This is kind of amazing:
The successful blocking of an ambitious Al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner was an international sting operation worthy of Hollywood, with spies tricking terrorists into showing their cards.
Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, working closely with the CIA, used an informant to pose as a would-be suicide bomber. His job was to convince the Al Qaeda franchise in Yemen to give him a new kind of non-metallic bomb that the militants were designing to easily pass through airport security.
But the double agent instead arranged to deliver the explosive device to U.S. and other intelligence authorities waiting in another country, officials said Tuesday. The agent is now safely outside Yemen and is being debriefed.
Experts are analyzing the sophisticated device at the FBI’s bomb laboratory at Quantico, Va., to determine if it really could evade current security measures. It appears an upgraded version of the so-called “underwear bomb” that failed to take down a passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
Good work.
General Stuck
It was Mitt Romney that did this, plain and simple.
Ash Can
Mitt Romney was the double agent.
ETA @ Stuck: Jinx!
r€nato
It’s a good thing Obama took Baron von Mitthausen’s advice on this.
Corner Stone
All the “jokes” about the next step in flying would be where they made us wear hospital gowns…
I’m waiting to hear a lot more detail about this bomb attempt, or design, etc.
danimal
The counter-terror plot worked. I blame Obama.
lless
When they analyze this thing it will prove to be Silly Putty with a tampon string for a fuse, because that’s the best the FBI could come up with.
Michael Demmons
Great, now we won’t be able to wear fucking underwear on flights.
pragmatism
bush: HE KEPT US SAFE!
obama: HE TAKES ALL OF THE CREDIT FOR THE MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES KEEPING US SAFE
David Koch
Over at Orange Satan, the progressive betters are alleging the whole account is fabricated.
This is why pot isn’t innocuous. the shit makes you paranoid.
Steve in DC
Of course what’s left out in all of this is that the TSA is hilariously inept at catching weapons smuggled on planes. See the army who brought on (dead all be it) landmines, and the myriad of other people that have accidentally brought on weapons.
This is also vaguely similar to the FBI’s current tactic of trolling with informants to find the people who want or are interested in doing something wrong, and then arresting them often in hilarious fashion.
Which is to say, we seem rather good at catching these chuckle heads and stopping this sort of issue when we pay attention to it.
Linda Featheringill
Good work folks! Kudos to everyone involved!
PeakVT
I detect a theme in the comments on this post, though to be fair Mitt suggested I look for one.
r€nato
@pragmatism: I’ve *always* had issues with that ‘it’s the president’s job to keep us safe’ meme. It was especially galling to hear that during the Bush years from nominally ‘small government/anti-nanny state’ Republicans/conservatives who believed with all their heart and soul that we should be free to fail.
“Keep us safe” is a huge leap from, ‘protect the country from enemies both foreign and domestic’.
kindness
The usual republican suspects have been howling at the moon trying to make this a case of ‘Obama Sucks’ at NPR bit it isn’t getting any traction. Gee, ya think? They may be one trick ponies, but man that trick is sooo good they feel it’s the only one they need.
@David Koch: You slander marijuana and still don’t come off with a good joke or point….Duh!
AnotherBruce
Romney rescued us again, the same way he rescued all those profitable companies with Bain Capital Management.
Steve in DC
@r€nato
What small government republicans? That’s a crock of shit. The only small government people are libertarians and they were pretty much in agreement with progressives about run away government for most the disaster that was Bush.
Linda Featheringill
@David Koch:
I looked on dkos for what you’re referring to and didn’t find it. Name of diary perhaps?
pragmatism
@r€nato: spot on r(euro)nato. during those dark days i became even wearier of wingnuts telling me that i had to overlook bush the younger’s flaws and missteps BECAUSE HE KEPT US SAFE. i ruined a vacation by making my wife’s friend cry when i recounted the “specious reasoning” bit from the Simpsons and told her that the salt shaker on the table kept us safe from terrorists. “YOU DON’T SEE ANY TERRORISTS, DO YOU?”
David Koch
Romney is pissed.
He says this a government attack on magic underwear and religious freedom
r€nato
@Steve in DC: you know that, I know that, but the general public still thinks that Republicans are the party of Small Government™.
