M.W., I found the BBC report. It says that in September terrorists may have made a dry run for their October attempt to mail two bombs addressed to synagogues in the U.S.
Like you, I know only what is in the media. So, why is the dry run story implausible? And why do I find it so disturbing?
First, the BBC report states that the September shipments "are reported to have contained literature and other materials, but not explosives." Sorry, but a dry run is a dry run. If you are a terrorist and want to make a dry run for printers containing bombs, you will mail printers, not literature. Why? Well, maybe the authorities will hold up literature but not printers for closer inspection -- or vice-versa. You don't know. And since you didn't mail printers in the dry run, you didn't find out.
Second, the BBC report states, "The idea was to test how long it would take for the packages to reach their destination, US officials suspect." By US officials, I assume the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security. Sorry, but I don't think that was the idea at all; again, my position is that the bombs were made to explode en route in airplanes, not synagogues.
As this blog's post of October 31 noted, there are too many unforeseen eventualities to know when and if a package arrived -- that "after the planes land, you can't really be sure of the packages' location. Are they sitting on a loading dock? In a warehouse? Customs? A delivery truck? Did some guy steal them and they are in his garage?"
If the en route theory is correct, the designated destination on the package is meaningless. The package will never arrive anywhere. Again, as the October 31 post stated, I sense that in an effusion of adolescent humor the synagogues were designated as destinations. Al-Qaeda isn't the first one to write kewpie-pie, teenage witticisms on bombs.
Third, the dry run theory works only if the synagogues were indeed the true targets. If the airplanes transporting the packages were the real targets -- as I believe -- you already know when the airplanes take off and land. You don't need a dry run to blow up them up. You would go directly to the real thing.
The clincher. Shades of James Bond: French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said they had only 17 minutes to neutralize one of the bombs. The White House has refused to confirm that report. Apparently, the timing was such that the bomb would have gone off in the airplane. If so, case closed.
Synagogues or airplanes, what difference does it make? Why go into this? It seems that American authorities have bought the synagogues-as-targets theory and now don't want to back down. Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security Advisor to President George Bush, said the synagogues were the targets; hence, it looks like that's the official explanation.
Why not go hunting where the ducks are? The official explanation is wasting valuable time and resources, perhaps with catastrophic results. So, it's time to be blunt.
What we're seeing in the official explanation is a classic case of The Blivet Trick, i.e., trying to shove 10 pounds of horse manure into a 5-pound bag. As for why the Trick is being performed ….
The timing of the official explanation is deeply troubling. The midterm elections were only days away. Was that explanation designed to ramp up fear in the Jewish community in order to increase its turnout and campaign contributions? I don't know. I do know that's the kind of question The Blivet Trick raises.
As 9/11 showed in spades, al-Qaeda does not think bureaupathically -- not yet. To the contrary, hypothesizing that terrorists would perform dry runs for sending booby-trapped printers in packages postmarked from Yemen -- of all places --to synagogues that have not ordered the printers, smacks of bureaupathic thinking. While we're at it, why not have al-Qaeda provide W-4 forms, pay FICA, set up IRAs for its members?
I want to address directly the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and other US security forces who I know monitor this website. It saddens me that a valuable opportunity is being wasted. There are ways to induce terrorists to become paper pushers and wall leaners; the connection you intuitively make is there, albeit latently. As I explained in "The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion," at the heart of every middle class rebel is "a bureaucrat in search of a bureaucracy." Presently, however, those ways are not being contemplated, much less investigated. Which means, we're a long way from putting them into practice. Maybe never.
Update: November 6, 2010. According to a CNN report filed today, "two U.S. officials said that the street addresses found on the packages were not the current locations of the synagogues and that the packages were addressed to historical figures from the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition." For insight into al-Qaeda's sense of humor, which is typical of middle class rebellion, see "The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion," Chapter 5: The Cult of Contradiction, pp. 165-205.
Like you, I know only what is in the media. So, why is the dry run story implausible? And why do I find it so disturbing?
First, the BBC report states that the September shipments "are reported to have contained literature and other materials, but not explosives." Sorry, but a dry run is a dry run. If you are a terrorist and want to make a dry run for printers containing bombs, you will mail printers, not literature. Why? Well, maybe the authorities will hold up literature but not printers for closer inspection -- or vice-versa. You don't know. And since you didn't mail printers in the dry run, you didn't find out.
Second, the BBC report states, "The idea was to test how long it would take for the packages to reach their destination, US officials suspect." By US officials, I assume the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security. Sorry, but I don't think that was the idea at all; again, my position is that the bombs were made to explode en route in airplanes, not synagogues.
As this blog's post of October 31 noted, there are too many unforeseen eventualities to know when and if a package arrived -- that "after the planes land, you can't really be sure of the packages' location. Are they sitting on a loading dock? In a warehouse? Customs? A delivery truck? Did some guy steal them and they are in his garage?"
If the en route theory is correct, the designated destination on the package is meaningless. The package will never arrive anywhere. Again, as the October 31 post stated, I sense that in an effusion of adolescent humor the synagogues were designated as destinations. Al-Qaeda isn't the first one to write kewpie-pie, teenage witticisms on bombs.
Third, the dry run theory works only if the synagogues were indeed the true targets. If the airplanes transporting the packages were the real targets -- as I believe -- you already know when the airplanes take off and land. You don't need a dry run to blow up them up. You would go directly to the real thing.
The clincher. Shades of James Bond: French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said they had only 17 minutes to neutralize one of the bombs. The White House has refused to confirm that report. Apparently, the timing was such that the bomb would have gone off in the airplane. If so, case closed.
Synagogues or airplanes, what difference does it make? Why go into this? It seems that American authorities have bought the synagogues-as-targets theory and now don't want to back down. Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security Advisor to President George Bush, said the synagogues were the targets; hence, it looks like that's the official explanation.
Why not go hunting where the ducks are? The official explanation is wasting valuable time and resources, perhaps with catastrophic results. So, it's time to be blunt.
What we're seeing in the official explanation is a classic case of The Blivet Trick, i.e., trying to shove 10 pounds of horse manure into a 5-pound bag. As for why the Trick is being performed ….
The timing of the official explanation is deeply troubling. The midterm elections were only days away. Was that explanation designed to ramp up fear in the Jewish community in order to increase its turnout and campaign contributions? I don't know. I do know that's the kind of question The Blivet Trick raises.
As 9/11 showed in spades, al-Qaeda does not think bureaupathically -- not yet. To the contrary, hypothesizing that terrorists would perform dry runs for sending booby-trapped printers in packages postmarked from Yemen -- of all places --to synagogues that have not ordered the printers, smacks of bureaupathic thinking. While we're at it, why not have al-Qaeda provide W-4 forms, pay FICA, set up IRAs for its members?
I want to address directly the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and other US security forces who I know monitor this website. It saddens me that a valuable opportunity is being wasted. There are ways to induce terrorists to become paper pushers and wall leaners; the connection you intuitively make is there, albeit latently. As I explained in "The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion," at the heart of every middle class rebel is "a bureaucrat in search of a bureaucracy." Presently, however, those ways are not being contemplated, much less investigated. Which means, we're a long way from putting them into practice. Maybe never.
Update: November 6, 2010. According to a CNN report filed today, "two U.S. officials said that the street addresses found on the packages were not the current locations of the synagogues and that the packages were addressed to historical figures from the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition." For insight into al-Qaeda's sense of humor, which is typical of middle class rebellion, see "The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion," Chapter 5: The Cult of Contradiction, pp. 165-205.