Originally Posted by
Section 107
Well, lets see: the bombers were arrested while they were actively assembling the bombs, at that point in time they easily could have brought the bottles onto the plane, and they had already detonated such bombs in training. So what else was needed for the plan to be considered viable?
That the explosive material can be volatile and requires careful handling really doesn't mean the plan didn't have a reasonable chance of working. Because it has been demonstrated time and again just how effective it can be:
TATP was used by the 7/7 bombers to murder 52 and injure nearly 800. More recently, it was also used in the Paris 2015 bombings. And in the 2016 Brussels bombing to murder 32 people. And in the 2017 Brussels bombing. And to murder 23 in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. And it has been used in untold number of incidents around the world, such as to murder 15 in Surabaya, Indonesia.
To be fair, the delivery device and format of the explosive was different than in those attacks, but it is the same explosive and the device and format would have easily passed through security.
Viability <> probability. And reasonable <> highly probable. Viability is commonly defined as "capable of working successfully; feasible." Common synonyms are: workable, practicable, practical, usable, possible, realistic, achievable, attainable, realizable. Which is essentially what I gave as my definition. Your use of an alternative definition does not justify an ad hominem attack.
The fact is that the arrested weren’t actively assembling any bombs for the TATL flights that were said to be the targets. They weren’t anywhere close to getting a liquid bomb that they could smuggle and place onto the TATL flights that were the governmentally-mentioned targets of those nutcases arrested and convicted for a variety of things related to that plot of “murder/mayhem on an unprecedented scale” as was alleged at the time by US and UK officials.
TATP bombs used in the above mentioned actual attacks in Europe within the past dozen years were not liquid bombs of the sort alleged to have been part of the liquid bomb plot aimed at TATL planes that summer.
Originally Posted by
Section 107
So, in spite of their own admissions in court that they planned and were working to make the liquid bombs, the physical evidence recovered from their home, and the film and audio evidence of them actually constructing the devices and talking about the devices they are still only "so-called" bomb plotters? At what point would they reach the stage that you would refer to them as "actual" bomb plotters?
Your recall is partially correct. The conspirators in England were arrested sooner than UK security officials desired because US security forces wanted to arrest Rashid Rauf in Pakistan. Rauf helped recruit, plan, coordinate and train the bomb-makers. Arresting him would have resulted in the bombmakers being tipped off and abandoning the plot so all were wrapped up before word of Rauf's arrest could get back to the others in England.
My recollection is entirely correct. The all too eager to pick up “wins” American government bungled the matter by rushing things, and the UK and ISI lost assets/leads as a result in both the UK and Pakistan and various investigative trails were destroyed at the time.
The so-called liquid bomb plotters were not liquid bomb plotters, just bomb plotters who couldn’t make the solid bomb they wanted to use from utilizing hydrogen peroxide to get to TATP for use in a non-liquid bomb.
Give it to DHS/TSA, that a de facto lapchild infant ban on TATL flights that arose from the “liquid bomb” plot soon ended up being just a “war on liquids”.
TATP bombs can be interdicted at screening checkpoints without the TSA’s war on water and other legal liquids/gels/aerosols allowed onto planes when transported in the Kippie bag way, and Kip Hawley knows that and may even have some skin in the game courtesy of the revolving door so lucrative for government employees of some sort or another.