Al-Qaeda: We will destroy New York within 35 days

[Bhaisahab]

i may be late on this, it may already have been posted in DU over the weekend, but what the hey.

Al-Qaeda exodus triggers panic
"Just a few days ago, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale carried a front-page story with the headline “Al-Qaeda: We will destroy New York within 35 days”.

The threat was contained, the paper said, in a video clip on a website run by al-Qaeda, which was blocked and then removed by the FBI. The threat seemed to hint that some sort of nuclear dirty bomb would be used . The newspaper is viewed as the flagship paper of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. New Year celebrations in New York, Rome, Moscow, London and Las Vegas were all carried out under intense security."
http://www.sundayherald.com/39093

[Beaker]

1. that would probably be a bad thing...

too bad they don't have enough soldiers left to put the rest of the country under martial law.

maybe the Lil'Dictator has a plan to deputize texans.

[kalian]

2. Sigh....

and the bs continues... :eyes:

[brainshrub]

3. Whatever.

[aquart]

4. WHY are they always picking on NEW YORK?????????

We gave at the office.

[kalian]

6. "Cliche terrorism"....

just like those "alerts" over the holidays...
You know...they couldn't possibly attack on the 5th of May. :eyes:

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[alcuno]

5. They don't have to do anything.

They've already got us right where they want us. Why no attacks since September 11? They've got patience and our fear working for them.

[kalian]

7. No attacks...because....

one of two possibilities:
1) shrub and his minions are "protecting" us... :eyes:
2) 9/11 staged events are expensive to do...and if another occurs
now, shrub would look like a fool.

[Andy_Stephenson]

10. Shrub already

lookslike a fool.

[Capablanca]

16. Tin Foil Time

Staged? Are you kidding? Talk about a goofy conspiracy!! I am sure I will get flamed and blasted as a freeper for even having the audacity to question you about this. But come on. Let's deal in reality.

[RandomKoolzip]

55. I will not flame you, but...

I will concede that though there is no evidence that 9/11 was "staged," there are far too many loose threads in the official story to preclude undying acceptance of the media's "last word" on this subject.

In any disaster, murder, or "third rate burglary," the first question to ask is "who benefitted?"

9/11 gave Bushco and the Neocons EVERYTHING they wanted- license for premptive wars, a cowed press, an acquiescent public, Halliburton construction contracts out the wazoo, you name it. Am I saying definitely that Bush "did it?" No. But you can't BUY luck like that, you know what I'm saying?

I DO think there was foreknowledge of an attack; I don't think that Bush and his cronies planned it. LIHOP, in other words. They used a tragedy to their advantage.

I remember you, you're the "we dems sound like victims guy." Please note that I'm talking to you like a fellow human being, and not crying "FREEPER." Please appreciate this, okay?

[Capablanca]

59. Now that is a point

You see I appreciate logical intelligent discussion. I believe that the good old boy club is alive and well as evidenced by Haliburton, Enron etc. I also believe that our intelligence community knew more about this than we will ever know. To accuse people of the deep dark evil of being willing accomplices to mass murder just because they vote different than I is way over the top and does not give credibility to the cause of progressive reform.

I do appreciate the tone of your reply and am enjoying being a member on this board. I may not be as liberal as some but I hope there is tolerance for a guy like me here. I have read your posts and find them to be interesting and they make me think.

[DrBB]

14. Major al Qaeda attacks run about every 2 to 2.5 years

Judging by their past record, nothing major was due till about now.

Just a few words of comfort as we head into the new year....

[madrchsod]

8. silvio

is the bush with brains. he has control of all the media in italy. he is a right wing thug who controls italy. that is why they call italy the sick man of europe

[punpirate]

9. A dirty bomb...

... would not destroy New York. More hype to suggest that there's no difference between a dirty bomb and a nuclear fission device. There's a considerable lack of knowledge on the part of the public about anything nuclear (well, geez, we have a president who continues to pronounce "nuclear" as "noo-koo-ler," so what does he know?), and the administration and its friends (such as Berlusconi) are playing this up, to the hilt.

It's also a way for the administration to hang onto the fiction that it's okay to deny Padilla access to the courts.

Terrorism is about inciting fear in the general public. If all al-Qaeda has to do is threaten an attack with a weapon that scares the shit out of the general public, out of ignorance, there's no need for an attack at all.

