This off the AOL news ticker as it discusses the “increased chatter” that has the FBI at high alert, worried about an imminent terrorist attack…
‘Sources suggest al-Qaida may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy and maximum psychological trauma,” says the alert, which was posted on the FBI’s Web site early Friday.’
I keep thinking about this, and keep coming back to the same unpleasant notion:
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is in less than two weeks.
Thanksgiving. Celebration related to this country’s founding. Sponsored by the largest department store in the world. Televised. Thousands and thousands of people. Big balloons. Big floats with celebrities. Big targets. Hundreds upon hundreds of overlooking windows from which gunmen can be positioned, turning the concrete canyons into a shooting gallery. Hëll, the moment the packed-in crowds panic, the stampede alone will kill and injure hundreds.
They’d never hold another Macy’s parade. For that matter, every major parade in America would likely be canceled because security is impossible to provide. Would YOU march in one?
No one start yelling at me that I’m giving them ideas. If they could think of flying airplanes into the WTC, they can think of this all by themselves. If they’re going to do it, it’s already in the works.
I hope I’m wrong. I was wrong about the shooter in Maryland. I might be wrong about this as well.
But if you’re going…watch your back.
PAD
• 
I agree with you, that anybody yelling at you should be smacked. They could come up with this all by themselves.
However, a good question may be this: why didn’t they do it last year? Was it because we were busy kicking their collective bottoms? Or because they felt they had done enough? But it does lend itself to some thought. I, for one, couldn’t get over the image that you and John de Lancie painted in “I, Q,” where the ball was dropped in Times Square, only to start around 21 explosions.
Here’s to being wrong….
Many commentators have pointed out that these warnings are, in large part, a “cover your ášš” exercise, on the part of the FBI, because they don’t want recriminations like those after 9/11, that they had an inkling something might happen, and didn’t share it for lack of specifics.
I’m not saying nothing is going to happen, because it may well, but these warnings have been issued several times before, so let’s not get overly spooked, at least until something more concrete than “They wanna hurt us bad” comes out. Because we’ve known that since 9/11.
Now what I find interesting are the reports that they’ve captured another senior Al Qaeda leader, and although they won’t identify him, it’s not Bin Laden, Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or Saad Bin Laden. Here’s a fairly up-to-date list of possible candidates:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49308,00.html
Parades wouldn’t go away. Look at Northern Ireland. The main flashpoint for trouble each year comes around what they call the Marching Season. There have been bombings, shootings, standoffs with the army and police and God knows what else but they still march each and every year.
Peter,
I Would walk in a parade if what you speculated happened. If nothing else to show the bášŧárdš I would not lie down and hide! The situation reminds me of my youth here in Texas. A pal mad me a woodwork sign for my car that read “SuperJew”. My father yelled that driving around with that would attract the worse sort of attention. (Ya’know KKK, Nazi, Xtians.) But I do not shy away and hide my head, and niether should Americans.
PAD,
So far, the Islamist chapter of the Forces of Stupid have failed to strike at the following events held after 9/11/01:
*The Emmys
*This Miss America pageant
*The Oscars
*The Superbowl
Oversized balloons are going to be a target?
I wonder if al-Quaida members are squabbling over whether 9/11/01 should be considered a “backfire.” The USA failed to collapse, Arabs failed to rise up, Allah didn’t even sneeze on Israel, and Bush may have a blank check domestically — he dámņ near had one internationally until he tried to cash it in Iraq.
Where is the link for digital-priest.com, Christopher Priest’s web site? Thought you dudes were buddies…
I absolutely don’t mean to minimize any of this, but I can’t help thinking: Wasn’t that a scene in the first Batman movie?
So far, the Islamist chapter of the Forces of Stupid have failed to strike at the following events held after 9/11/01
*The Emmys
*This Miss America pageant
*The Oscars
*The Superbowl
Peter brings it up because of the timing of the heightened warnings by the government. There was no warnings by the government that terrorist activities were near the same level as pre-9/11 with these events that you mention. Now the government is saying that and the Macy’s parade is not far away.
There was no warnings by the government that terrorist activities were near the same level as pre-9/11 with these events that you mention.
Actually, around the Fourth of July, there were the same kind of warnings.
