War? What war?
British police say they have disrupted an apparent plot to blow up planes in mid-flight, prompting authorities to raise the nation’s threat level to “critical.”The highest possible alert level, raised on Thursday by the British Home Office, means “an attack is expected imminently,” and authorities have said no hand luggage would be allowed onto planes from UK airports. (Full story)
Major delays are expected at key airports around the world, with Brussels Airport in Belgium among the first to cancel flights to the UK, news agencies reported.
London’s Heathrow airport was closed to most European flights Thursday morning following a heightened terrorist alert, officials said in a report from The Associated Press.
That’s the problem with this “so called” War on Terror. Just when you’re all comfy, and smug, and self satisfied about how you’ve ferreted out Shrub’s plot to become King by ginning up fear over some guy cowering in a cave who couldn’t hurt a flea, the real world reaches out and bites you in the ass:
The explosives would have been smuggled aboard six airliners as hand luggage – and could have been missed during x-ray screening.Speaking at Scotland Yard, Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said he was confident the police had disrupted a plot “to cause mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.
He said 21 people arrested in London, Birmingham and the Thames Valley were still being held – the culmination of a covert counter-terrorist operation lasting several months.
As is their wont, the Brit media identifies the culprits only as “British born Asian men.” Even with the Sword of Allah poised above their necks, the British media refuses to help their fellow citizens face up to the threat by identifying the true nature of their would be executioners; radical, fundamentalist Islamists.
Yeah, I know. Timothy McVeigh, right? Put a sock in it. He and Terry Nichols, whose mail order Filipino bride may have introduced him to members of a Philippine offshoot of al-Qaeda, (McVeigh’s attorney hinted as much while no one has bothered to explain Nichols’ trips to the Philippines in the year before the bombing that coincide with the movements of al-Qaeda members ) were amateurs, playing at being revolutionaries. These guys in London are the real deal.
And if the McVeighs of the world worry you more than the fanatics who tried to pull this off, I would like to point out that for every potential Timothy McVeigh there are probably 100 Islamic mass murderer wannabes out there itching for an opportunity to martyr themselves.
No. I am sick to death of tiptoeing around this issue of the true nature of our enemies. That kind of “sensitivity” may be fine when speaking about groups with legitimate grievances against society. I am not necessarily totally against the notion of what we on the right sometimes mis-identify as political correctness.
But the time has come to put away childish things and grow up. Our enemies will not give us much leeway to indulge us our puerile need to universalize this threat lest we offend someone. They have no such problem in identifying who they see as the enemy. Why should we?
I’ll be updating this post as more information becomes available today.
UPDATE
For starters, hit Hot Air. Allah must have been up all night getting every scrap of information available from the MSM. And bloggers are starting to weigh in too.
6:37 am
I’m watching c-leftspin, span to get my usual dose of what the enemy of the State is saying and ALL the demoncrats are saying this is a made up thing between Bush and Blair and Isreal sent the U.S. to Iraq.
God God, these freakazoids are as bad as the terrorists and I am now convienced they will never get it till a nuke, bomb, anthrax, serin gas, ect, is shoved up their dumb asses by those savage terrorists that they say don’t exist.
I GIVE UP.
7:29 am
I don’t think most who dub it “so-called” do so because they don’t believe terrorists are out to get us but because we’re not so much fighting a war against them. Aside from whipping them in Afghanistan, we really haven’t gone after them particularly hard.
7:31 am
British Police Thwart Major Terror Plot
Authorities in London thwarted a terrorist plot to blow up an aircraft in mid-flight between Britain
9:11 am
The Brits did a great job on this and deserve a ton of credit.
I agree with you Rick. It is shameful that the MSM is so mealy-mouthed in describing our enemies. This is a war against Islamofascists, plain and simple. That doesn’t mean that every Muslim person is the enemy, but there is certainly a culture of hate and death that permeates radical Islam that must be understood to be defeated. And it can’t be understood unless we use language honestly in describing it. It’s a good thing the allied media wasn’t like this in WWII.
9:29 am
Red Alert, terror plot foiled in Britain, possible Libya connection?
British police have foiled a terrorist plot to ‘commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale’ by destroying up to ten passenger aircraft in mid-air, using a ‘liquid explosive’ and every day ‘electronics’ as detonators. More than 20 suspects, all b…
9:30 am
Speaking of the Oklahoma bombing, there is an excellent documentary on the subject:
http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/oklahoma_city_what_really_happened.htm
It is very sober and balanced, and makes no vast sweeping conspiracy charges, while pointing out plenty of things that we don’t know. It suggests there were additional explosives hidden in the building, without trying to explain where they came from. The experts agreed that a single truck bomb could not have had such a devastating impact.