The essentials for a "dirty" bomb are explosives and radioactive waste. Anyone reporting the theft of radioactive waste? I haven't heard of such lately. Any suggestion that terrorists can build such a bomb without irradiating themselves into oblivion, or that they know how to obtain the necessary protective gear and have purchased it, know how to disguise such a weapon in order to transport it across many borders for use in New York?

Not much info on those matters.

Think the Mighty Wurlitzer is sounding a prolonged high C right now.

Cheers.

[Stephanie]

17. Well, Bush DID allow the theft of radioactive waste. Tuwaitha.

http://www.sierrasun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030718/OPINION/307180301
July 18, 2003
Bush's actions don't match the rhetoric
Guest Column by Kirk Caraway

<snip>Turn back the clock to the before the war. You "know" your enemy has 100-500 tons of chemical weapons, and you know where he is likely hiding them. Wouldn't you try to secure those sites as quickly as possible? After all, these chemical weapons posed a major threat to our advancing troops, and the big danger, they said, was if these fall into the hands of terrorists.

So why wasn't this done? Special Forces teams were flown into Iraq to secure the oil fields, but not the weapons. That speaks volumes about what the real reason for the war is.

And those weapons are still missing. Rumsfeld claims they are doing their best to search all those sites, but this is disconcerting. How many days have his 150,000 soldiers had to search the sites they already know about?

And what about the nukes? If Bush and his people really thought that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, why did the military wait for more than a week after taking over the region to even visit the country's main nuclear research facilities at Tuwaitha?

Why did they wait even longer to visit the neighboring Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility? Both sites were heavily looted, so if there were plans for a nuclear bomb or even some weapons-grade material, it would be long gone by now.<more>


http://www.counterpunch.org/schwarz07172003.html
July 17, 2003
Bush's Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine
The Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs
By MARTIN SCHWARZ

<snip>Bush's use of the specter of nuclear threat to legitimate his intimidation policy can also been seen as just another excuse if reports from occupied post-war Iraq are taken into account. When the reports about massive looting in Iraq's biggest nuclear facility Al-Tuwaitha emerged after the war, the U.S. administration rejected the IAEA's request to send inspectors to that facility for more than a month. El-Baradei didn't even get an answer to his letters to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Meanwhile, strange things must have happened in Al-Tuwaitha: The IAEA in Vienna received several phone calls from U.S. soldiers based at the facility to secure it, who didn't know what to do with nuclear material they had found.<more>



http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030716_192.html
U.N. in Dark About Looted Iraq Dirty Bomb Material
July 16
By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it had accounted for most of the low-grade uranium lost during looting at Iraq's main nuclear facility, but had no information about more dangerous radioactive material.

<snip>But an IAEA spokeswoman said the agency had not been permitted by U.S. occupation authorities to check the status of Tuwaitha's stocks of highly-radioactive cesium-137, cobalt-160 and other materials which could be used in dirty bombs.

"There were around 400 of these radioactive sources stored at Tuwaitha," IAEA's Melissa Fleming said.

Witnesses have said that villagers near Tuwaitha, especially children, have shown symptoms of radiation sickness.

"Any case of radiation sickness would probably be from these highly-radioactive sources, not from the low-grade natural uranium at Location C," Fleming said.<more>




http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6068775.htm
Looting of Iraqi nuclear facility indicts U.S. goals
If we feared the loss of radioactive materials, why not guard them?
TRUDY RUBIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003

TUWAITHA, Iraq - On a dusty road, just outside of Baghdad, lies one of the great mysteries of the Iraq war.

<snip>The administration knew full well what was stored at Tuwaitha. So how is it possible that the U.S. military failed to secure the nuclear facility until weeks after the war started? This left looters free to ransack the barrels, dump their contents, and sell them to villagers for storage.

How is it possible that, according to Iraqi nuclear scientists, looters are still stealing radioactive isotopes?

The Tuwaitha story makes a mockery of the administration's vaunted concern with weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military hastened to secure the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad from looters. But Iraq's main nuclear facility was apparently not important enough to get similar protection.

<snip>And why, in facilities other than Location C, is the looting apparently continuing?

