Of Orange Alerts and Terrorist Targets...

[Hutch]

...or another reason besides heridity that my hair is falling out.

Am I the only one who doesn't think the next major terrorist attack will not be by air? I have two reasons for thinking this, one, given that the terrorists are smart--manical S. O. B. 's, yes, but not stupid, they are not likely to repeat themselves and two, any attempted hijacking of an airliner these days will find the passengers (or at least a percentage of them, based on the United Flight over PA and several instances since them) fighting like rabid Wolverines as they will assume any hijacking is thier death sentence. So IMHO the next major attack on the US, and there will be one attempted, will not come by air.

So from where?

I have a couple of opinions, which I would be happy to have the rest of the Forum talk me out of, or perhaps come up with some new and better fears for me to worry about. ;)


One would be the hijacking of a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) tanker that would be detonated in the harbor of a major port like Boston, New York or Norfork (if you wanted to hit the US Atlantic Fleet). If I remember the 60 Minutes program well before 9-11 that first got me worrying this way, the resulting explosion could do massive damage and be triggered by conventional explosives.
A big payoff for a relatively small investment--at least in terrorist's ghoulish math.

Two would be sabotage of the aqueduct systems for a major city--New York and/or Los Angelescome to mind, as both are dependent on water brought in from distant sources by only a limited number of transports (NYC was serviced by two huge pipes for many years, a new system with two new pipes has recently come on-line). Now I do not have the plans for these systems and perhaps, like my old Dutch Uncle, I am up the wrong tree barking, but the amount of dislocation, productivity, and chaos that could result if the water supply to any major city was cut off for even a week is not to be taken lightly. And again, if it was possibel it could be done with relatively small teams and conventional explosives.

Now, of course the folks at Homeland Security, being the best the US Government can provide, have thought of these possibilities and taken steps to secure them...I hope.

Anyone who (a) wants to reassure me or (b) come up with something scarier is welcome to do so. Meanwhile I'll continue to keeps these around as my argument against aging as to why I am losing my hair and my beard is turning white. :D

[aerocontrols]

It seems to me that LNG unloading facilities should be moved offshore, with a pipeline from the offshore facility to the onshore distribution point(s).

Or is that not feasible?

[waitew]

They wouldn't blow up the aqueduct...they'd poision the reserviors.That'd make more sense.Easier & difficult to counter...but too smart for the real terrorists...which, apparently, aren't capable of mounting even the most feeble of attacks in the USA. ..It's all blown out of proportion..for an excuse to take away American freedom...by our own government!!

[Kopji]

Considering all the off-shore outsourcing US companies do, we would take a pretty good economic blow by an attack in China, India, or Singapore...

But shucks, that sounds like a more complex problem than can be handled by color charts - carry on.

And what exactly is a condition blue or green?

[sorgoth]

If I was one of the terrorists on 9/11, I would've flown it right into a nuclear power plant instead of the Pentagon.

[The idea]

Who do you think orchestrated the Madonna-Britney kiss? It was the terrorists. They're trying to provoke divine wrath upon the USA.

[sorgoth]

Originally posted by The idea
Who do you think orchestrated the Madonna-Britney kiss? It was the terrorists. They're trying to provoke divine wrath upon the USA.


Let me throw away all my morals for a second here, and say that diving wrath upon ANYWHERE would be very, very cool.


Also give me a definitive answer for the whole godly being thing too.

[Badger]

Didn't I read about missing "battlefield nukes"? Didn't the Russians lose some, due to the poor state of their economy?

Wouldn't these warheads fit in a van or a car?

I, personally, worry about propane tanker trucks, and cube vans packed with home-made explosives.

[schplurg]

Just a few comments.

Flying a plane into a nuclear power plant would most likely not result in a nuclear explosion, or in the release of massive amounts of radioactive materials or other toxic waste. The latter is certainly more likely than the former, relatively speaking. That seemed to be implied by one of the above posts. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Poisoning reservoirs or water supplies would take a huge amount of poison, or whatever they chose to use, to have an impact. Even a whole truckload of xxx-chemical dumped into a reservoir would most likely be diluted or filtered to the point of being non-threatening. Perhaps a bacteria is, or could be, developed to accomplish this, but it would be very difficult to execute such a plan anyways. I'm not going to bother searching for links to any of this, so believe it or not. Either scenario, to the best of my knowledge (and opinion), would probably fail.

...come up with something scarier...
I remember the massive amounts of damage, human loss, and pollution generated by just a few large fires a year or so ago. What if 1,000 terrorists simply dropped lit matches in strategic locations around the country? Or even 100? Imagine the impact that would have.

[Nikk]

I am surprised that so far there has not been a single "conventional" suicide bombing or car bombing aimed at a soft target like a restaurant in the U.S. or Britain. It suggests logistical and staffing problems or reasonably effective disruption by the security people.

I am also surprised that the opposition seem to have a rather childish focus on creating large bangs. Why not tell your people to get jobs in the animal feed industry and add foot and mouth virus to the product. There would be no human deaths but a lot of expensive disruption. The same approach could be used in the human food chain. A few people adding botulinus toxin or whatever to basic products like milk could cause a great deal of panic even if they caused very few deaths.

I suppose we should all be grateful that the followers of Islam spend a great deal of time praying on the floor with their bums in the air. I have been assured that this results in a rush of blood to the head which inhibits creative thinking.:D