Threat of attack against NYC subways determined to be a hoax

[BEER980]

To guess on a wager is not a sure thing. Blowing up a city is not required. Dirty bombs would be more cost effective and easier to maintain/deploy. This rag tag group is closing in on the number killed in the 9-11 attacks on our soldiers. Not to mention the 3335 Iraqi police/military we have trained and have been killed. Add in the Deaths Since April 28th (Shiite-led government announced):
Police/Mil: 1476
Civilians: 3890
Total: 5366

We have seen no spectacular attacks against us because the networks are no longer operationally capable of carrying such things out.

What size would an attack have to be to be considered spectacular?

[f5]

To guess on a wager is not a sure thing. Blowing up a city is not required. Dirty bombs would be more cost effective and easier to maintain/deploy. This rag tag group is closing in on the number killed in the 9-11 attacks on our soldiers. Not to mention the 3335 Iraqi police/military we have trained and have been killed. Add in the Deaths Since April 28th (Shiite-led government announced):
Police/Mil: 1476
Civilians: 3890
Total: 5366

We have seen no spectacular attacks against us because the networks are no longer operationally capable of carrying such things out.

What size would an attack have to be to be considered spectacular?

to a terrorist the mushroom cloud is the holy grail of all spectacular attacks

[Windy]

To guess on a wager is not a sure thing. Blowing up a city is not required. Dirty bombs would be more cost effective and easier to maintain/deploy.

We have seen no spectacular attacks against us because the networks are no longer operationally capable of carrying such things out.

What size would an attack have to be to be considered spectacular?

"Dirty bombs" are not spectacular, except in that people reflexively freak out when they hear about anything radiological. A dirty bomb would not kill any more people than a regular bomb. Really, detonating a dirty bomb in America would do more to hurt the terrorists' causes than help them; it would cause little collateral damage and would provoke a pretty nasty response. Real threats -- the kind that can destroy cities or the kind of pervasive suicide campaign that can demoralize a populace -- are what we need to worry about. The former they're not capable of and the latter they seem to be opting out of out of self-interest.

You will note that I said they are not capable of spectacular attacks SINCE 9/11. Of course 9/11 was a spectacular attack. We then proceeded to obliterate their network and torture their mid and upper level management. When people picked up in the Middle East hear that they're going to a little place called "Cuba", they break down and start crying, I kid you not.

The terrorists "networks" currently left are decentralized and lack the kind of funding and C3I that Al Qaeda had.

This rag tag group is closing in on the number killed in the 9-11 attacks on our soldiers. Not to mention the 3335 Iraqi police/military we have trained and have been killed. Add in the Deaths Since April 28th (Shiite-led government announced):
Police/Mil: 1476
Civilians: 3890
Total: 5366

This is a fallacious argument. What is going on in Iraq is an insurgency. Insurgency always follows invasion and occupation, unless the people being invaded really wanted you there to begin with, or, assuming they didn't, you sufficiently burn/destroy/murder/rape/crush the population when you arrive, something Americans are usually naught to do these days. Counting American troop deaths in Iraq as "terrorism" is a bit of a Jedi mind trick.

Now, when the insurgents kill innocent Iraqis intentionally, that's terrorism. But it's not terrorism in America, which, frankly, is all American really care about. It's predictable terrorism following an unwanted occupation. It's part of war. Heck, it happened in the south after the close of the Civil War. It's nowhere near analagous to nuking an American city.

[BEER980]

So I will put a guess at what you consider a spectacular at 3,000 and no less then.

I have not seen enough evidence on either side to determine if they have a city killing nuke here or not. Many experts think they do. They are harder to maintain so that would require more resources. Where are the missing Soviet nukes? Did they leave any behind in the US? Has any parts been brought through the border area? Yes we have cut off a good deal of money but how much could/did they have. I hear the poppy harvest was real good this year and plenty of that gets back to AQ. If they are planing a nuke attack then patience would be priority. It would have to be nearly flawless and well funded ahead of time.