Hisham Abdel Malik, a Iraqi nuclear scientist who lives near Tuwaitha and has been inside the complex, told me that in buildings "where there are radioactive isotopes, there is looting every day." He says the isotopes, which are in bright silver containers, "are sold in the black market or kept in homes." According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, such radioactive sources can kill on contact or pollute whole neighborhoods.

How could an administration that had hyped the danger of Saddam handing off nuclear materials to terrorists let Tuwaitha be looted? Maybe the hype was just hype ... or maybe the Pentagon didn't send enough troops to Iraq to do the job right.

Either answer is damning.<more>

[punpirate]

44. Again... I stress the failure of the public to understand...

... what constitutes nuclear bombs, and nuclear waste. With specific regard to Tuwaitha, this was by and large not nuclear waste--nuclear waste is a by-product of nuclear power production. There was never any nuclear power production in Iraq. The greatest portion of the nuclear leftovers at Tuwaitha was mildly enriched uranium.

There was some waste from nuclear medicine activities, such as cesium 137 (a common radioactive source in x-ray machines), but the quantities of those materials were quite small, and certainly not enough to create a truly threatening "dirty" bomb.

It was quite wrong for the administration not to secure the materials at Tuwaitha, but the real danger was to the local populace, not to New York, which was my original point.

Cheers.

[Stephanie]

49. So you're saying the uranium that was looted at Tuwaitha

is not sufficient to create a "dirty bomb"?

You're right that I confused nuclear waste with the uranium that was looted, but I still think that those looted materials are dangerous and could be used by terrorists. Am I wrong?

[okieinpain]

58. yeah, but you forgot the most important part. we've got saddam

shit were saved man, saved. we are saved right, I shouldn't have to worry any more right.

[bluestateguy]

11. Qaeda

I happen to think it very unlikely that airplanes will be used in the next attack. The lighting struck there once before, and they would be stupid to try it again, as they would likely fail. Airline security is better now and passengers (a la Flight 93) will not tolerate being pushed around by little boys with box cutters anymore. I think Al Qaeda will try another tack next time, so as to make people more afraid of even more things.

[Vote2004]

12. Go to hell, Al-Qaeda

Hey, no matter what's going on here and who's in charge, Al-Qaeda and the likes who want to hurt me and my family can go to effing hell and burn forever. So there! New Yorkers are tough and you will never destroy them!

[Woodstock]

24. Oh, they are going there, no doubt of that

But hell is too good for them.

[Vote2004]

27. Yes

Hell IS too good for them. Thank you for your kind reply.

[evil_orange_cat]

13. If NY is nuked, we should storm Washington like a lynch mob

how many more Americans will get killed under Bush's watch before America wakes up and realizes this corporate, neo-fascist, drunken frat boy shouldn't be responsible for protecting us?

I hope its BS...

[King_Crimson]

30. I agree 100%...

evil_orange_cat! It's gonna take exactly that kind of action to let these Fascist bastards know we are not gonna allow them to continue to destroy this country!

:mad:

[evil_orange_cat]

52. I'll bring the pitchforks :D

you bring the torches
someone else will have to bring the beer :toast:

[Vote2004]

15. One more word for them kadas

It is OUR inside problem who we want in charge and how much we like or dislike, but when it comes to you attacking US, we will kick your ass, Al-Qaeda or otherwise!

[foreigncorrespondent]

19. And what if it is proven...

...without a shadow of doubt that Bush* and his band of thugs either let 9/11 happen, or made it happen? What then? Are you going to stand up and kick their ass as well?

[Vote2004]

21. Hell yeah

IF it is proven without a shadow of doubt, hell yeah! And the same goes for anybody who made it happen/aid it to happen, etc.

[CndsH8RNC]

18. Have We Eased Tensions????

If nothing else, the new Millennium has or at least should have given all who reside in North America pause...Al-Qaeda does not exist in isolation, neither does the present Administration operate in isolation. Terrorist are the offspring of greed, ignorance, and intolerance...theirs as well as our own. The imbalance between the haves and have nots are fertile grounds for the likes of Osama and his ilk to expose what is sadly the "battle cry of the RNC" Money Money Money more for me...

[Vote2004]

22. Huh? What do you mean?

You say,

...Al-Qaeda does not exist in isolation, neither does the present Administration operate in isolation

Okay, I am here to learn things you know. Why you say that? We don't operate in isolation? Please explain? I am from another country and I want to learn, I don't know so much about politics here but all I know is that I don't like people who want to destroy America that I like. (I earned a vote so I want to vote right way.)

