Thursday May 5, 2005

I've Been Thinking:

There were 2 minor near simultaneous explosions outside the British Consulate in New York today.
Nothing to get excited about.

These were amateur bombs prepared by bombers.
The bombs were hardly bombs and the delivery was even less impressive. The bombers were inept and thankfully so. It is clear that these were not professional terrorists. Had they been trained in terror, or had they read the al Qaeda handbook they would have put together a more sophisticated explosive.

So why even bother writing about bombs that pose no serious threat?
Because there is an important lesson to be learned here.

The terrorists laid the bombs in the very space that was there to act as protection against bombs and explosive trucks.
The planter is the very place that bomb squads put bombs to limit the impact and danger of explosion.

This was not a serious threat nor was it a serious attack.
But it gives us good reason to rethink and re-evaluate the effectiveness of our most popular and elemental security precautions.