For those who want us all to live in terror, is that would-be terrorists are seldom very competent, and that doing any very big damage is difficult. An illustration just how difficult has just turned up. The Guardian luridly reports:
Terry Jupp, a scientist with the Ministry of Defence, was engulfed in flames during a joint Anglo-American counter-terrorism project intended to discover more about al-Qaida’s bomb-making capacities.
There has been no inquest into his death, as the coroner has been waiting for the MoD to disclose information about the incident. An attempt to prosecute the scientist’s manager for manslaughter ended when prosecutors said they were withdrawing the charge, but said the case was too “sensitive” to explain that decision in open court.
The Guardian has established that Jupp was a member of a small team of British and US scientists making bombs from ingredients of the sort that terrorists could obtain. There is also evidence pointing to experiments to discover more about radiological dispersal devices – so-called dirty bombs – which use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material.
A properly skeptical report probably would not use the magic word “al-Qaida”, rather than referring to terrorists in general. Nor would there be the superstitious mention of “radioactive material”.
However the salient facts are informative: An expert; no difficulty obtaining the materials and knowing what was wanted; proper care and attention – and he still managed to go horribly wrong. The task is a very difficult one.
Could it be the reason the average would-be terrorist doesn’t blow himself up prematurely (as used to happen quite often to old-style IRA/Fatah, etc., bombers equipped with commercial/military explosives), is because he lacks the knowledge to make an explosion at all? The idea that even a real expert could disperse suitably weaponised chemical/radioactive agents, or biological ones using low-explosive paint-tin bombs is just a bit ludicrous. The idea that an inexperienced religious nutter/power fantasist using recipes off the internet could do so is wholly absurd.
Terrorists in Britain are a threat to life comparable with police car-chases. Terror of terrorists is the threat to civilization.
No chance of the government, media, security services, just suggesting we all calm down, I suppose? Nope.
I hate the term “dirty bomb”. A radiological dispersion device just doesn’t sound sexy, though. Apart from the fact that such a thing would do far more harm from the bang than the radiation anyway it’s… misleading.
Well, I wonder the origin of this scare-term… When I was a physics student in the 90s “dirty bomb” didn’t refer to a pipe-bomb surrounded by scavenged medical radiation sources or some-such it referred to certain types of nuclear weapons which produced lots of nasty isotopes per unit of “bang”. This included the early big thermonukes using a fission-fusion-fission cycle (they had a U-238 tamper). This, I’m sure you’ll agree is a much scarier prospect.
Is the use of the term “dirty bomb” in the modern sense co-incidental? Or are people deliberately conflating the two?
The idea that what we face are solely ” inexperienced religious nutter/power fantasist ” is nutts.
The potentiasl terrorists (or those providing the bombs)may well be educated experts with the full facilities of rich Arab states.
Pakistan developed a bomb, Iran is doing it, they have all the facilities and experts that money can buy. They can produce all the devices a terrorist might need.
You are underestimating the threat by tons.
And overestimating the scientists of the Ministry of Defence, who managed to get themselves blown up worse than any dilettante terrorist.
There was an inexperienced religious nutter/power fantacist who lived not far down the road from me a few years ago.
He downloaded some recipes off the internet and then went to London and bombed a market full of immigrants and a pub full of gays.
Of course he used nails to enhance the effect rather than chemical, biological or nuclear materials, but didn’t those Japanese nutters manage to spread chemicals through the Tokyo subway?
The government has to take terrorism seriously otherwise that government would get slaughtered in the event of another July 7th.
Making explosives is easy. I used to do it in High School all the time, back in the days when it was still possible to get a science educatoin the only way a young guy is likely to: by doing exciting things and making them go BOOM.
That said, from the little information in this article I can hazard a guess at what they were up to.
They were looking at various combinations of easily available and seemingly innocuous substances that could be combined to make an explosive after passing a security check.
It’s really quite a prudent thing to do.
As to the radiological bombs, they are going to happen somewhere. Perhaps not in the US which is now laced with detectors such that an experimental rat with a prick from a needle of radioisotope tracer in its bum would have a police car trying to make it pull over.
Basic explosives are really, really easy. Just ask any science addicted teenager.
>Basic explosives are really, really easy.
