<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bdschobel:
How ridiculous. They close a big airport for 6 hours merely because of a phone call! I thought that only the United States was this idiotic. The Germans are usually more sensible.
Query: If I were a terrorist wanting to cause the maximum amount of death and destruction, would I call and WARN people about what I was going to do? Isn't this simply illogical?
New York City adopted the correct approach immediately after 9/11/01. Now they ignore telephoned bomb threats. The callers just want to see the reaction, which is zero. Bomb threats are WAY down, too! Obviously, the policy works.
Bruce</font>
The practice was commonplace, beyond the IRA, during the 70's into early 80's for European terrorist groups. The purpose of terrorists in this case is to cause panic, inconvenience, and demonstrate to the people that the authorities couldn't prevent the "freedom fighters" from moving at will.
Terrorists don't think like you, bdschobel, nor does the police. The assumption that your logic is the correct one for all occasions is a major pitfall, especially if you don't even know the facts.