[grasswire]

43. welcome to DU cnds

I have to admit that your screen name gave me pause because of the RNC at the end, but the H8 before that helped.

Have a good stay here!

[Woodstock]

23. One more big terror strike before November

and Bush will be president... er, dictator... for life.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. ~ Hermann Goering

[Stephanie]

25. Wrong. The Worst Security Failure Ever, followed by Another Failure?

Bush fucks up twice, and gets re-elected? I don't think so.

The whole myth of his admin. is that they are saving us from terror, protecting us from attack. He lets it happen again and he is fucked. IMO.

[Woodstock]

26. He was never blamed for the first time

so why will he be blamed for the second?

His poll numbers go up when the people are afraid. It's the oldest trick in the book, to rule using fear.

[Stephanie]

28. I blame him for the first one. I will blame him if it happens again

And I think more people than we realize also blame him, and even more will if he allows another one. He's staked his whole presidency on this. If he fails to "keep America safe", he's nothing but a Miserable Failure.

I want America to ask WHY two years of bloody war abroad and abrogation of our rights at home has not made us safer. In fact, we are LESS safe than we were two years ago.

[Woodstock]

33. We all know this, but 50% of the country is still in the dark

Fox didn't tell them Bush was responsible, so he wasn't. He's actually committed impeachable offenses but since the Republicans have a lock on all three branches of government, Democrats are rendered ineffective at doing much about it (plus the "play it safe" element of the Democratic party isn't doing all they can do.)

Bush is still at above 50% approval rating & neck and neck with the Dem candidate. Just catching Saddam - after all that money and all those lives lost - a guy who was never even a threat to us - gave him a significant boost in the polls. There are people who still believe his lies that Saddam & 9/11 are connected. And during 9/11 his poll numbers were sky high. I expect his numbers to significantly increase if we are attacked again.

It doesn't make sense, no. There are a lot of uninformed/misinformed, scared people out there. And the Bush Administration/Republicans are taking advantage of this to the max.

[Stephanie]

37. We can change this. Repeat after me. Worst Security Failure EVER

Bush has FAILED to make us safer. He has FAILED to eradicate al Queda. He has squandered our resources on an oil grab in Iraq. The terror threat is WORSE now than ever. He allowed the NUKES to be LOOTED in Iraq.

Of course I understand what you're saying.

BUT I think people know more than you think they do. I think everyone's on the internet and everyone's got access to what we know. I met two friends this week - one from L.A., one from Minneapolis. BOTH volunteered that they're sure BUSH KNEW.

We can make sure he doesn't get away with this again. A pre-emptive strike of our own. BUSH, if it happens again on your watch, you will be BLAMED. The Worst President Ever. The Worst Security Failure Ever.

[Woodstock]

41. I don't share your estimate but hope you are right

I think the country is about 50/50 - those who know the truth/those who don't know the truth.

I'm hopeful and doing everything in my power to get the word out. But we've got our work cut out for us.

[blondeatlast]

60. One out of 200+million. I'm not LIHOP or MIHOP

but I do think he had sufficient warning to do something.

I agree with you on most counts, but it will be damn hard to convince Average Joe.

[Vote2004]

31. I am confused!!!

Please explain? Like I said, I finally earned my one vote and want to vote the right way. Dont know what to do yet.

[Woodstock]

34. Read www.thenation.com

It's a great publication that should answer a lot of questions.

[donco6]

29. Hence, my tagline . . .

[Stephanie]

32. This is why we have to put the word out. Worst Security FAILURE Ever

If Bush allows another attack, the buck stops with HIM.

If they're going to have a second Reichstag, let's let them know that it's going to bite them in their own ass. I want BushCO to know that another attack is the WORST thing that could happen to their political agenda, not another springboard to increase their power. They need to know the consequences will fall on THEM.

I say this as a New Yorker.

Bush, if it happens again, you will PAY for it with your career, your fortune, and your future (which I hope will be in jail). Don't you DARE let it happen again.

[donco6]

35. If the unthinkable does happen . . .

. . . I hope we can put the blame where it belongs. But, even though most Reichstag members knew who the culprit was, Hitler had consolidated so much propaganda power that he was able to point the finger at the anarchists and communists. I'm afraid Bush* has that kind of power right now.

