Originally Posted by
erictank
Actually, no they WOULDN'T want that - it's kind of tough to blow up an aircraft when your supersecretultimateliquidexplosive detonated as you were prepping the mix for travel in your safehouse, blowing your arms off.
If it blows up before they can get to the aircraft, or even undergoes a partial reaction during inflight lavatory mixing, it kills the bad guy and wastes the mix BEFORE IT CAN BE USED TO DESTROY THE AIRCRAFT. Terrorists want to rain bodies from the sky, and don't mind dying themselves in service to that cause. It's a waste of martyrs and resources for them to blow themselves up WITHOUT killing infidels in the process. Volatile's only good if they can control it up until the point they need it to go boom, and from the sound of it, that's not the way this one works.
Obviously -- but what you guys are saying is essentially that because the method isn't 100% perfect or completely reliable, it isn't a threat (or a real threat).
My point is that if the mixture is this volatile, then why wouldn't terrorsts be willing to give it a whirl? After all, if you're ready to die for your cause, you're probably ready to spend some time in prison and without arms.
As someone else pointed out, the government probably used these measures because lab workers aren't martyrs, and a risk that is acceptable for a terrorist isn't acceptable for them.