{"id":2217,"date":"2010-01-05T20:00:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T20:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2010-01-05T20:13:14","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T20:13:14","slug":"sullivans_credi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2217","title":{"rendered":"Sullivan&#8217;s Credibility Escapes With A Literal &#8220;Woosh&#8221; &#8211; With Photo!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sullivan <a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2010\/01\/why-didnt-he-just-blow-himself-up-in-the-toilet.html\" target=\"browser\">approvingly quotes a correspondent<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>A reader asks a very interesting question about the undie-bomber &#8211; why did he get back into his seat to detonate a bomb that had a ramshackle detonator and where he could be overcome by fellow travelers? Read the whole email:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I keep hearing this even described as a failed terrorist attack on an airplane.  But was it really?  I keep hearing about how the system failed, but did it really?  Think about it.  First, what is the major goal of terrorism?  It is not to bring down airplanes.  It is not to destroy the West.  It is, pure and simple, to create terror in people.  Why?  Because when people are afraid they overreact.  And this includes most of us, yourself included.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><i><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If the intent of al Qaeda in this latest instance was to bring down an airplane, then it failed.  But if its intent was to create fear and overreaction, then it succeeded  Personally, I think it was the latter.  It is quite possible (in fact I think probable) that the people who planned this event, and used the young man from Nigeria as a tool, were aware that due to security measures in place, there was no way they could actually get a bomb through that would actually work.  The detonation equipment needed would have been detected.  The same applies, by the way, to the shoe bomber.<\/p>\n<p>Again, think about it.  If you wanted to blow up a plane, would you attempt it from your seat, where somebody could quite possibly stop you?  No, you would go to the washroom where you could set off the bomb without disruption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If either of them had been paying attention, they would have noted that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2240155\/\" target=\"browser\">he had specifically requested and been seated in an overwing window seat<\/a> &#8211; over the fuel tanks and the most important structural part of the plane.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not clear that he had enough explosive to breach either, even if it had successfully detonated. But he was clearly sitting in the best place if his intention was to blow the plane up or crash it.<\/p>\n<p>If he&#8217;d blown himself up in the bathroom? Ask the passengers on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243\" target=\"browser\">Aloha flight 243 in 1988<\/a>&#8230;you can because they all survived.<\/p>\n<form mt:asset-id=\"154\" class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Aloha.JPG\" src=\"http:\/\/www.windsofchange.net\/media\/Aloha.JPG\" width=\"494\" height=\"328\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;\" \/><\/form>\n<p>\nSullivan and his commentator are lining up with many others in the liberal commentariat to note that &#8220;terrorism really isn&#8217;t that big a deal.&#8221; That&#8217;s a disastrous premise electorally, and it&#8217;s deeply wrong. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.windsofchange.net\/archives\/005996.html\" target=\"browser\">I&#8217;ve written about that in the past<\/a> and will try and do so again soon.<br \/>\n&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why did the undie-bomber go back to his seat? It&#8217;s kinda obvious, and had nothing to do with drama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}