11:17 am
Quick! Someone call the ACLU! Rick is being a big meanie by pointing out that most acts of islamofascist terrorism are carried out by muslims.
In the unlikely event the United States ends up succumbing to the global jihad, if any of us survive the fallout – figuratively or literally – we can point to a collective, patholigical obsession with political correctness as one of the “root causes” of our undoing.
11:50 am
War on Terror
Mentre i mainstream media giocano a fare i pagliacci nel circo di Hezbollah, i terroristi provano (ma non riescono) a colpire il cuore dell’Occidente.
11:53 am
How about we take bin Laden and his little Egyptian doctor out? Seems to me that POTUS has left them wandering around out there a little too long.
For all your (correctly placed) outrage at the imbeciles on the left thinking this is an easy fight, please direct a little ire at the man who is letting Baghdad burn and has yet to return the pelt of UBL.
1:17 pm
Rick:
The below link, leads to a Sky News article, about the airplane bombing plot out of the UK today:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1230422,00.html
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said the probe had been underway for several months…....
“During the investigation an unprecedented level of surveillance has been undertaken and that surveillance has had as its objective to gather intelligence and evidence in support of the investigation,” he said.
“We have been looking at meetings, movements, travel, spending and the aspirations of a large group of people. This has involved close co-operation not only between agencies and police forces in the UK but also internationally.
Notice the keys words in the passages:
SURVEILLANCE
SPENDING
So, my rhetorical questions for the MSM are:
1) in light of your revelations over the past year, vis a vis the NSA Surveillance Program, and the SWIFT Banking Programs; IF this plot had succeeded, would you be willing to pay compensation to the victims families, for your part in destroying our intelligence capabilities to stop such plots?
2) since the plot was disrupted, HOPEFULLY, how much sooner could it have been disrupted, IF you had NOT revealed that information?
3) how many other plots will we NOT find, because of your irresponsibility?
4) will you (NY Times, LA Times, etc.); now make it your duty to find out the means used, to disrupt this plot, and reveal it as soon as you can??
Ad Nauseum, ad naseum….
1:19 pm
Background Noise
As expected, the fact that a new terrorist plot was thwarted today has bloggers from the Right and the left arguing about the fight against terrorism and about whether the Bush administration is conducting it as effectively as possible. It
1:29 pm
“Massive,” Intercontinental Jihad Plot Foiled In UK
Earlier today, British authorities thwarted a homegrown Jihadist plot of global proportions, demonstrating yet again that a terrorist’s mind is his own worst enemy. The Facts The foiled operation, which officials have described as suggestive of an Al …
2:52 pm
We are in a real battle with a real enemy, as Rick Moran correctly reminds us. Not a traditional war between nation-states, but a war of ideals, interests and fanaticism. The billions being wasted on “rebuilding” Iraq’s infrastructure needs to be invested in counterterrorism efforts that protect the United States.
The real enemies are Islamic extremists-target them. Stop making Grandma from Cleveland remove her shoes and pour out her coffee at the airport. I am not a conservative, but Rick is so right. Forget the political correctness. Pay more attention to the most likely terrorists. Screen and track people from Islamic nations carefully as they enter and move about the USA. This may not be “fair”, but little in life is fair. The real victories in the war on terror will be like this one in Great Britan. Stopping terrorist plots before they can be carried out. Counterterrorism is a slow, difficult process that we must have the strength and resolve to carry out, most likely over several decades. However the war in Iraq ends, it will not end terrorism or America’s need to combat it for the protection and well being on the nation.
8:34 pm
Yeah ed, I’m all for proper screening and security as well, but as this bust in Britain shows, these guys were all British nationals. How do you keep track of guys that are Western European who may have radical terrorist tendencies? Sure, they were of Pakistani nationality, but what happens when Al-Qaeda starts recruiting blond haired blued eyed young men, if they’re not already? I just don’t know; it’s a conundrum.
2:41 pm
Yes, Virginia, we are at war.
What the hell are the “fantasists” thinking? I would dearly love for everything to be “alright” and no psychotic, Koran thumping nightmare from the Hindu-Kush to not be planning on distributing the remains of 500 of my fellow humans to the rolling North Atlantic.
But, alas, things are not alright. We are locked in a struggle with a group so vile and despicable, that they will use ANY means to intimidate and terrify the populations of the EWF (Enlightened FRee World) to support their four doctrines.
Implement Sharia.
Restore the Caliphate
Eradicate Israel
Death / Slavery to all non-believers
Just another day in the IFA (Islamo-Fascist Alliance)