How basic are we talking? Low order stuff (black powder, chlorates, etc) ? Primaries (AP, HTMD)? Or secondaries that are typically going to require a nitration process with high grade nitric acid?
While I appreciate that “explosives are easy” is true or true enough.
It doesn’t stop some terrorists being unbelievably dumb.
I’ll drink to that Nick.
May all terrorists be dumb terrorists!
Alas, they wont all be.
Oh, I know but Richard Reid has many years in jail to ponder the question, “Why didn’t I take a lighter?”
The task isn’t a difficult one, but it is always dangerous, even for an expert. An amateur might get away with it nineteen times out of twenty, an expert might have something go wrong one time in a thousand, but especially when experimenting with new reactions, impure ingredients, mixed by hand rather than by automation, the unexpected can always happen.
For anyone with a decent knowledge of chemistry and physics, and the opportunity to experiment, it’s actually quite a bit easier than its rarity would suggest. I can think of half a dozen better methods without even trying. (Which I’m not going to discuss, of course.) If we’re safe from terrorists it’s not because they can’t, but because people psychologically willing to go that far are comparatively rare. Fantasists are safe because they’re fantasists.
But in any case, the threat of terrorism is not about the sheer number of people they can kill, as in a war of attrition, it’s about changing the perception of risk in order to bring about political concessions. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. Terrorists manufacture tragedies, atrocities, on a personal scale that people get to hear about. People judge their frequency by how often they hear about them, and if it’s little enough to hit the news every time, but often enough to give the impression of constant danger, people will demand that the danger be dealt with. And whatever the government does about that, the terrorists and their cause are given far greater weight in the scales of national policy than they deserve on their own merits.
Since the threat is largely about public perception, the response is too: hence security theatre. If we never got to hear about them it wouldn’t be necessary, but we have a free press who feed on tragedy and drama, and it would just lead the terrorists to construct ever larger atrocities until they can no longer be ignored. And then you walk a thin line between placating them to avoid more atrocities you’re visibly helpless to stop, and resisting them so that it doesn’t become seen as an easy road to power. It’s an old, old lesson: That if once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
Terrorism is a real threat to society, but in a political sense rather than a purely military one. I think the politicians are going about it the wrong way, too. But I don’t think it’s about them using terrorism as an excuse for introducing totalitarian security, but that they choose security theatre as a soft alternative to cultural confrontation. It would be tolerable if it was a measure to buy time while the idealogical fight was on, but they’re not fighting.
Which, Pa, is precisely my point. The security theatre in fact heightens the perception of threat – and the politicians, being for the most part innumerate, unscientific, weathervanes of public emotion, are the most susceptible to it. They don’t invent the threat to justify totalitarianism, but will embrace totalitarianism joyfully as a concomitant of their own inability to judge the magnitude, and their unwillingness to take responsibility for the consequences of taking any position at all.
What we have is a malign feedback caused by political desire to be seen doing something pumping up the media. That’s why every fantasist is presented as a real danger, every near-random act of successful violence be a civilization-threatening strategic blow. Which only encourages would-be terrorists in their sense of their own importance. It is a folie á deaux between two groups of showoffs.
Security theatre is danegeld.
Nick M,
Is the use of the term “dirty bomb” in the modern sense co-incidental? Or are people deliberately conflating the two?
Indeed. It would be interesting to do some research. My guess beforehand is alarmist journalistic usage bent it out of shape during the 90s, way before the present rhetorical pattern established itself, during the recurrent witless scares (remember Red Mercury?) about loose ex-Soviet nukes – which it was quite reasonable to think about … But far too boring and difficult to ask, how big? how heavy? what mechanisms and procedures did the Red Army have to stop unauthorised use? – when all the hacks needed to know was contained in movie sequences of LEDs counting-down copied from Goldfinger.
More on the folie á deux. If you put “dirty bomb” into google to begin tracking down the phrase, you get a sponsored link from the Metropolitan Police: “If you’ve seen something suspicious Call the Anti-terrorist Hotline.”
Aren’t you glad they’re using taxpayer’s money wisely?
Of course, terrorists seek publicity. That’s the point of terrorism. But they kill people in the process. That’s too real, that isn’t any fantasy.
