11.19.10
Big Win for Terrorists and US National Security Business 2.0
From the Associated Press today, news that an American security firm — unnamed — had used the Namibian police to try and put a test bomb — non-explosive, on a plane for Germany.
A suspicious package found in a Namibian airport near bags bound for Munich was a device designed to test security and didn’t contain explosives, officials said Friday. One aviation official said the test was conducted by Namibian police.
Wednesday’s discovery of the package at Windhoek airport came the same day that Germany raised its terrorist alert level.
German security experts determined that the bag was a “real test case” made by an American firm to test security measures, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters Friday.
“Most important is that there were no explosives in the bag and there was never any danger to the passengers,” de Maiziere said.
Namibian police confirmed his report but did not say who may have been testing security at Windhoek. An Air Namibia official, however, said it was Namibian police themselves who had conducted the test. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a police matter.
Concern that international flights were once again being targeted by terrorists rose last month when two mail bombs were discovered being sent on cargo planes from Yemen to the U.S. One of them went through a German airport before being found in Britain.
Since the American corporate model with regards to national security is only concerned with making devices and using resources to constantly set up tests after al Qaeda tries something — which often fails — this is depressingly familiar. That it caused German security to jump is probably a cause for jubilation at someone’s business.
The wretched paradox is that there is now way more manpower, money and resources in US private sector business exploring such things than there are actual terrorists trying to do the real thing. al Qaeda could only wish to have such an infrastructure with freedom to operate.
DD wrote about it earlier here.
And the reason for this new whoopie cushion news is satirized in my video for “That Logistics.”
Things being the way they are, if I were a mediocre al Qaeda plotter I’d now be trying to find some mentally pliable and unfit recruit to carry a cardboard suppository or cartridge in his rectum. Not because it would actually reliably work but because of the news and reaction it would generate.
The suppository could be filled with something guaranteed to be debilitating by the time the al Qaeda man was on an airplane bound for Europe from some dreadful country where bribes are elementary.
In fact, our mastermind would want him to be found by western counter-terror men. So unreliability and chickening out mid-plot wouldn’t be such liabilities. In fact, if you could do it with two people at two different locations, that would be even better.
You know where I’m going with this. Where the sun don’t shine.
The reaction in the United States would be wonderful to watch unfold.
“See what I can make those people do to themselves,” the man would say to his comrades. Merriment all around.