But if they keep up this shit with getting up inside women’s vaginas, that might just come to an end this year along with the dying meme that Democrats are weak on defense and foreign policy.
r€nato
my god… this thread… it’s full of win!
r€nato
@kindness: I think you meant NRO not NPR…
Steve in DC
@Linda
Don’t read kos you’ll feel dumber for it. Last thread I saw there was freaking out that Obama was eating hotdogs and hamburgers because people will look up to him, eat those food products and then die, die! Obama eating hotdogs will kill children!
David in NY
@lless:
This is unfortunately too close to the truth. Unless Mitt invented Silly Putty.
Brachiator
@Steve in DC:
I don’t know that any easy conclusions can be drawn from this.
And I don’t know what was done, how, or to whom, in foiling this plot.
I also don’t know what Al Qaeda’s current grievance is supposed to be, or why this organization is still so intent on killing Americans. If it is to win one for bin Laden, then there doesn’t appear to be much that will get this group to stand down.
And no, I am not suggesting that we all cower in fear in a corner.
But neither am I going to dismiss a group that is intent on causing harm as a bunch of chuckle heads.
For now, congratulations on a job well done. It’s sad that inevitably the GOP and their mouthpieces will try their best to deny the Obama Administration any credit for this at all.
And I’m waiting for the wingnut who is going to scream, “screw the Saudis and any co-operation from Muslims, let’s bomb Iran.”
David Koch
@Linda Featheringill: here
Litlebritdifrnt
@r€nato:
The latest tweeted by ABL, doctors can refuse chemo (or any other medical procedure) to a pregnant woman if it will harm the fetus.
http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2011_12/measures/documents/sb62_01_0000.pdf
JCT
I’m sure waterboarding a few people could have divulged this plot much faster.
/snark
Bill in Section 147
Cannot believe no one yet touched, “The agent is now safely outside Yemen and is being debriefed.”
Magic underwear. Indeed.
rageahol
5 to 1 says it’s mostly bullshit.
r€nato
@JCT: or invading some ME country with lots of oil on false pretenses.
Yep, that’s what a REAL president would have done; throw some crappy little country against the wall just to show everyone how big our dick is.
Suck. On. This.
Steve
@Linda Featheringill: You can find anything on dkos if you look for it. It’s a huge community, ripe for nutpicking.
Steve in DC
@r€nato
Actually they keep this shit up they are going to lose their libertarian wing in spectacular fashion. Paul seems poised to cause chaos at the convention. Johnson is royally pissed that he was ignored and marginalized and just landed the libertarian nomination. The big libertarian think tanks (Reason and Cato)have published article after article slamming the crap out of Romney and saying that four more years of Obama won’t be that bad. Johnson and some big names are already saying a vote for Romney is just as bad as Obama.
Johnson seems poised to take federal funding (hilarious in it’s own way) to make sure he has a presence. They aren’t trying to win but are shooting for 15% of the vote to establish themselves as a permanent third party and do their own thing.
The Republicans might just have driven one of their wings out of the party permanently.
I look forward to the chaos.
David in NY
@Litlebritdifrnt: Really, any other medical procedure they can refuse?
So my friend who got cervical cancer during her first pregnancy (very aggressive at that stage, of course) might not have been able to get a doctor to do the hysterectomy she desperately needed? Tragedy enough that she lost her child and her ability to have another, but — worse to be dead.
Hill Dweller
They also reportedly dropped a bomb on al-Qaida’s operations chief’s head in Yemen.
r€nato
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’m sure Bishop Olmsted has a sad that the AZ Legislature has sine die’d a couple days too soon to consider this bill.
(he’s the Bishop of Phoenix who excommunicated a nun who permitted an emergency abortion at a Catholic hospital, because the mother of four would certainly have died in childbirth along with the fetus)
JPL
Mitt would have kept silent about this so Qaeda would provide more info. In fact he would bomb the AP offices just to protect our nation. He would be the number one bomber to protect America.
Steve in DC
@Hill Dweller
The claims I’ve seen said they hit him with a missile when he got out of the car. Maybe that’s another guy.
MikeJ
@David in NY:
Only if you think women exist for some purpose other than as breeding stock.
David in NY
@Steve in DC:
Indeed. But can a second rate party get federal funding? I had no idea.
srv
What they’re not telling you is that the Yemini rocket scientists were really working on an exploding condom for the Koch Foundation, and now the CIA has gone a f’d it all up.