Even if they kill just, let’s say, 50 people every couple of years – it is a very real threat. And it needs to be dealt with. It might not be “a civilization-threatening strategic blow”, but it is a blow, and defensive measures are needed.
As to the “security theatre” – some security measures are efficient, and not too burdensome. For example: security checks (looking in bags) at the entrance to malls have saved at least 3 attacks (in Israel). That is: terrorists have blown themselves up at the entrance, killing the security guard who stopped them and maybe one or two people more, rather then blowing themselves up inside and killing dozens.
I think the moaning here about the “security theatre” is excessive.
… but didn’t those Japanese nutters manage to spread chemicals through the Tokyo subway?
Nope; not spread, not through.They released sarin, not as an aerosol as chemical munitions would aim to, but by, in effect, dribbling it in puddles on the floor of a carriage – with lethal (7 dead, 144 otherwise affected) but not massively lethal consequences.
They were a large well-organised cult, had millions at their disposal and some sophisticated labs. Yet the July 2005 tube bombers were more effective killers. Chemical weapons are hard.
Unlike, say, Hezbollah
Guy,
Did they fail to produce an aerosol because aerosols are intrinsically hard to make, or because they hadn’t realised prior to the attack they needed to, and hadn’t done any experimentation?
Apropos of Dale Amon’s comment, there is a post on Slashdot to the effect that an irradiated cat traveling in a car at 70 mph on US Interstate 5 was detected at a range of 80 feet by an agent apparently monitoring for such things.
Cheers…
Oh God No!
The Radioactive Cats From Outer Space are now attacking!!!
I always knew these creatures were up to no good!
Could it be the reason the average would-be terrorist doesn’t blow himself up prematurely (as used to happen quite often to old-style IRA/Fatah, etc., bombers equipped with commercial/military explosives), is because he lacks the knowledge to make an explosion at all?
Considering that most of the people killed by terrorists in the west prior to 9-11 were killed via bombs, that strikes me as an exceptionally optimistic attitude to take.
The terrorists’ main problems with regards to bombs is that they are trying to build bombs without acquiring the background in chemistry and engineering first, and are working with impure and unstable ingredients.
A plan that relies on an adversary remaining ignorant and poorly equipped indefinitely is a bad plan.
Yeah. Have you run a geigercounter over Timmy lately Nick? 🙂
A plan that relies on the false belief that the adversary is ignorant and poorly equipped is a foolish plan.
Indeed. But a plan that posits an adversary when there is a crowd is fated to fail by overestimation.
I don’t advocate doing nothing. I’m thoroughly in favour of discreet appropriate use of intelligence and where necessary executive action to interdict terrorist schemes. But I do condemn security theatre as a losing soft’ strategy and advocate floccinauccinihilipilification as a winning one.
Some scumbags crashed into the World Trade Centre, fluked destroying it completely, and world trade scarcely flickered. That’s the best they’ve got.
RAB, Alisa,
No, but he did binge upon Felix and then puke on the landing this evening. Just whilst I was watching The Colour of Magic.
He then attempted to eat my meatballs and potato salad.
Well… the TSA stuff in the airports, yeah, that’s security theater.
Having a few patrol cars that have been discreetly equipped with radiological sensors on major highway routes isn’t, IMO.
Part of a very successful anti-bomb strategy the Israelis engage in is a priority on taking out the guys who know what they’re doing. Once they get wind of a successful bomb engineer they devote a great deal of time and energy finding him and ending his career.
People in Palestinian territories get blown up all the time in “work accidents”, partially as a relsult of that strategy.
Eric, that is very true, but I don’t know how applicable this approach would be to, say, Britain. A crucial part of this strategy is the fact that we (Israel) have a very well established intelligence apparatus in the PA. The PA is a hostile foreign entity for all intents and purposes. Not so the Muslim neighborhoods of London.
Depends whether you listen to Melanie Phillips at her most dogmatic, Alisa; but truth be told, not only are “Muslim neighbourhoods” of London not foreign and not hostile, they are not Muslim.
London’s villages have different concentrations of people of different backgrounds, but you have to draw your circle very small indeed before you find everyone within it belongs to a specified minority… by which time you have almost certainly zeroed-in on a smaller ethnic or demographic type, if you are not down to one family.
