Second paragraph gets it exactly right. The police had presumably not chosen these people to watch by closing their eyes and sticking a pin in a street directory, and it's quite possible they had fairly grandiose plans. Whether they would ever have been capable of carrying them out is something we'll never know, but they clearly weren't ready to do so yet.
What little we know (and because this is Britain and not America we may never know everything) suggests that there were cock-ups on both sides - the cell's controllers in Pakistan didn't realise how far short of ready they were, and neither did the police.
Whether the police were bounced into making arrests too soon by the politicians doesn't seem to me to be worth speculating on: the pols are certainly capable of being that irresponsible, but the police are quite capable of fucking up to that extent on their own.
I don't have a strong opinion as to whether the arrests were too early or not, or whether they were justified at all (very good chance they were, possibility they weren't) -- as you say, we just don't have the information.
But it does really look that the "OMFG we're all going to Dieeeeee! No carrying anything on an airplane, ever!!!!!!" manner in which it was announced was, to put it mildly, overblown.
Listen anything that has the result of allowing us to ban books in carry-on is A-OK in my book.
Also: the line Theresa quotes from Tom Easton is fab.
(As is the post from which she lifts that line.)
(Heck, indeed Mr. Easton's whole blog is worth your while.
But it does really look that the "OMFG we're all going to Dieeeeee! No carrying anything on an airplane, ever!!!!!!" manner in which it was announced was, to put it mildly, overblown.
Agreed. It was disgusting, but notice that the security professionals calmed down quite quickly when they realised that the "plot" was neither as dire nor as immediate as they had feared - the current rules for carrying stuff on are pretty much unobjectionable, but the politicians are still making hay with it.
I thought for a moment the headline was suggesting that Ogged's Bartelby post was a hoax.
No, it's making fun of -gg-d for being scared of rodent predators in the Entrails post.
the current rules for carrying stuff on are pretty much unobjectionable
I just read that the no-liquids rule is going to be in effect for the forseeable future. Isn't that objectionable?
the current rules for carrying stuff on are pretty much unobjectionable
Sorry, aren't the rules that you can't carry liquids/gels onto planes in the U.S.? Which means you can't carry your shaving kit---which means you might as well check your overnight bag---which means the end, nearly, of practical carryon luggage, and the dawn of ages and ages spent waiting at the baggage carousel, because of course the airlines are not going to lay on extra baggage handlers, are they?
Not that I've flown, bitterly, in the last week or anything.
Under the current rules, if LB's granny had wheels, and was thus a teacart, would she be allowed to carry liquids on a plane?
Dude, the current rules for carrying stuff on for flights out of the UK are fucking objectionable. Not that I'm bitter because I had to put my phone and my computer in my checked suitcase which disappeared for nearly 72 hours or anything. In a whole life of traveling, I've always put essentials and a couple clean pairs of underwear in my carryon for just that reason, and I like it that way.
The news over here had a piece recently on a London-area woman who had to put everything in her checked luggage, which the airline then lost. She thus had no keys, so had to take a taxi home from the airport (even though she'd left her car there), and break a window to get into her own house. All for a trip to fricking Brussels!
(That being said, it serves her right for not taking the eurostar.)
I know I've asked this before, but I still can't find an answer, so I'll ask again. Even if we postulate that the guys in the UK were masters of exploding gel technology and had been ready to hop on the next flight, what was the rationale, if any, for preventing people from carrying books onto airplanes? Was it just a case of somebody in charge thinking "Hell, if they can make a bomb out of hair gel, they can probably make a bomb out of anything!!!! So we can't let people bring anything at all onto a plane!"
If a terrorist hates freedom enough, he can make a bomb out of anything.
If there's a thought process beyond "Aieeeee!!!!! We're all going to Dieeeeeeee!!!!", I think it's that forbidding things is too limited, because you can't possible outthink SPECTRE -- you have to have a list of what's permitted, not what's forbidden. And the list of what's permitted has to be absolutely minimal, or people will screw it up.
16 -- the pen is mightier than the sword; by analogy the novel is mightier than the liquid explosive. Gotta keep that shit off the air transportation system.
Link in 17 is cool. "Why do they hate freedom? I mean, it's freedom."
the pen is mightier than the sword
You put an extra space in "penis."
Let's just surrender all possessions and clothes at check-in, don an airline-issued prison-style orange jumpsuit without pockets, and get ankle-cuffed to our fellow passengers in the order of seating. I think that will solve the problem nicely.