David Koch
@Steve: the conspiracy theory post made their recommend list — that’s hardly cherry picking.
r€nato
@David in NY: if she hadn’t offended God with her slutty behavior, he would not have given her cervical cancer as punishment. Who are we to interfere with His righteous judgement on whores?
/fundy wingnut legislator
piratedan
wasn’t Bush the Younger the same dude that stated that we didn’t need any more HUMINT because we had all of these dadgum computers?
I assume that this policy has changed with the new regime ;-)
Linda Featheringill
@David Koch: Thanks.
Jager
I love to hear the pitchman for Al Qaeda selling this to a nervous volunteer. “Look its going to go off this time and you won’t have to spend the rest of your life in a Supermax without your balls and dick”.
Steve in DC
@David in NY
Yes, but I think it’s limited. Hence their goal of 15%, it qualifies them for all sorts of extra goodies next time. It’s a huge breach for them, especially since “government is bad, the state is evil” is part of their mantra, but they seem serious about it. I think Johnson being screwed over was the final straw.
The entire thing seems to be them giving up on the Republicans ever shrinking government and having about had it with the social cons. So they are willing to bend on their purity to make themselves a real party.
Good on them I say. I’d rather have one of them in office at least agreeing with us on the drug war, gay rights, and civil liberties while arguing on economic issues than a Republican arguing with us over everything.
Steve in DC
@piratedan
No, this didn’t start with the new Regime. Plenty of past presidents, including the last clown worked to get more HUMMINT. The problem was up till 9/11 we never really bothered with it. We always thought we’d be attacked by Russia and then high tech stuff matters.
We’ve been working on this sort of crap since 9/11, a bit too late in that respect.
David in NY
@David Koch: Out of several (or two, anyway) hundred thousand members on GOS, it doesn’t actually take all that many votes to get a diary “recommended.” So that group of members made on a Paulite model (determined but misguided) can get weird stuff to the top. It is kind of embarrassing, but sometimes the stuff that rises is also very interesting, and you don’t have to read any of it, thank god.
r€nato
@Steve in DC: Perhaps you are right, I hope so.
But a significant number of libertarians stayed with Bush during the Iraq war.
Ron Paul is as good as anti-choice. He ought to be raising hell about this Kansas law, but he won’t (yes I realize he’s more concerned about disrupting the RNC and perhaps even stealing the nomination, than he is about pointing out how far the GOP has strayed from general ‘small government’ principles).
Actually, he is in favor of devolving to the states the laws about abortion, so actually he’s probably very much in favor of this Kansas law, despite how invasive and, frankly, how cruel and malicious it is. It even levies a new tax on abortion! I bet you don’t hear a peep from Mr. Oh-So-Principled about that.
David Koch
@Hill Dweller:
Moments later, Moe Green was shot in the eye.
Steve in DC
@r€nato
Johnson is the dude they are running, not Paul. Paul’s intent on cranking the convention. Johnson and the others are trying to peel 15%.
It’s really comical, the right is screaming about him being a spoiler to which the L’s had to say
“If the major-party race is a battle between a president who’s violated most of his campaign promises on civil liberties and a candidate who’s already promised to do worse, then this election has arrived “pre-spoiled,” through no fault of Gov. Johnson.”
This is going to be ugly.
Litlebritdifrnt
@MikeJ:
Exactly, how they figure the fetus will survive inside a dead womb is beyond me.
David in NY
@Steve in DC: I would be more enthusiastic if they actually came through in some way on the social issues. I mean, Cato does a few amicus briefs in the Supreme Court, and the Koch’s give token amounts to at least one good criminal law group I work with, but, when it comes right down to it, their heart is really in the money. Any group that treats modern government as no different than robbery is not my cup of tea.
Brachiator
@Jager:
The news report this morning was that the man who designs these bombs planted one on his own brother in an attempt to kill a Saudi official.
The brother was blown up.
Steve in DC
@David in NY
We don’t have to vote for them, I’m not going to. But that’s not the issue. The issue is if they can do well enough to qualify for more funding next time around we might see them peel off from the Republican party. That’s a good thing no matter how you look at it.
