Al Queda Claims Responsibility for Blackout

[masmdu]

Haven't seen this mentioned in US Media.

http://english.daralhayat.com/arab_news/08-2003/Article-20030818-14bdd659-c0a8-01ed-0079-6e1c903b7552/story.html

[Sweetpea]

1. Maybe because it is not true

The black out could just have been from plain old incompetence.

[Ein]

2. It was posted.

But I wrote it off as them just trying to claim stake... Then I thought about it.

9/11 was not only about killing 3000, but also where they chose to do it. They could figure out they wouldn't rack in the numbers with the WH or Pentagon, but could with 2 other targets. Which could've been alot of things.

But they attacked the World Trade Centers, a business beacon. It makes sense that if someone wanted to destroy the US, they would attack targets that would hurt the economy. The blackout certainly cost us plenty of money.

It relieves me to see that they distinguish b/t American civilians and the Bush junta. I mean no harm to anyone, I hope they don't mean it towards me.

They definately overstated it with the whole statement on throwing the US into hysteria and looting. Ottowa was the only city that was looted.

And they are just assholes for hating Canada, lol.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Nice of the to take credit for it, don't you think?

Just reaffirms the RNC message.

I'd have found it more credible if they explained how they did it....

[Ein]

5. Scapegoats.

I don't doubt it is a plant. Just like the story of the Blaster virus getting the one plant, how convenient, I ultimately think it was the passive attitude of the past couple decades towards our power grids. Bush alone had warnings last November coupled with the Cali blackout to warn of this.

[sistersofmercy]

7. georgie boy looked awfully shaken in his press interview to me....

Did you see his showboating "Bring 'em on" conference at semper fi compound? Boasting about Hamboli? huge difference just a few hours later uhhhhh ummmmmm! I don't know but I voted for squirrels as being the saboteurs, you know build nests in our trees, won't abide by our rules, chew on wires where they seem fit! I say employ the patriot act II depart all of them!

[ameriphile]

3. So let me get this straight

An organization of mass murderers is now trying to take credit for switching off people's refrigerators? I guess the "war on terror" has been a lot more successful than we thought...

[rooboy]

6. Some think it was Al Qaeda, I suspect Emmanuel Goldstein. n/t

[Blue_State_Elitist]

8. haha

What if some middle eastern worker was in a "turrist network" and simply entered a few bad lines of code into the system and fucked the whole thing up. Just imaginative thinking. Its more possibly just another effort to distract the american public from the troops dying over in our colony.

[OldSoldier]

18. Not likely...

Because the magical "power grid control system" in reality isn't much more sophisticated than a light switch. And it doesn't need to be.

The power plants are all controlled by computers, but this wasn't a power plant problem--it was a transmission-system problem, and that part of the grid isn't computerized.

[Obsolete]

9. Al Qaeda & credit

Al Qaeda has never taken credit for something they didn't do. Odd as it seems, they have their "reputation" to protect. They also claim they blew up the gas storage facility in Texas earlier this year, and they are mad that the western press is not reporting it!

Explosions Rock Tyler County
http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?s=%20%201293466

Ok, maybe it all sounds silly, but consider these events in 2003:
Major Blackout
Two DIFFERENT gas lines to Phoenix "breached"
Gas storage facility explosion in Texas
Refinery explosion in NYC
Refinery explosion in some place else I can't remember (sorry!)

Al Qaeda claims at least two of them.
The Wash. Post in June had article about Al Qaeda's Plans, desires, and test runs to attack our infastructure, including their having maps of the power grid and had acquired "cyber" knowledge of its computers.

Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4475.htm

It makes me want to dust off my tin foil helmet.

Maybe I'm ignorant about the power grid (actually, I'm sure I am) But how could they fix it if they didn't know what was wrong with it? You can't really fix a car if you don't know what's wrong with it. (maybe by kicking the tires?)

Of course, maybe Al Qaeda is full of crap here, but maybe they're not. I just think it is too early to dismiss them yet.

[MSchreader]

11. Refinery explosion

You wrote:

Ok, maybe it all sounds silly, but consider these events in 2003:
Major Blackout
Two DIFFERENT gas lines to Phoenix "breached"
Gas storage facility explosion in Texas
Refinery explosion in NYC
Refinery explosion in some place else I can't remember (sorry!)

When the blackout happened, there was a major explosion at the Marathon refinery here in Detroit. They had to evacuate a large area of the region.

Martin

[NYC]

12. What refinery explosion in NYC?

I didn't hear about. Please tell me what you know, where it was. Thanks.

