"sophisticated, precise, well-funded"?

Max Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Tue Sep 11 20:18:05 PDT 2001


Gary Sick was interviewed and said the acts did not fit Bin Ladin's profile. He saw B-L as not much more than a car-bomber, and this requiring much more. So there is not quite unanimity.

Sick was the same guy who accused the Reagan Campaign of sabotaging Jimmy Carter's attempts to get the Iran hostages back.

mbs

-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of RE Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:26 PM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: "sophisticated, precise, well-funded"?

There's media unanimity on the idea that these attacks required a kind of wizardry, and this springboards right to talking about Bin Laden, our Great Satan. Perhaps he and his organization were involved, but this reminds me of Nixon invading Cambodia, hoping to decapitate the NVA with a strike at a nonexistent central headquarters.

At the risk of sounding like Robert Luttwak, what does it really take to do something like this? Once someone gets past concern about their own life and organizing with the like-minded, it seems like it doesn't take much. After probing the detection devices at different airports, you arm yourself with weapons that can escape detection, read the airline schedules, and then you act. Does it take that much training to fly an airliner once it's taken off? (I've seen that pc-based flight sim experience is accepted for some hours in pilot's certification.) From a purely "operational" standpoint, couldn't this be done without much central coordination? re



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