Sunday, December 27, 2009

Plane Bombing

Observations on the attempted plane bombing:
  1. Anyone who thought that Islamist terrorism was purely a reaction to Bush was an idiot.
  2. The fact that an engineering alumnus from one of Britain's most prestigious universities can't even detonate an explosive is a damning indictment of our education system. It was one thing when an ex con retard like Richard Reid couldn't light up his shoes but this is absurd.
  3. Plane passengers aren't passive in the face of perceived threats any more.
  4. It will be interesting to see whether the suspect was radicalised in the UK or in Nigeria.
  5. Al Qaeda have never actually managed to blow a plane up (though they have crashed planes obviously) despite numerous attempts over the years. Perhaps smuggling substantial quantities of usable explosives on to planes is actually harder than is generally assumed.

7 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

6. You're clearly some sort of racist :)

banned said...

Usual anodine response from the goverment
"With the full support of the PM, Transport Secretary, Foreign Secretary and ministerial colleagues, we will ensure that the UK continues to have in place the most appropriate security measures to protect the public from the terrorist threat wherever it originates from."
OK so it flew from Holland but these bloated ministers ensured no such thing. Had the man been more technically profficient there would have been another disaster.

Sounds like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was as clueless as the Exeter bomber (also a retard) who only manged to burn his hands in the ladies loo.

Matthew said...

"Anyone who thought that Islamist terrorism was purely a reaction to Bush was an idiot."

Did anyone think that? In any case this doesn't disprove that theory, if it was held. Perhaps you meant "Anyone who thought that Islamic terrorism would stop with Obama's election was an idiot"?

Matthew said...

Btw, 'banned', what additional security measures would you propose the government taking which would have stopped this incident?

James Higham said...

4 is a quite vital point.

Mark said...

With Matthew's clarification added to item 1, that's all the salient points covered- good post.

As for where the guy was radicalised Lagos North (aka London)is now looking a more likely bet that Nigeria.

One thing that has irritated me about news reports of this case is the smugness of Alan Johnson at the Home Office, preening himself over the fact that, after his graduation from UCL, the bomber's visa extension request was rejected. This obscures the fact that-
1. Had he sat tight, and not relocated to the Yemen, the odds on him getting deported were miniscule, and
2. 'Bogus colleges' was last years special 'crackdown', and thus got extra attention from the Borders Agency.

In short, the Home Office got lucky on this one.

banned said...

Matthew, I'm not an expert on airport security but the very fact that this supposed half-wit very nearly did cause a disaster says of itslef that "the UK continues to have in place the most appropriate security measures" is simply not the case.