Too early to call the Times Square bomber "amateur"

[Robb]

I'm willing to do it, but not yet. I need to learn more first.

We can guess the bomb is unsophisticated, but consider -- add a box of roofing nails and you've got any "pro" car bomb from the days of keeping your head down in Belfast. And we've got a metal box being reported, and we don't know what's in it.

It's, as I said in another thread, the "I" in "IED."

We certainly don't have enough to guess nationality. It's as foolish to assume this was a domestic party as a foreign one.

[tekisui]

1. Agreed. We just don't know yet.

[divvy]

2. I will wait with baited breath until your final analysis is posted.

My money is on a domestic terrorist. Right wing radical, racist, Religious, 2nd ammendment, Timothy McVeigh type, and a white male.

The only way the bomber could not be an amature would be if he designed it to be a dud for the purpose of getting attention. This possiblility increases the odds of it being a domestic terrorist.

[Robb]

26. Bombs fail more often than they detonate, in general.

At least outside of military circles. IRA bombs failed all the time, and no one ever accused them of being amateurs. Al Qaeda has had it's fizzles, as well.

...worth noting also you mention a "McVeigh type." His bomb detonated correctly, you'll recall.

[FarCenter]

29. This one could not have detonated

It appears to have had minimal high-explosives capable of detonation.

Fireworks may have exploded, and if the bomb maker was lucky it might have dispersed and mixed the gasoline and propane with air so that a fireball would result. But it is very unlikely that an air-fuel explosion would have occurred.

Most likely result would have been mostly burn injuries to passing pedestrians.

[Robb]

30. "Appears to" is the key phrase, and the point I'm making.

You and I have no idea that "this one could not have detonated."

a) We have no idea what was in the propane tanks.

b) We have no idea how much we're talking about in terms of fireworks. I remember consumer-grade "mortar" type fireworks, shaped like a little baseball with a long fuse? You dropped them in a cardboard tube you could use three or four times? Tape three of those together and you can punch a hole as big as your head in the side of an F-150. Ask me how I know. :D

c) We have no idea what was in the metal box, either.

Too early to pooh-pooh or panic, I'm sayin'.

[stray cat]

3. Right now everyone is doing their favorite profiling - so waiting for info is good

DUers are blaming halliburtin, oil companies, tea partiers and white conservatives

The right is blaming foreign terrorists, and I'm sure Obama - which agrees with some DUers who if Bush were in office would be blaming him.

[Codeine]

4. Halliburton?

This place is deliciously crazy sometimes. :rofl:

[sufrommich]

5. Yep. As much simplistic wishful thinking going on here

as Freeperland.

[pinboy3niner]

7. Precisely!

Each side seems all to eager to pin this on the other, though both also either acknowledge the possibility of, or suspect, Muslim extremists. And both sides question whether the timing is coincidental, with other important news now getting short shrift.

A sampling of FR suspicions can be found here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2504958/posts

[sufrommich]

10. For all we know, this could be some guy that is angry

that his house is being foreclosed by Bank of America. I hate this attempt to fit it into one's political perspective. We know nothing.

[tekisui]

12. Assigning motives is how the label of terrorism is applied.

We need to wait for the identity to be known and then understand the motives.

As for fitting political perspectives, the right-wing Telegraph is suggesting it was radical Muslims targeting South Park for their Muhammad cartoons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7668606/Times-Square-car-bomb-police-investigate-South-Park-link.html

[pinboy3niner]

19. We don't know enough to justify casting suspicion ANYWHERE

I was all set to post about "wishful thinking" when I saw that you beat me to it. The suspicions we're seeing here are no different from those over at FR. I guess each side will now criticize the other's crazy paranoia . . .

Me, I'm waiting until we get more facts.

Ed. to add: We can't even assume, at this point, that the motive is not entirely irrational (i.e., Son of Sam syndrome--my dog ordered me to do it).

[NNN0LHI]

6. 'Consumer grade fireworks" isn't a tip off?

Isn't that like ladyfingers, bottle rockets, sparklers and smoke bombs?

Don

[Robb]

25. You'd hope.

But I don't know if you've been shopping for them lately, there's a lot of power in some of the "safe and sane" fireworks you can pick up in this country.

[sendero]

8. If the vehicle VIN..

.... leads back to the perp, then yes he is a moron.

[WinkyDink]

9. It's for sure a moron. America IS NOT under attack from Muslims! We never were!

[sufrommich]

11. On 9/11 we were attacked by muslim extremists. No?

[tekisui]

13. They self-identified as Muslims, but they weren't really.

[sufrommich]

14. Really? What were they? nt

[tekisui]

16. Murderers who were corrupted and exploited by their boss.

They were part of a criminal organization that brain-washed them.

[sufrommich]

17. They were religious extremists who were trained and used by

other religious extremists with a political motive.

[NNN0LHI]

20. Afghan mujahideen were religious extremists who were trained, financed and used by ...

... the USA.

Whodathunk?

Don

[sufrommich]

21. Yeah, I'm not making a case for supporting religious extremists.

[NNN0LHI]

28. My point is if we have done it what prevents some other unknown sponsor from doing the same thing?

Anything?

Don

[Codeine]

23. Is this the "no true Scotsman" argument? nt

[itsrobert]

15. Suadis

So we bombed/invaded Afghanistan instead of going out the financial source.

[sufrommich]

18. Saudis are also religious extremists. nt

[hobbit709]

22. I could "I" a much better IED than that.

and it's been close to 40 years since I played with things that go "BOOM"

[pinboy3niner]

24. Just remember: FRONT TOWARD ENEMY

Wouldn't want to lose you, Brother.:)

Ed.: Damn typo!

[Change Happens]

27. Ok, but I will the first to blame a rightwing Rush/Hannity Palin follower...nt

[FarCenter]

31. See "The devilish devices are cheap and easy to build"

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Saturday, June 30th 2007, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The London terror plotters relied on a bomb that's among the simplest, cheapest and easiest to build - but also notoriously unreliable.

The Mercedes-Benz found parked outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in London yesterday contained a device made from several canisters of propane gas, gallons of gasoline, nails for shrapnel and cell-phone detonators, officials said.

"This is the same kind of bomb a lot of homegrown terrorists try to build because it's so easy," said American terror analyst Evan Kohlmann. "Al Qaeda taught people how to make it in their Afghan training camps."

In an active war zone like Iraq, more powerful military-grade munitions - including plastic explosives, artillery and mortar shells - are plentiful and the most common bomb ingredients.

But where military munitions are unavailable, extremists sometimes turn to less deadly propane gas, said Kohlmann, a consultant for Britain's Scotland Yard.

Propane comes in cylinders typically seen in backyard barbecue grills and can be obtained without drawing suspicion.

A propane canister bomb not unlike what was found in London yesterday exploded on the Paris metro in July 1995, killing seven and wounding 80. Authorities blamed the Algerian Armed Islamic Group.

Last summer, suspected Lebanese terrorists tried to blow up two suitcases with propane canisters on trains in Germany, but the detonator failed to ignite the gas.

"It has a high failure rate. They often don't go off," Kohlmann said.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2007/06/30/2007-06-30_the_devilish_devices_are_cheap_and_easy_.html#ixzz0mmrQvRbX

[Robb]

32. Exactly. nt

[bullwinkle428]

33. I'm still willing to take "McVeigh wannabe for $500, Alex"!