A HISTORY OF THE CAR BOMB

[bemildred]

PART 1: The poor man's air force

"You have shown no pity to us! We will do likewise. We will dynamite you!"
- anarchist warning (1919)

On a warm September day in 1920 in New York, a few months after the arrest of his comrades Sacco and Vanzetti, a vengeful Italian anarchist named Mario Buda parked his horse-drawn wagon near the corner of Wall and Broad streets, directly across from J P Morgan Company. He nonchalantly climbed down and disappeared, unnoticed, into the lunchtime crowd.

A few blocks away, a startled postal worker found strange leaflets warning: "Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you!" They were signed: "American anarchist fighters". The
bells of nearby Trinity Church began to toll at noon. When they stopped, the wagon - packed with dynamite and iron slugs - exploded in a fireball of shrapnel.

"The horse and wagon were blown to bits," wrote Paul Avrich, the celebrated historian of US anarchism who uncovered the true story. "Glass showered down from office windows, and awnings 12 stories above the street burst into flames. People fled in terror as a great cloud of dust enveloped the area. In Morgan's offices, Thomas Joyce of the securities department fell dead on his desk amid a rubble of plaster and walls. Outside, scores of bodies littered the streets."

Asia Times

[corkhead]

1. I thought the first one was the Corvair

[Poll_Blind]

2. Asia Times has some superb articles in it- and this is no different.

Thank you for sharing this!

PB

[bemildred]

3. Kick for Mike Davis.

And anyone that still thinks the situation in Iraq was not predictable.
:kick:

[TheBaldyMan]

4. It's the poor man's smart bomb n/t

[Briar]

5. Part 2: Car bombs with wings

can be found here:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=76824


"The CIA officers that Yousef worked with closely impressed upon him one rule: never use the terms sabotage or assassination when speaking with visiting congressmen."

-- Steve Coll, Ghost Wars

[bemildred]

6. Thanks for posting that.

:thumbsup:

[bemildred]

7. Kick for the weekend crowd.

:kick: