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Edited by Noah Shachtman | Contact

Truck Bomb: Too Easy

Yikes...

Two undercover NYPD cops in a sting operation used $7,000 and the Internet to build a truck bomb big enough to blow up a skyscraper, officials revealed yesterday.

ryder.jpgIn what was dubbed "Operation Kaboom," every purchase the cops made was legal - and aroused little suspicion - even driving their simulated truck bomb throughout the city.

Although the two cops had no specialized knowledge of bomb-making, they were able manufacture an explosive more powerful than the one used in the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

"We did it with no difficulty whatsoever," said [Richard] Falkenrath, the NYPD's top anti-terror cop, who testified at a congressional hearing yesterday and disclosed the making of the bomb. When the operation was complete, the officers drove the simulated bomb around the city's bridges and tunnels, sources said. They were not detected.
There is one, tiny bit of good news in this otherwise skin-crawling story: When the cops tried to buy 2,450 pounds of ammonium nitrate in upstate Rensselaer County, it "aroused some suspicion from the owner of the distribution plant, who contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms following the purchase. The ATF launched an investigation, but the NYPD notified them that it was an undercover operation."

Latest Comments

C-Low, It's very simple really: do unto others ...

If you treat others well, it's more difficult for them to treat you poorly. If you stomp all over them you are inviting the same in return.

We've been fed a load of bull about terrorism: they hate our freedom, etc. The truth is 'they' hate what we have done to them, and terrorism is as much a political tool as conventional warfare.

Just look at our history in the middle east, Overthrowing governments (Iran in '53, Iraq in '68); overt support for despotic regimes (Saudi Arabia in particular); massive supply of armaments (including chemical weapons); unilateral support for Israel including veto of hundreds of UN Security Council resolutions against them; development of Islamic fundamentalist armies to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan; failure to rebuild either Afghanistan (1980's and 2002) or Iraq (1991 and 2003) after our military adventures there, etc.

It's not just Bush, he's simply the latest in a long line of imperialists. The ‘history’ of the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t even mention the Bay of Pigs – the bungled invasion that led the Soviet Union to the defense of Cuba. Kennedy's execution of imperial policy almost started a nuclear war.

Cause and effect, a basic principle of physics, applied to human behavior.

Posted by: Noah (the other one) at September 14, 2006 7:00 PM


Sorry, teacher, the website ate my HTML formatting. Just to make it clear, the first paragraph of my comment (2 comments ago) is a direct quote from the article.

Posted by: Chris of Dangerous Logic at September 14, 2006 10:00 AM


Fascinating to read how many people do not want a free country. Wake up. Without freedom, it ain't America!

And I'll bet the same guys arguing for all kinds of wiretapping and "humint" will fight gun control to their last breath.

As others have noted, the system worked. ATF was on it. Without the NYPD intervention, the "bombers" would have been targets themselves.

Why can't you accept success?

Posted by: zak822 at September 14, 2006 9:57 AM


But the purchase of the ammonium nitrate in Rensselaer aroused some suspicion from the owner of the distribution plant, who contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms following the purchase. The ATF launched an investigation, but the NYPD notified them that it was an undercover operation.

Had this been a real plot, wouldn't the plotters most likely have been caught?

Posted by: Chris of Dangerous Logic at September 14, 2006 8:13 AM


Noah (the other one)


You are always amusing my friend. Let’s say we kicked the real enemy out tomorrow ya know the real evil “Christian fundamentalist” Bush and his crew. And we appointed Noah (the other one) as president. Great NOW WHAT?

I really want to learn how you would fix, human nature and all the evils in the world with no violence, no military due to no “military industrial complex”. Common I know you don’t just have as*hat complaints with no real solutions. Right? Hell man I want to live in Utopia (don't think human nature will ever allow such on earth) but if you know how to get thier I am down.

Posted by: C-Low at September 14, 2006 12:40 AM


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