[Woodstock]

38. That's the problem - at this point we need a smoking gun

Something like what we had with Watergate is the only way - but the frustrating thing is then we at least had some power in Congress. Now our hands our tied. And then the Washington Post stood for journalism - now it's just another cog in the right wing propaganda machine.

The only thing I can think of is that we have to keep banging the drum of truth ourselves - eventually - hopefully - enough people will hear it.

[wunnerfulrobin]

39. we would never have gone for security before 9-11....

can you imagine the howl from flyers if we had put into place the current screening BEFORE there was ever an attack? The airlines woulda bitched, passengers, etc. hell, we hear people bitch now about increased security because there hasnt been another attack! then if there is one, they'll be sreaming "why didnt "they" do more?
Its kinda like the overweight smoker: he has a heart attack, and THEN he quits smoking and goes on a diet.

[Stephanie]

40. That's not the point

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/index.html

[chefgirl]

42. I couldn't agree more

See my sig line.

-chef-

[Fleshdancer]

36. does this mean we won't be having that election?

didn't Gen. Franks predict something like that?

[frylock]

45. the last thing "al-qaeda" is going to do is announce their plans..

more monsters on main street bullshit, complements of our guvment.

[Powerlock]

46. I don't ever believe anything with a time frame

It would be like bank robbers calling the cops on monday and telling them they will be at the bank on friday.

[0007]

65. All these audios and videos are getting very annoying.

The administration goes which ever way the wind is blowing.

Most bank robbers are stupid. These men fighting U.S. policy from the rape of their country are called terrorist and are much more clever than the idiots running the country and brainwashing the population with bull shit.

[daleo]

47. I don't believe it

A right wing paper, owned by the right wing PM of Italy, reports a phantom threat on a phantom website, which was immediately removed by the FBI. Hearsay about hearsay, told by known liars.

[sventvkg]

48. If New York gets hit again I dont' see how this administration survives.

I mean they would be more of a security laughing stock then they already are. Short of declaring Martial Law which very well might happen, Bush would be through.

[Stephanie]

51. You've got it exactly right.

I agree.

[Oilwellian]

53. Not to mention....

If America is hit with a WMD, the public will wonder if it was a WMD that could have been contained by Valerie Plame's organization. Once that case comes to light, the American public will understand just how much more danger we're in now. They will understand just how much more vulnerable we are to WMDS because of the traitor that BUSH IS PROTECTING in the WH.

[Stephanie]

57. Right. There's a Traitor in the WHITE HOUSE.

And Bush doesn't even want to know which one of his staff it is. Maybe that's because it's the staff who read the newspapers to him.

If he read the news himself, he might learn that Valerie Plame was working on issues of WMDs, and by exposing her identity the traitor most likely destroyed her whole network, foreign and american.

Do you think that Bush is just unaware that having a traitor in the WH who discloses the name of an American spy is sort of, like, treasonous? Didn't Robert Hansen get busted for that?

If you're an employer, and one of your employees commits a crime, and you're aware of it, say, after the fact, and you protect the identity of the culprit, would that be a crime? Of conspiracy?

[blondeatlast]

61. Not just the one who reads the newspapers to him; the leaker is

the one who puts the words into his mouth.

'Nuff said about that.

[ComerPerro]

50. Bush is weighing his options

Let it happen, and impose martial law? Or prevent it like he should, and then constantly remind us how this attack was stopped (not like its his job or anything). Either option gives him unlimited power. So it will come down to whatever scenario can give him the power sooner and more reliably.

[NewJeffCT]

63. lot of electoral votes

Imagine if NYC goes, then the state may go Republican.

[Bucky]

54. Dammit, why are they only going after Blue States?

Um, maybe my priorities are off here. If it's all the same I'd just as soon that they don't destroy New York.

[Minstrel Boy]

56. Welcome to the rest of your life.

When do you think we'll see "Code Green"? "Never" seems a plausible answer, doesn't it?

It's fear, and nothing but, until we pry the world from their cold, dead hands.

[blondeatlast]

62. So true.

[wegottem]

64. Cell phone

with one cell phone these people can cost us millions of dollars, the Jackasses who are running this country have caused this to happen.