Something seems awful fishy about this Algerian noodlehead caught in Washington. He takes a purposefully circuitous route via ferry, has garbage bags full of questionable material with timing devices, booked a room ahead of time in Seattle using one of his aliases. Either this man was extremely stupid, or a novice, or, maybe, a decoy? I mean, I would think any reasonably intelligent participant in this forum could do a better job than this guy. Was he sent as an obvious decoy to divert attention, resources, while the 15 other guys snuck across the border in a semi? Dunno. Just seems awfully awfully obvious and stupid.

-- Kurt Ayau (Ayau@iwinet.com), December 18, 1999

Answers

I concur, you took the thoughts right out of my head on this one, actually.

-- Ludi (ludi@rollin.com), December 18, 1999.

I sure hope our government has the brains that I see exposed on this board. Wow, that even took me by surprise, I would not have thought of a decoy, and me with 20 years military. Show you that some are not able to see the forest because of the trees. That would have been the reason for such a stupid blunder. Sort of reminds me of those caught for the OKC bombing incident, another decoys of sorts.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 18, 1999.

Yes, that's right. Any self-respecting terrorist knows to load up a rented car with all sorts of explosives, timing devices, false ID, go to a major point of entry and panic at the first stop. This is the best way to enter the country.

Give me a break!

As the late great Hamlet said, "...there's something rotten in Denmark."

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), December 18, 1999.

Still, just plain dips--t dumbness can't be ruled out. Think back to the dolts that carried out the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The people that send these turkeys in are somethng else, of course.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 18, 1999.

Kinda reminds me of a fellow named "Oswald"....

-- Norm Harrold (nharrold@tymewyse.com), December 18, 1999.

I saw the NBC report with Brian Williams on this. I was blown away-- within 12 hours the media knew the name of the guy where he was going, what he had in the trunk of his car, the exact actions that occurred to cause suspicion and arrest, the name and location of the hotel in which he had a reservation, and they had further extrapolated to assume that it had something to do with the end of the year (the hotel was just a few blocks away from a planned millenial event in Seattle) AND connections to the Bin Laden guy. AND they mentioned that he left an incredible paper trail including phone logs that the FBI are going over now.

BOY, how easy was that? It just seems too convenient for me. All of a sudden, if you listen to the talking heads on TV, terrorists are lurking around every corner around here. I am not saying they are NOT here, but my gosh, I think this whole terrorism angle is pretty see- through.

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), December 18, 1999.

It's obviously extremely hard to tell with this one. Noticed that the appearance of teror dude in downtown Seattle seemed staged (the police guy with a gun in fornt of the camera looked TOTALLY like he was acting) but then again maybe people just act that way when the cameras are on. I agree, though, all the "breaking" coverage on NBC, which wouldn't really have an interest in paranoia, seems very suspicious, as do the many conflicting reports about when it happened (with some saying Tue., Wed, or Thurs, WHERE he was from, the quick picture that was produced of the circuit boards. Maybe I'm just nuts.

-- Daniel Roberts (daniel roberts@anon.anon), December 18, 1999.

Perhaps this was staged to discourage other real attacks. Make other terrorists nervous. hmmm It does seem that it was just too easy.

-- Cin (Cinlooo@aol.com), December 18, 1999.

Hey Norm:

It does remind me of Oswald and the Reischstagg fire and those Polish soldiers who raided the German radio station in 1939 and Tonkin Gulf and who knows, maybe even Pearl Harbor.

Won't we be glad to have all the soldiers on the streets to protect us? Some poster who lives in that neck of the woods said that all anyone has to do is cross the border a mile or so from the inspection station like all the other illegal Canadians and Americans do and he would not have been caught. You would think that an Algerian would know a little bit about crossing check points and borders.

This jerk/agent provocoteur even had maps of Calif etc. Now the threat can be parleyed to the whole west coast.

Bill in South Carolina

What ever did happen to that Mexican National who surrendered for committing all those murders along the railroad tracks?

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), December 18, 1999.

Well, I certainly thought he might be a mule... Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 18, 1999.

US Customs Service is successful in intercepting about 10% of smugglers/contraband entering this country.

Godspeed

-- Pinkrock (aphotonboy@aol.com), December 19, 1999.