Sensible Erection | Two men arrested in Amsterdam may be trial run for hijack or just a mistake

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

Two men arrested in Amsterdam may be trial run for hijack or just a mistake

quote [ U.S. officials said the two appeared to be travelling with what were termed "mock bombs" in their luggage. "This was almost certainly a dry run, a test,"... carrying $7000 in cash ... a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, several watches taped together, a box cutter and three large knives ]

But no terrorist connections found as yet. Still, sort of an odd way to pack your bags. Thumb is of course of Richard Shoe Bomber Reid.

[by maryyugo@3:50pmGMT] [+2 Informative]

Comments

Krutz said @ 3:53pm GMT on 31st Aug
Okay, if one were going to perform a bombing, I could see the taped-together watches and stuff, but why bring all the cash?

maryyugo said @ 4:02pm GMT on 31st Aug
I think the suspicion is that it wasn't to be a bombing but a test of anti-terrorist defenses. Problem is, they can't find anything to relate the two guys so far. And there may be "legitimate" reasons for smuggling cell phones and knives into some countries. There's no problem with carrying $7K either.

Krutz said @ 4:28pm GMT on 31st Aug
I didn't say there was a problem with it. My question was that if the premise that this was a dry-run for a bombing (or just two incredibly stupid "terrorists), why bring $7k? I mean, airline drinks aren't that expensive yet...

maryyugo said @ 4:40pm GMT on 31st Aug
I don't know. If it was a dry run, maybe the $7K was payment for doing it. Or maybe they expected no trouble and were just taking some spending money to their destination? Who knows? I sort of suspect it will be sorted out though-- a lot of people are involved in the investigation and most of those people don't have much to do on a regular basis and are waiting for such things.

jerkdine said @ 4:10pm GMT on 31st Aug
I would assume from watching movies... if you go on the run, cash is best. Haven't you seen Bourne Supremacy where they track him via credit card.

sacrelicious said @ 8:37pm GMT on 31st Aug
I did watch that movie because Matt Damon is a Bourne supremacist.

lizard-bitch said @ 5:43pm GMT on 31st Aug
You're required to declare large amounts ($10k) of cash to reduce money laundering and inhibit hard to track financing of agents by withdrawing cash in foreign countries. They want to force you to use the American banking system and the tracking tools embedded in it.

foobar said @ 6:05pm GMT on 31st Aug
I almost think the knives are a plant, because everything else would be legal.

Which is the problem with all the security theatre and enhanced interrogation/torture. The apparatus has so degraded it's trustworthiness that there is reasonable doubt to any testimony they make.

maryyugo said @ 6:19pm GMT on 31st Aug
Oh, bullshit. A plant in Amsterdam? Unlikely. And knives and box cutters are not illegal in checked luggage where passengers have no access to it after they go through security.

foobar said @ 7:08pm GMT on 31st Aug
If the knives and box cutters aren't illegal, then what could they have possibly arrested him on? Pepto certainly isn't. Watches and cell phones certainly aren't. Also, it was not in Amsterdam, it was on a US flight, and is thus under US jurisdiction. He was arrested by American Air Marshals.

Regardless, the point is this: given all the nonsense, dishonesty and unethical behaviour running rampant in security theatre, does it not raise reasonable doubt as to the honesty and trustworthiness of the people involved? Even if you don't believe so yourself, can you not see how others might come to that conclusion? It only takes 1/12 to prevent a conviction.

I'm not making a political argument, but a tactical one. Recent American security activities throw into question their ability to secure convictions in a free and fair trials.

sacrelicious said @ 8:43pm GMT on 31st Aug
so what you're saying is you should believe whatever you want to believe because unfettered speculation means that anybody could be lying so long as it suits your agenda?

truthiness FTW!

foobar said @ 9:10pm GMT on 31st Aug [Score:-1 Overrated]
Not at all. The US security apparatus commits torture. This is an undisputed fact. Torture is a more egregious offence than perjury. Ergo, any testimony given by a member of the American security apparatus is subject to a reasonable doubt.

Can you honestly dispute this reasoning? "Oh, we'll simulate drowning, but heavens no, we wouldn't lie under oath!"

Really?

symmetrian said @ 11:11pm GMT on 31st Aug
1) Undisputed means no one disputes it. People dispute that the US tortures.

2) The people applying torture tactics are not all sadistic criminal assholes. Many are simply soldiers given an order.

So, I suppose if ordered to lie...