[Fescue4u]

10. Pretty funny article.

I chuckled several times reading. I had no idea the east was so small.

Im perfectly willing to believe that terrorist knocked the power out, however the claims and misinformation contained makes me believe that terrorist didnt do it.

I got a big kick out of how the stopped the Internet to! lmao


I guess this is good news, if AL Qaeda is now reducing to making ridiculous statements, maybe there strength is waining? Let us hope.

[althecat]

13. Purported statement claiming responsibility - Full Text

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0308/S00237.htm

We posted this at Scoop because that's what us tabloid types do. I haven't made a big deal of it though cause instinctively I think it is BS... but who knows...

We have a columnist in Saudi who thinks it might be true. I expect there is more coverage of this angle in the arab media...

Here's the column

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0308/S00157.htm

"Another huge hardship in America has occurred. A mass power outage in the North Eastern states, including New York State. The official government reasons for the electricity service disruption is that the equipment was outdated, and no service protectors were in place.

However, one wonders: could it really have been a terrorist act and the government doesn't wish to alarm the citizens with another breach of security attack? Did not some radical rightists threaten to do just this two years ago? And don't call them Muslims, please! Prophet Muhammed would NEVER have condoned an act such as that against all the innocent lives which were not even in military service, but just normal citizens."

[stunted evolution]

14. We'll never know if it was

Al Qaeda stands about as much chance of actually having pulled off such a sophisticated act of terrorism as Gary Coleman has of being elected the next Governor of California. Even if they DID, by some microscopic chance, pull it off we will never hear an admission of it from the Bush administration. There is no way in hell they would ever admit to another security failure, particularly in light of their rearrangement of the Constitution with the Patriot Act, and the new multi-billion dollar money vaccuum they call the Department of Homeland Security. How could they justify the programs with a failure on this scale? Given Bush's statement earlier this year that he considered Al Qaeda irrelevant and that they were no longer his priority, this type of an intelligence failure would be the proverbial nail in the coffin for him.

[Old and In the Way]

16. Welcome aboard stunted evolution!

Well, if it were terrorism and this administration is keeping it a secret, they are taking one hell of a risk with the American and Canadian public's well being. Because these are public institutions and the problem crosses borders, a stuffing of the facts would be political suicide and the probability of someone leaking hard evidence extremely high....who wouldn't want to bring this administration day if the evidence is out there?

But there is little risk in having Al-Qaeda take credit actually...(1) it reinforces the RNC terror mantra and (2) deflects the root cause of political mismanagement of our public utilities through promoting deregulation.

What I find odd is the timing of their statement....why wouldn't they take credit as it was occurring, or even have taped their message prior to the event to prove their responsibility? Why not release details of how they did it to prove their capability?

Instead, they take credit for the event, almost as a political favor for this administration whose actions in the past 30 months have done done nothing but enhance and allow Al-Qaeda to grow in stature and size.

Remember, we have an active program of disseminating disinformation in the Pentagon. The stated objective is to disrupt terror networks...but if it was the political expedient thing to do, why couldn't it be used to spread disinfo to the American/Canadian public?

RNC/Al-Qaeda...mutually codependent and enabling actors on the world stage?

[althecat]

17. This has an interesting bearing on the UN bombing...

Seemingly everything Al Qaeda does plays perfectly to a * agenda. I wonder how that can be?

[Old and In the Way]

19. Sure does, IMHO

All the more reason for our military to lockdown Baghdad and protect the pipelines....for the good of the Iraqi's you understand. And that'll keep the UN from wanting to get involved here, too.

Of course, the big losers here are the Iraqi's themselves....

I'm telling you, if I didn't know better, I'd say Al-Qaeda was either incredibly stupid in their understanding of US politics: (1) if they really wanted to get the US out of Iraq, seems to me that the smartest thing they would do is make sure that absolutely no violence occurred in Iraq for 3-6 months....we'd be hard pressed to justify our occupation if that happened and (2) It's the Republican Party whose sustenance comes from the oil companies in the region...so why do they do things that enhance this administration's political credibility here? Or, they have a symbiotic relationship whose real agenda (keeping thngs just they way they are) is hidden.

[newyawker99]

21. Hi stunted evolution!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[AmeriCanadian]

15. Black Knight "'Tis but a scratch." Arthur "A scratch? Your arm's off!"

Monty Python

[terryg11]

20. Bush admin. would never admit that

can you imagine if they allowed more terrorist attacks to occur INSIDE the US after spending billions on Homeland Security? It would be a huge blow to their credibility, so I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to deny it happened as such