I'm with Oliphant on AAR

[ewagner]

he said a few minutes ago, just before the break that he was terribly troubled by the fact that there was "no intelligence" about this attack in London.

Another massive intelligence failure?

On the part of MI5/MI6 AND CIA, FBI?

If this is true it means terrorists have learned how to avoid traditional intelligence gathering techniques. It also means that their operational circles have not been penetrated.

This is the most frightening thing I can imagine.

Thoughts?

[knowbody0]

1. our CIA has been dismantled by george

[FreedomAngel82]

14. Yep

Goes to show you that we're really winning the war! :sarcasm: Just goes to show you how everything is SO screwed up.

[Dudley_DUright]

2. I am listening as well and I agree

Tom is one smart cookie. I am glad he has recovered fully from his aneurysm.

[kentuck]

3. We share our intelligence with them...

So that means we didn't know shit either. But that's no surprise...maybe if we just spent another $40 billion??

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. There probably was a Presidential Daily Briefing

that said "Al Qaeda Determined to Strike London." But Junior didn't get around to reading it because he was too busy guzzling Glenlivet and hobnobbing with real leaders and running over Scottish policemen on his little bikey.

[liberalitch]

10. Hmmmm glenlivet.....

a little ice please..... not too much.

[dchill]

13. Or would have been ...

in the days before the CIA was bitch-slapped into irrelevance by BushCo.

[htuttle]

5. Both the CIA and the FBI were purged on political grounds....

...before the war in Iraq. The people left there are primarily there because they are Bush toadies, not because they are competent.

So yes, you probably SHOULD be frightened...we don't have a friggin clue what's going on out there anymore.

[FreedomAngel82]

17. Exactly

I remember reading about that last December. That right after the election Bush purged the CIA. Anybody who wasn't a "yes" person got fired.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. This was my first thought when I heard about it.

It is possible for terrorists to operate at will. All the CIA, MI6, you name it have absolutely no value against a determined group of terrorists. The one seems like a test for bigger events yet to follow.

[endarkenment]

12. Or huge events that just passed unremarked

The recent set of targeted attacks on arab diplomats in iraq demonstrated that the Iraqi insurgency can strike high security targets at will and that they can coordinate and control their operations despite two years and 200B dollars spent to bring them to their last throes.

We are not winning our war against al qaeda and we are not winning our war agains the iraqi insurgency. Our leaders are both arrogant and incompetent and that is a very dangerous combination.

[napi21]

7. Sure looks like nobody's intelligence is any better than it was,

and in fact looks like it's worse! I know I've heard there were warnings from intelligence groups in other countries who warned our guys there was going to be an attack in the US before 9/11. We also know there were people inside our own agencies whose warnings were ignored.

If there was NOTHING discovered about the attack on London today, what little insight they did have in the past is gone!

[K-W]

8. It is extremely difficult to infiltrate these groups,

because it isnt one big organization headed by Osama.

They help each other and communicate with each other, but plots are hatched in small insulated groups that are nearly impossible to discover. And considering how easy it is to obtain the materials to make explosives, there is no way to catch 100% of plots.

[napi21]

9. Mmmm, I don't know about that. Didn't we arrest a guy who was an

American who became a muslim and was accepted into Osama's group, trained, and even got to meet with Osama? It doesn't sound like an impossible task to me at all!

[K-W]

11. I meant groups that plot attacks, not training camps

Its not so difficult to infiltrate the camps that attract muslim jihadists from around the world.

It is exceptionally difficult to infiltrate a specific plot being planned by a small group of jihadists who work only with those who they trust.

[endarkenment]

15. even if you infiltrate a cell

presumably they cut these cells loose once they are deployed, with only a one-way communication link (a go signal) to activate them. They've caught other cells in London (the ricin plot) but it certainly and obviously did not damage the network itself.

But certainly we ought to deploy some more aircraft carriers and B52 squadrons to go after young men in the teeming slums of the cities of islam all over this planet plotting right now to attack us again.

[napi21]

19. I never said it was easy, but I do believe it could be done!

Of course it's never going to be possible to infiltrate them all! Because there doesn't seem to be a "leader" it appears many of these groups work up their own plan and just do it! That kind of thing will never be able to be stopped!

I'll be interested to see if the Brits ever find out just how big this group who pulled off this attack in London today really is, or was. I see smaller things happening forever, but I think it would take aa few more than a handful of people to plan and co-ordinate and execute today's attack or something like happened here in 2001.

[K-W]

21. Im certainly not saying we couldnt do a better job,

just that policing these groups is not a final solution to the threat, we must remove the conditions that nourish such groups.

This isnt an enemy that can be defeated, it must be stopped at the source.

[DinahMoeHum]

20. That was pure dumb luck, not solid investigation ala a "CSI" show.

John Walker Lindh did a better job getting inside al Qaeda BY ACCIDENT than the vaunted FBI/CIA have ever done ON PURPOSE.

Bear in mind also that many is the time a criminal is caught or a plot averted because of a slip-up. They get caught for speeding on a highway (Tim McVeigh - OKC 1995) or they didn't own up to their part of a truck rental contract (WTC 1993) or they don't pay utility bills or they caught shoplifting, etc.


:evilfrown:

[SoCalDem]

16. The locals are already using gallows humor.. Found this

at www.b3ta.com

[MetaTrope]

18. Bush -> Saudi Royals -> Al Qaeda -> "Homicide" bombers

I said it earlier today, but somehow that thread got deleted entirely. Odd, that.