Still, you're reaching.

foobar said @ 12:40am GMT on 1st Sep
Er, are you disputing it? There are people who dispute Obama's birthplace, too, but I don't think anyone reasonable would describe it as "disputed".

I'm not suggesting that they are actually lying, just that they've impugned their own character to such a point that there's a reasonable doubt about their word.

ralfmaximus said @ 6:20pm GMT on 31st Aug
Update?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/0831/ap-source-2-men-plotting-terror/

Chop-Logik said @ 8:32pm GMT on 31st Aug
They were the distraction whilst the real terrorists got through. DUN DUN DUNNN!

incpenners said @ 1:19am GMT on 1st Sep
I was thinking that, but I also thought that this could be a false flag, to see how the US reacts...

anagramophone said @ 10:50pm GMT on 31st Aug
Banana-nose Maldonado?

Jack Blue said @ 11:46pm GMT on 31st Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
So the moral of the story: Don't go by plane in the US if there is any chance you will be traveling with a countryman. That countryman might, god forbid, have taped his stuff together.

maryyugo said @ 6:16am GMT on 1st Sep
If you look at the images of the stuff he taped together, and the way it was done, it's pretty creepy. Also, I'm unclear why you would take $3 box cutters to Yemen. Is there a shortage?

I'm not saying this couldn't be perfectly innocent and just a bad set of coincidences but I am saying the people who check such stuff were MORE than justified in detaining the guy. Maybe the other guy too.

Jack Blue said @ 11:18am GMT on 1st Sep
What strikes me is the fact that they busted the other guy as well. What did HE do? Happen to have the same nationality?

foobar said @ 11:33am GMT on 1st Sep
Maybe to cut the tape off his stuff?

Being creepy is not illegal.

maryyugo said @ 3:06pm GMT on 1st Sep
I suppose he may never have heard of scissors. Maybe they don't have those in Yemen. Ever try to cut twenty or so layers of thin plastic tape off a CELLPHONE with a box cutter without damaging the phone? Me neither but it isn't likely to work.

They weren't stopped for being creepy. They were stopped for being suspicious. That's OK. Even if it means stopping innocent people (briefly and humanely) occasionally.

crom said @ 5:26pm GMT on 1st Sep
I'm OK with detaining them within lawful limits while they sort things out, but did they have to issue a press release announcing that they'd caught some terrorists? Seems shitty, especially for the guy who may have had nothing to do with it who has now spent 24 hours with his muslim-looking mug plastered across every TV network next to the word "TERRORIST".

maryyugo said @ 7:25pm GMT on 1st Sep
I agree they should have been discreet absent any convincing evidence.

ring riot said @ 7:06am GMT on 1st Sep [Score:2 Insightful]
Meanwhile, actual terrorist attacks - against Muslim-Americans - continue.

maryyugo said @ 7:29pm GMT on 1st Sep
Whackjobs who attack Muslims in the US, whether they are Muslim-Americans or just plain Muslims, should be dealt with by using hate crime laws.

By the way, I hate "hyphenated-American" though I probably used it occasionally. Either one is an American in the sense of "US citizen" or not. I once earned some ire in a very multi cultural state government office by posting a cartoon (I looked and can't find it any more) in which dogs were addressing owners saying "From now on, we're no longer dogs. We're Canine-Americans".

ring riot said @ 7:12am GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Informative]
As to the story in the main post:

Terror Concerns Fade Over Two Men Arrested on United Flight

American law enforcement officials say their initial concerns about a possible terror "dry run" involving two men on a United Airlines flight to Amsterdam have eased, in part because they have learned the men's abrupt change in flights resulted from them missing their original flight.

"These two passengers have not been charged with any crime in the United States..."

American officials say they now believe the two men did not know each other and both were re-booked by United after they missed their flight because of a gate change at O'Hare.

maryyugo said @ 7:31pm GMT on 1st Sep
Yup. Ain't hindsight wunnerful when it supports your bias. I just heard some whackjob in California on TV lamenting the establishment of VOLUNTARY whole body scanners there at airports. He said something to the effect of why should we bother, hijackings are so rare. What a stupid, fucking, idiot, bone head. Maybe we should have special flights, well advertised, for people who wish to fly uninspected. I don't know who'd volunteer to pilot and crew the planes but maybe some uninformed nut cases exist among those professions as well.

foobar said @ 7:08pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Funny]
I love explosions...

foobar said @ 7:09pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Funny]
Damnit, wrong post.