A dirty bomb may or may not kill more then a regular bomb, only time will tell. It will cause more damage though through contamination and inital panic/fear. So if they carry through on one of the opperations to hit seven major cities, all they need to do is average 450 deaths per city for a spectacular attack. A team of two dozen could pull that off. Do you think two dozen agents are here in the country? I would imagine there are plenty more then that here.

How would a dirty bomb hurt their cause? To their supporters they would have hit America again and this time with dirty bombs.

What kind of nasty respone can we have? Are we going to nuke somebody? What country are we going to attack? Oh I know we could blame it on Iran and attack them. Would we go and round up OBL finally?

The rag tag group that you refer to is the insurgency and they seem to be holding their own. TPTB keep telling us that AQ is a main part of the insurgency so that is why I posted the numbers. I am not counting troop death as terrorism but akin to it. They are being killed and wounded by the insurgents and this is a war on terror. 3,000 dead civilians here is bad and 2,000 troops is not? That is the point in that example. A roadside bomb here would be terrorism and over there just the cost of doing business. In a round about way our troops are being terrorized every day over there. Just the DU is going to haunt us for some time when it is all over.

[Brent]

A dirty bomb would be DEVASTATING to the public's morale... sure it might not kill a lot of people(and likely wouldn't), but just imagine people's feeling. The airline industry still hasn't fully recovered from 9/11 4 years later... and that was the airlines...

[Brent]

Do you think two dozen agents are here in the country? I would imagine there are plenty more then that here.

Well there were 20 hijackers in the Country living among us for months before 9/11... so yes, I defintely think they are, and they will strike one day and it's probably not going to be while we're sitting here debating the credibility of a threat. They want to catch us off-guard. London wasn't expecting to be attacked, and neither was America on 9/11.

[kevin]

So I will put a guess at what you consider a spectacular at 3,000 and no less then.

I have not seen enough evidence on either side to determine if they have a city killing nuke here or not. Many experts think they do. They are harder to maintain so that would require more resources. Where are the missing Soviet nukes? Did they leave any behind in the US? Has any parts been brought through the border area? Yes we have cut off a good deal of money but how much could/did they have. I hear the poppy harvest was real good this year and plenty of that gets back to AQ. If they are planing a nuke attack then patience would be priority. It would have to be nearly flawless and well funded ahead of time.

A dirty bomb may or may not kill more then a regular bomb, only time will tell. It will cause more damage though through contamination and inital panic/fear. So if they carry through on one of the opperations to hit seven major cities, all they need to do is average 450 deaths per city for a spectacular attack. A team of two dozen could pull that off. Do you think two dozen agents are here in the country? I would imagine there are plenty more then that here.

How would a dirty bomb hurt their cause? To their supporters they would have hit America again and this time with dirty bombs.

What kind of nasty respone can we have? Are we going to nuke somebody? What country are we going to attack? Oh I know we could blame it on Iran and attack them. Would we go and round up OBL finally?

The rag tag group that you refer to is the insurgency and they seem to be holding their own. TPTB keep telling us that AQ is a main part of the insurgency so that is why I posted the numbers. I am not counting troop death as terrorism but akin to it. They are being killed and wounded by the insurgents and this is a war on terror. 3,000 dead civilians here is bad and 2,000 troops is not? That is the point in that example. A roadside bomb here would be terrorism and over there just the cost of doing business. In a round about way our troops are being terrorized every day over there. Just the DU is going to haunt us for some time when it is all over.

Last I knew it was historically acceptable to kill foreign soldiers on your soil after they invaded. Not speaking for the deaths of American soldiers, but that is not terrorism. The terrorism in Iraq is the Sunnis blowing up the Shi'ites.

[Brent]

Well apparently the source made it up... they questioned the 3 detained in Iraq and U.S. officials are confident there was no plot.

[Stellar Storm]

Since it was a hoax, do you think that it truly gave terrorists a good look at the way we responded? It's just that our government is intelligent enough to realize that terrorists will use hoaxes to poke holes in our security and, perhaps, respond differently and have different tactics planned out for each threat.