Crotch Rocket

Everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it.
And they was using up all kinds of
cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station.
They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and
they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach,
the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to
mention the aerial photography
--Alice's Restaurant, Arlo Guthrie
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Some further comments on the hapless would-be Christmas day aircraft bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

It was brought to our attention that a recent t.v. program filmed the detonation of an 80 gram PETN device on a titanium plate using a hyperelectric charge, and the resultant blast ostensibly twisted and deformed the plate.

Ranger will address this fear-mongering:

• Was this production or home-made PETN?

• Was the crotch bomber's stash home-made or factory-made? There is a difference.

• Where would the crotch bomber get a source of electricity, as used in the demonstration?

• Even had the bomb detonated, how would this have brought an aircraft down?

If the bomber were a sophisticated and dedicated al-Qaeda operative with training and ability, he would have planted the device, primed it, and would have had it explode on the next leg of the aircraft's itinerary. Abdulmutallab's failed attempt demonstrates a very low-level of tradecraft.

The television tests are pure theater, with no relation to the reality of the explosive potential of this device.

The only lesson Ranger gets from this incident is definitely not to wear designer underwear. We're glad the basic brief is coming back strong (Even Less for Men to Think About).

Panties in a Wad

No country has the right
to occupy another country
--Lion of the Desert

I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom
I kill conversation as I walk into the room
I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban
I'm a walking disaster, I'm a demolition man
--Demolition Man
_______________

A few words regarding the nuts and bolts of bombs and intelligence analysis per the Christmas almost-bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The plastic explosive, which obviously clears airport metal detectors, is PETN, which was the same that al-Qaeda operative "shoe bomber" Richard Reid used in his soles when he tried to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami in 2001. In fact, Abdulmuttalab reportedly tried to use 80 grams of PETN to Reid's 50 grams, more than enough to blow a hole in the plane (Was Christmas bomber Part of a Bigger Plot.)

Imagine the horror of 80 grams (2.82 ounces) of PETN hung in a jock strap. PETN is a high order explosive, IF detonated. To detonate PETN, also the explosive found in det cord, it is necessary under normal circumstances to use blasting caps -- either electric or in conjunction with timed fuses. Neither technique was used by either previous shoe bomber-manque Reid or the unfortunate Mr. Abdulmutallab.

PETN is relatively stable and relatively difficult to detonate using expedient means. It was highly unlikely that either device, whether shoe- or underwear-bound, could be set off with a match-lit source. So why all the scare?

It is not a bomb unless it can go BOOM. Even if the 2.82 oz. of PETN were detonated, this would not have brought down and airliner. The threat has been overstated to the extreme. If anyone doubts this, go to the History Channel and take a gander at all the U.S. Army Aircorps birds of World War II that were still flying after being hit with high ordnance flak rounds.

Obviously, an expert demolition man might be able to do damage if the 2.82 oz. were strategically employed and correctly detonated. But that was not even remotely the case in either of the high-scare scenarios we are talking about here.

In the 1980's, a terrorist left a man's wallet with probably a quarter-pound charge of SEMTEX on an aircraft. All he accomplished was blowing a hole in the fuselage while the plane was in flight, after which the pilot safely landed the craft. The threat of the hapless Christmas bomber-to-be is overstated, and it was simply time for a woman (Ms. Napolitano) to have her upbraiding as did her predecessor, Mr. Heckuva-Job Brownie. However, the "failures" are far from commensurate.

While Reid and Abdulmutallab had every intention of doing a dastardly deed, and they did manage to carry explosive materials onto an aircraft, their capabilities and operational skills were inferior to their lofty goals. Intention is not doing.

Ranger wonders how these people will be tried for being bombers when it has never been proved that either device would have gone boom. Shouldn't there be a government burden of proof to show that these devices were, in fact, bombs?

Intent and capabilities are two separate issues.