21: I made that typo once in a college paper (or rather, left out the space) and decided it was funny so I left it in.
Got an A!
Fair cop. I hadn't realised that the 14 August changes still banned all liquids on flights to the States. To anywhere else you can now carry on anything you buy once you're through security, so that will include water and toothpaste.
To anywhere else you can now carry on anything you buy once you're through security
This does strike one as profoundly cynical. It's at the least a tremendous boost to the newsagents in Heathrow.
Does this mean that airlines are now going to reverse their "no free food" trend? No?
LB, gods love you, but I think anyone who doesn't point out the distinct possibility that at least some of the authorities involved were very, very excited to be living the main storyline of Die Hard III is giving said authorities way too much credit.
Possible -- I missed that one. Exploding books?
Oh, you missed out - Samuel Jackson and everything! Anyway, it has bombs made of otherwise inert liquids that, when mixed, become highly explosive. Our Hero and his Unlikely & Unwilling Partner have to run around the city solving junior high math puzzles and the like in order to save the day.
Now that the government has to stop listening in on everyone's phone calls, and reading all the emails, we can expect yet stricter standards.
There's an upside: I flew from DC to Cleveland and back yesterday. Security lines were the shortest I've ever seen in either place, and the DC airport was nearly deserted.
the policy on security guards quizzing people about their personal medications also still seems to be holding for flights to the US. i got through without giving any explanations of mine by looking my security guard in the eye and saying "i need that" (yes i have no idea how that worked either, but it did). however we were all horribly sympathetically embarassed for the woman in front of me who did have to produce prescriptions and also verbally defend various things like inhalers, right there in the midst of everyone else in line...
(she got through and the lifetime supply of chapstick in her purse was the only casualty - may the security guards enjoy it in perpetuity)
30: Woohoo! Not that it will do any good.
So Silvana got her bag back? I was personally outraged about the wolf-crying aspect specifically because I thought that Silvana had lost her phone and computer as a result of it.
The next logical step toward Ultimate Safety would be that everyone on an international flight has to be put under anaesthesia for the entire time.
33: That sounds awful.
I swear that I heard a piece on the radio this morning announcing that a woman who had behaved erratically on a plane because of her claustrophobia was going to be arraigned. I'm sure that she disturbed the crew and made it harder to do their jobs. She should probably be kept from flying again until she can demonstrate that she's able to control her claustrophobia even if that means that she has to show that she had some behavioral therapy or is taking drugs, but arraigning her seems excessive to me.
Adam, your concern and outrage are duly noted and appreciated. But yeah, I got my bag back. I think they must have left it out on the tarmac in the rain for several hours, or something; nearly all the clothes in it were thoroughly wet. Or at least that's what I choose to believe—other options are more disturbing.
Only Adam Kotsko can offer the creative leadership needed to protect us in the Global War on Langoliers.
everyone on an international flight has to be put under anaesthesia for the entire time
I could get down with that. Are you talking about like nitrous oxide? Or something stronger?
Actually, perhaps cryogenic freezing would be more secure.
Global War on Langoliers
We're called Langolieri
But that's a vagary
It's quite honorary
The terror we ply.
Security noted
The liquids exploded,
To jihad devoted,
Are Ahmed and I.
If Felix gets to spend the rest of the day quoting Loren Coleman, can I spend the rest of the day making shout-outs to bad movies? I seem to be doing OK so far.
OT: Hooray for Judge Anna Diggs Taylor!
The problem is one falls for this shit every time. I spent a WHOLE DAY freaked out, thinking about 10 planes blown out of the sky in mid-air.
When Saddam's statue was toppled by jubilant Iraqis (came out later it was actually toppled by US soldiers for photo op), I spent a WHOLE DAY thinking maybe we did a good thing invading Iraq.
If a cynical clown-fucker like me gets freaked out, this shit really works. We're defenseless, vulnerable, suckers for any propaganda. The only way to fight back is to get drunk often and try to lick the clit of everyone you meet. What else can a good citizen do?
Well, the first step, if you have a tv, is to throw it out.
Once, upon exiting the Solano tunnel having walked through it heading west I saw lying on the ground the smashed remains of a television set, likely thrown down from the area around the traffic circle above.
I don't have a TV. But somehow, the media propaganda machine still gets to me. There is no escape. We are fucked, fucked, for all time totally fucked.
I really try not to react emotionally to news until it's a week or so old -- after all, it's not as if I'm going to do anything relevant about any of it. Works pretty well for me.