Palestine is a case in point of how one should not assume a single adversary; Palestinian nationalism is a meaningful political entity in general hostile to Israel, but it is espoused by Christians and atheists too, and should not be considered as an organ of some general “Muslim” struggle unless you take the simplistic formulae of Islamists as representing the world accurately.
Guy, re London: indeed, which rather emphasizes my point. As to PA, nowhere have I alluded to the religious makeup of their society, as it is indeed irrelevant to the strategy that Eric described. Most Israelis I know don’t see the conflict in religious terms anyway, although this has been slowly changing since the 1st intifada, when Hamas became a major player, and this change has been (mildly) intensifying following 9/11 etc. Arafat was anything but an “Islamist”, and for most of us he is still the embodiment of their side of the conflict.
Alisa,
I think we are in agreement. My point about distinguishing (various) Palestian causes from other sources of terrorism was aimed at those further up the thread who endorse the idea that there is a single enemy with a coherent aim, and implying that the statist model of tackling a ‘terrorism’ conceived as a parastatal entity makes sense. (Cf. the officially promulgated conception of ‘organised crime’.)
Guy, I see your point now. I also tend to agree that the threat is being blown out of proportion (this obviously doesn’t include Israel), and you also conceded that the threat is still too serious to be ignored. In view of that, you suggested using intelligence, among other measures, which brings me back to my original point: are you suggesting that the UK government spy on its citizens?
Guy,
There are many things worth doing. Spying on muslims (in Britain) is one. For example: record and scan their sermons in mosques (which are public anyway), identify the firebrands, mount covert vigilance on their mosques, wiretap suspects, try to recruit informers… etc. I don’t know how much of this is done, but I suspect too little not too much.
Then there are defensive measures: for example: installing locked doors on plane cockpits, arm the pilots, use air marshals. These are unobtrusive and cheap measures.
I also favor screening air passengers – screening their baggage (including cabin baggage) and making them pass metal detectors. This isn’t big trouble, though some screeners sometime overdo it and cause unnecessary delays.
Belittling a threat that you agree exists isn’t what we need now.
Guy.
By typing that it is “absurd” that ordinary people could make bombs you igore objective reality – for “religious nutters” already have made and used bombs. And not just in Iraq or Afghanistan – they have done so in Britain as well.
I accept that the 7th of July is not your birthday – so perhaps you have more excuse to forget the bombings on that day, but it is still odd that you seem to have forgotten them.
As for nukes.
Yes an atomic attack will happen sooner or later.
Indeed with the lax security in Russia, the hostility of China and the sell-to-anyone policy administered by Mr Khan of Pakistan….. the only wonder is that cities have not been nuked already.
We have been very lucky – but luck runs out.
You will almost certainly live to see a city nuked – and not just by a minor “dirty bomb” (i.e a lot of radioactive material) but a proper fission bomb.
Governments will try and stop this happening by using various nice and nasty tactics (partly because two of the prime targets are Washington D.C. and London – both places where government people live), but eventually they will fail.
As you say – human beings make mistakes.
Explosive experts blow themselves up.
And security forces miss plots.
After all – one only has to miss one plot.
Yes there is some “theatre” to security but I resist your suggestion that we look at probability and dismiss the threat.
It is popular in the states to say that you are more likely to get killed by a _______ than a terrorist, generally implying that President Bush is a moron and that we should spend all that terrorist money on universal pre-school.
Surprise! Government is ineffective and inefficient at fighting terrorism. That does not lead me to believe that I would like them to do it less. Fighting religious fanatics who are trying to tear down liberal institutions is one decent use of public largess.
jk,
Presumably you would have defended medicinal bleeding, too. If something that is at best useless, and usually damaging, is done by someone in authority as a purported answer to some problem, then that’s no reason to accept the “answer”, even if you think the problem worth tackling. If I think taxation is a necessary activity even of a small state – and I do – that is no reason for me to support the present tax system or its acrescence.
Jacob, Paul,
Actually belittling the threat is precisely what we need. That’s both because the threat has been wildly exaggerated – quantitatively and qualitatively misdescribed – and because the continuing threat largely (though not wholly) arises because the overreaction acknowledges its perpetrators as important.
Maybe, as a propaganda ploy.
What we don’t need is reduce the anti terrorist measures, the sensible ones (as I wrote above).