In light of the new Al Quieda warnings, aren’t you folks just a tad concern that Bush Jr. is a bit too distracted by Iraq? Seems to me that Bush Jr. should finish the work of eliminating Al Quieda instead of spreading the forces thin and going after a new target. Just a Canuck’s opinion.
I have a strong hunch that we know where bin Laden is hiding. Unfortunately, I suspect that he’s hiding in Pakistan near the Afghan border. If that’s the case and we don’t know exactly where he’s gone to ground, then the reason we haven’t gone in after him is because a major incursion in Pakistan might well cause Musharraf’s government to fall. And I don’t think we’d find that desirable right now…
Actually, they didn’t think up the
WTC thing, Chris Carter did it for
them.
Oh please, mr. NYcentric- like anyone even cares or watches the Thanksgiving Parade.
The obvious inference is to equate an attack on the Capitol with the burning of the Reichstag. Never accuse the current Republicans with subtelty.
Well, Peter, I certainly hope….in this instance at least….that you are, in the words of Ed Grimley, as wrong as wrong can be.
Hooper
When I try to look through a terrorists eyes to see what targets are around, I see Disneyworld. It feels like *the other shoe* to me.
I really hate to say this, but right now, I think the terrorists have it good.
Since 9-11-01, all they have to do is just start the rumor of possible new activity, then we do the rest of the work for them: always watching over our shoulders and possibly running scared of our own shadows while they just kick back and relax.
Granted, we cannot ignore any warning, but like in the Aesop fable, how often will there be false cries before we become lax and a real wolf shows up?
Can we really take the risk?
Basically the terrorists accomplished exactly what they set out to do.
They’ve changed American life by scaring people into letting the American govenrment enact all sorts of un-constitutional laws in the name of “Homeland Security” and they have American citizens for the most part afraid, and, as another poster worded it “Looking over their shoulders.”
And of course, let’s not forget ol’ Georgie W. chomping at the bit to go after Saddam when he stuill has beaten, or even located his original target, Osama…
I see even darker days ahead for this country, even if the terrorists never bother with an actual direct strike on American soil again… the damage has already been done.
I’m in NYC, and the first big thing after 9-11 was this stamp convention at the Javitz Center. Nothing.
So I’m all for heightened security like they did at the new years eves thing where you can’t have any bags, but the odds are just as likely at as anything else these days. Make your life meaningful and keep in touch with those you care about. There are no guarantees.
I came up with the exact same idea and have spent the past four days coming up with reasons why the FBI would never believe me. But you missed the kicker. It’s the word “SPECTACULAR” in the warning. The terrorism expert on CNN said that word is “not in the law enforcement lexicon and therefore it must have come from the warning itself”. Macy’s advertises the parade as the Macy’s Spectacular Thanksgiving Parade. Think of it, thousands of people unprotected other than by some shivering members of NY’s finest… while millions watch on live TV from the comfort of their homes. Other than Spider-Man, it’s the only place I could think of that word feels familiar. I seem to recall from way back, you had some contact with the FBI for something for Marvel. Could you contact them and let them know that the parade is the probable target?
It’s a fool’s game to predict what evil insane people will do, but the first attack was on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – international symbols of U.S. economic and military power. Striking at Thanksgiving would be very symbolic to us Americans, but not very symbolic to members of al-Qaida.
Future attacks are most likely to take place outside the States (a few such attacks have taken place since the WTC attack), where al-Qaida has more power. And if they’re symbolic at all, the symbolism will be understandable internationally, not just among Americans.
Personally, the times I feel most nervious about a possible al-Qaida attack is on Jewish holidays.
Todd, the word “spectacular” was used by the FBI, not by al-Qaida; al-Qaida doesn’t release statements in English.
It’s a fool’s game to predict what evil insane people will do, but the first attack was on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – international symbols of U.S. economic and military power. Striking at Thanksgiving would be very symbolic to us Americans, but not very symbolic to members of al-Qaida.
Future attacks are most likely to take place outside the States (a few such attacks have taken place since the WTC attack), where al-Qaida has more power. And if they’re symbolic at all, the symbolism will be understandable internationally, not just among Americans.
Personally, the times I feel most nervious about a possible al-Qaida attack is on Jewish holidays.
Todd, the word “spectacular” was used by the FBI, not by al-Qaida; al-Qaida doesn’t release statements in English.