I had no doubts about the Iraq War following the Saddam statue incident. On the "liquid explosive" thing, it seemed pretty clear pretty early on that it was bullshit. I don't know what it is that did it, but my cynicism about the United States is near-total -- the only recent exception was that I convinced myself to be glad to be voting for Kerry in specific, based entirely on his record on organized labor. (Presumably, I am the only person other than actual labor organizers for whom that is even on the radar.)
I disagree entirely with LB that taking this shit seriously would ever be a good thing. Due diligence should of course take place to ensure that terrorist attacks are prevented whenever possible -- but turning terrorism into a major theme of political life is one of the unmistakable traits of a fascist police state.
Taking this seriously =/= regarding it as a major existential threat. Some good, serious policing should be necessary and sufficient.
It's not an existential threat, though. "The terrorists" do not pose a threat to the continued existence of the American state. It's like you're making bin Laden parallel to the USSR, which actually could've destroyed us (if we hadn't been able to destroy it in retaliation).
Terrorism is a problem that can and should be dealt with. I'm really uncomfortable with any attempt to state it more strongly.
That '=/=' thing was meant to signify 'is not equal to'. Of course it's not an existential threat.
Adam, you must have misread her sign. She's saying the same thing.
Adam K, I guess I'm just going to learn from you, and ratchet my cynicism re US right up to 100%.
But it seems so sad -- I'm an immigrant who came to the US believing in its essential goodness. Bush/Cheney have killed all my hopes in this country. It is immensely pathos-making.
I don't know how you actual Americans take it, and can live through it. Will our children ask us one day: what was it like living under the worst presidency in US history?
I, for one, am not enjoying this unique honor. As soon as I can afford it, I'm leaving. For Canada maybe. Someplace less evil.
It's just not worth the heartbreak. Worse: I refuse to be a sucker. It seems to me Americans have become a nation of sheep-like suckers, suckered by their own smirking elite.
I did: I misread her sign.
Comity is reached!!!
Adam K, I guess I'm just going to learn from you, and ratchet my cynicism re US right up to 100%.
And thus do Adams pass on their wisdom, through the counsel of the comment thread all the way back to the biblical father of us all. So touching.
I think it's partly that I had nothing to lose in being completely cynical. It seems to be part of my disposition to be incapable of understanding patriotism, at least as it is practiced in the US. Even as a child, I always thought that things like saying the pledge of allegiance were stupid, and I was always annoyed that we played so much patriotic music in band in high school -- and this was even back when I was a Republican.
As a child, I thought that saying the pledge of allegiance was a sin against God.
I, on the other hand, always have hope. I come from South Africa, and look what happened there.
Unfortunately, one can't hope for anything like that here in the US. There is only one Martin Luther King or Mandela in a century.
One can only hope that the US will not start a war and become utterly isolationist, trying to deal with its debt and the fact that its gonads are owned by China. I foresee a long sinking into a kind of 1929 moral depression here.
What does America have to be proud about? iPods. And what do they use their iPods for? To listen to anodyne music.
Sorry, I'm in a bad mood about the US. I want to be someplace else.
Quite frankly, given a choice between being an American or a bonobo, I'd rather be a bonobo.
Our Hero and his Unlikely & Unwilling Partner have to run around the city solving junior high math puzzles and the like in order to save the day.
No, no, that's the da Vinci Code.
I am of the opinion that you are wrong about Islamist terrorism not being an existential threat to the US. I am not worried about another attack from them per se, but I am worried about what we will do to ourselves after the next attack.
62: Osama bin Kevorkian, terrorist mastermind.
I am not worried about what we'll do to ourselves after the next attack (can we do worse than we've done after 9/11?); I'm worried about what we'll do to some other people.
61: Imagine a perfect melding of the two: Tom Hanks and Samuel Jackson dress in drag and try to solve the old 'you've got one jug of X gallons and one of Y gallons and another of Z gallons and you have to fill Y' puzzle in a NYC park while Bruce Willis zips around Paris trying to counsel a disturbed young asteroid. Throw in Cybil Shepherd, call it Moonlighting II: Bosom Buddies on a Caper and it is gold.
64: We can do much worse - which is not to say we have not already done very badly - and if there is another attack then we very definitely will do much worse, to ourselves and to everyone else.
OK, mea culpa. Reasons to be cynical, Part CLXII.
Dude, check the update - I already linked it.
Aaarrgh!!! This is what comes of having to do some work.