David in NY
@Steve in DC: On yes, of course, I got carried away.
gaz
@Steve in DC:
So given the choice between a leader whose world-view and civic ideas stopped evolving during their teenage years (right after they read the ancillary text on satanism, eg
: Atlas Shrugged) OR a sociopath whose worldview essentially aligns with Richard Ramirez, you’d pick the former? Good on you.
Here’s a better question:
Between the former two, and a pragmatic functionary who is essentially corporatist but not Dickensian, who would you pick? I think that’s more relevant to the discussion at hand.
gaz
@Steve in DC:
As long as Ron Paul is still breathing, we’ve got more than enough useful idiots, in that regard.
Jager
@Brachiator:
There have been a few times I would have liked to fit my brother with a pair of explosive “tighty whiteys”
TK421
LOL, the “underwear bomb.” Yeah, that was one to take seriously, wasn’t it? Better step up the drone strikes in Yemen before they perfect the underwear bomb.
Steve in DC
@gaz
Again, Johnson, not Paul. HUGE difference. Johnson came out a while back for full gay marriage, end of the drug laws, shrinking the military, is pro choice (and not states can decide) and a slew of other things.
Johnson is on their ticket and was a pretty damn good governor and left with a nice approval rating.
It’s not the same sort of thing.
Johnson might actually take a state or get 15%, the results of which would be hilarious. The amount of pants shitting in the Republican party would be glorious to behold.
gaz
@Steve in DC: It won’t happen. There’s a reason he’ll never be on a major ticket or get any significant traction politically. It’s not just lack of funding. He earnestly subscribes to a political ideology that has no room for earnestness or honesty. At least not in american politics. It’s a fairy tale. He’s your Nader.
ETA: And maybe it’d be entertaining. I’ll grant you that. But it’d be more entertaining to have Vermin Supreme on a major ticket. And just as likely.
PeakVT
Lugar has been taken down.
Mike G
But no-one got to torture anyone or swagger around on a carrier deck or make chest-puffing, weenie-waving comic-book rhetoric speeches in exploitation of this event. So by Bush/Cheney standards this was a total failure.
Getting Shit Done with no drama beats the hell out of the Repuke-style Braggadocio and Failure of the past decade.
Poopyman
@Bill in Section 147: Yeah, 29 comments. Youse guys are slipping. At least I have the excuse of not really being here.
kdaug
Failing to see the “kind of” here, Cole.
mainmati
@Michael Demmons: LOL!!
mainmati
@Brachiator: Rule No. 1: Al-Quaeda thrives best in failed states or tribal environments where rule of law does not exist. Rule No. 2: Al-Quaeda and their now many franchises (and it is a classic franchise model) recruit a few well-educated engineers as well as ordinary suicide bombers. Since almost all of the franchises espouse the Salafist school of Sunni Islam, the model is pretty clear: disrupt, kill mostly other Muslims, fantasize about the Caliphate and then fail.
Recruitment is the main issue since Saudi, for example, is also a Salafist state (they call it Wahhabism) yet they, belatedly, now oppose the jihadist model since it was turned on them in the early 2000s. The enemy of your enemy is your convenient friend.
Clime Acts
I’m sure every facet of this story about this latest allegedly dangerous and epically lethal plot against THE HOMELAND will turn out to be true in all its particulars, just as reported by the unidentified government officials who are providing the information to reporters, who no doubt have performed excrutiatingly exacting and paintstaking research to confirm and double check every aspect of the narrative before putting anything out to the public.
Because neither the government or the media would ever risk unduly alarming the citizens of THE HOMELAND.
Clime Acts
Does anyone else believe that the term THE HOMELAND, is just as creepy and fascist-sounding now as it was when the pseudo-fascist regime of Bush the Dumber began using it in 2001?
I had hoped that one of Obama’s first acts would be to change the name of the Department of Homeland Security to something less Orwellian.
Ah well…I had many hopes back then…
kyle
it’s now been confirmed that the suicide mission volunteer was a double agent.
i don’t know about “good job” if we’re the ones providing method, means, and motivation… much less the bomber too
Thor Heyerdahl
@David Koch:
And I (and others) called the diarist out on it, and were pilloried as if we were not better Democrats (I don’t care I’m a Canuck) and admonished that were somehow breaking the site rules by pointing out that the post smelled like bullshit.
If Kos wonders why I hardly visit there anymore, that’s a good example.