly, outrageous. Twenty tons of explosives, seven kinds of chemical agents, all prepared with exquisite sophistication so that the explosions disperse, but do not destroy, the agents? Remember that the 9/11 plot originally involved the hijackings of ten airliners, and the stated goal of the earlier 1993 attack was to "knock one tower over into the other and kill 100,000 people." There is a cultural tradition of hyperbole in that part of the world, particularly among that set of believers, and the fact that (AFAIK) neither explosives nor chemical agents have actually been discovered leads me to believe that the plotters were being a bit grandiose. This doesn't mean that it's not a good thing that they're enjoying the comforts of a Jordanian jail. But consider, also, that the Jordanian government shares the same culture as the terrorists; it is in their interest to have foiled the Biggest Plot Ever. It makes them look good, and it can't hurt to try and curry favor with us Americans, who are, as they say, highly motivated at this point in time. The fact that the accused are being trotted out to confess publicly--some bearing marks of "persuasion"--has an air of "Lookit how good we're being! No need to come and topple our government, no sir!" Again, these folks were probably up to no good, and the world is certainly a better place for their capture. But I don't think we can really say for certain what they were up to, or infer from their confessions that they actually had the capabilities they claimed. Posted by: Ian Wood at April 28, 2004 11:39 AMPost a comment
Comments Policy: Your comment is subject to deletion if it is off-topic or includes foul language or personal attack. Readers, please email me if you find comments that include egregious violations of this policy. Comments may not post immediately - do not post twice!
|
|||||||||||
