Friday, August 18, 2006

Hollywood Bomb Plots in the Real World

I had written before about being skeptical (to say the least) about the so-called terror plot that the government said they had uncovered. Thus far there have no charges, no explosives found (that we've been told about) and its seems to be that perhaps the plot existed in the mind of the alleged plotters or event the government. So it was with great interest that I read this in The Register;

So the fabled binary liquid explosive - that is, the sudden mixing of hydrogen peroxide and acetone with sulfuric acid to create a plane-killing explosion, is out of the question. Meanwhile, making TATP ahead of time carries a risk that the mission will fail due to premature detonation, although it is the only plausible approach.

Certainly, if we can imagine a group of jihadists smuggling the necessary chemicals and equipment on board, and cooking up TATP in the lavatory, then we've passed from the realm of action blockbusters to that of situation comedy.

It should be small comfort that the security establishments of the UK and the USA - and the "terrorism experts" who inform them and wheedle billions of dollars out of them for bomb puffers and face recognition gizmos and remote gait analyzers and similar hi-tech phrenology gear - have bought the Hollywood binary liquid explosive myth, and have even acted upon it.


There is also an interesting article on the 60's radicalism; Stay vigilant. The light will come.

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