I'm Plotting to Blow Up LAX (by David Goldstein at HuffPost)

[marmar]

David Goldstein

I'm Plotting to Blow Up LAX

If you've watched TV, listened to the radio, read a newspaper or browsed the InterTubes in the past 24-hours, then you've surely heard about the "unthinkable" plot to blow up JFK Airport, that was foiled just in the nick of time:

A retired airport cargo worker and a former member of parliament in Guyana were among four men charged with a plot that officials said was intended to cause mass casualties and cripple one of the world's busiest travel hubs. Investigators acknowledged, however, that the scheme was so nascent that there was no developed plan for how the plotters would get explosives, let alone gain access to the tanks and pipelines they hoped to target.

Um... forgive me for being cynical, but we've been lied to so many times before, with Bush administration propagandists transforming the angry ramblings of narcissistic pizza-boys into sophisticated, 24-like conspiracies, well... I'm having trouble taking any of these stories seriously. I mean, I suppose I wouldn't chafe so much at the inconvenience of the enhanced security restrictions put in place in the wake of the infamous "plot" to bring down a jetliner by mixing a high-powered liquid explosive mid-flight, if the would-be terrorists actually had the resources or know-how to carry out their threat, or if the plan was at least, you know, scientifically possible.

"The devastation that would have been caused had this plot succeeded is unthinkable," Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at a Saturday afternoon news conference in Manhattan to announce the arrests.

Yeah, and one of the things that makes this plot so "unthinkable" is that it couldn't possibly have worked. Fuel pipeline and storage tank explosions do occasionally happen, and while they can be tragic in their own right, they don't result in the immolation of entire storage facilities or miles of pipeline. Fuel is volatile, and so engineers tend to build in automatic cutoffs and other safety stuff like that. It's not like you can just light a fuse and the entire thing goes boom.

Can one imagine a plot like this succeeding in temporarily shutting down JFK? Sure. But then, so can a blizzard or an afternoon thunderstorm. Hell, if disrupting air travel is your goal, I'm guessing a bomb threat could be just as effective as an actual bomb, and much easier to execute. Leave a few identical, unattended bags scattered throughout the terminals, and then just sit back and watch the mayhem. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-goldstein/im-plotting-to-blow-up-l_b_50464.html

[napi21]

1. I saw an interview yesterday with, I think he was the head of

the Terrorism Task Force, or some such title. I had to laugh, since before THIS guy, CNN had interviewed someone from the FBI, someone else from Airport Security, and several others who were 100% doom & gloom! Well, the last guy interviewed said "This plan has been being investigated for a few years now, and to be quite honest, we called it MISSON IMPOSSIBLE!" He said the way these guys had their plan laid out, it didn't stand a chance!

I do find it interesting that I only saw THAT guy interviewed ONCE!!!! Must have made a mistake and told the truth, and the MSM sure can't have THAT!!!!

[rsmith6621]

2. This story covers......

.............up the need to tell the world about 14 dead USA soldiers....people are polorized

[formercia]

3. Please read Ms. Mauskopf's bio

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nye/district/usabio.html

She doesn't seem to have a background in terrorism investigations. I think someone dropped this in her lap and told her to run with it. Poor woman is going to make an ass of herself.

[defendandprotect]

4. Not likely, but

Wouldn't like the people pushing it to think they have to demolish any more buildings to keep us all in line.

Were these plotters supposed suggest Chavez-Venezuela sponsorship of terrorism against US--??

[starroute]

5. Mauskopf ties in with the attorney firing scandal

This Village Voice piece from April is recommended reading:

http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0715,barrett,76328,15.html

New York's two United States Attorneys—Roslynn Mauskopf, who runs the Brooklyn-based Eastern District, and Michael Garcia, the head of Manhattan's Southern District—have gone unmentioned in the weeks of news coverage about the eight federal prosecutors unceremoniously fired in Washington. But the saga of what's happened in these two elite jurisdictions is one more alarming indication of how badly politicized the evaluation process is at the Bush Justice Department.

Mauskopf, who had no federal prosecutorial experience when George Pataki convinced the White House to make her a U.S. Attorney in 2002, got the highest possible rating in the memo Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, sent the White House in March 2005. She was one of many on the list that Sampson's memo said should be retained because she had "produced well, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the president and the attorney general." In fact, Mauskopf is such a White House favorite that in June 2006, and again this January, she was nominated for the federal bench, one of only four U.S. Attorneys tapped for a judge-ship at either time.

<snip>

The Bush infatuation with Mauskopf is difficult to attribute to the standards that the Department of Justice (DOJ) maintains that it applies to U.S. Attorneys—her gun convictions are well below the average percent of total caseload nationally, and her immigration prosecutions barely exceed Clinton-era totals. The overall criminal caseload in her office plunged an astonishing 38 percent in her first two years. And just as when she was New York State inspector general under Governor Pataki, she has made virtually no public corruption cases. When Schumer acquiesced to her appointment in 2002, he insisted that she recuse herself on any cases involving the Pataki administration. Though her predecessor conducted major probes of the governor before she became U.S. Attorney, she hasn't had to recuse herself—because her office hasn't done any. She chose not to recuse herself, however, on the office's biggest corporate corruption case—Computer Associates—even though Al D'Amato, the former senator tied to Pataki and closely linked to Mauskopf, was a CA board member and, as audit committee chair, was charged with overseeing the company's misreported finances. D'Amato's lobbying partner was the sole member of the Pataki screening panel who recommended her for U.S. Attorney.