-----Original Message-----
From: Luke
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 2:01 PM
To:
Subject: unreal madrid


the madrid details are starting to look a bit weirder

the story seems to be that the unexploded bombs in the backpack was using the alarm on a cell phone to trigger the bomb - low and behold, the bomb didnt go off, and the errorist was sufficiently kind to leave the address book intact. no wonder they call the bag 'a blessing'.

it seems that the phones were used purely as timers, not for any remote-detonating capacity. i dont know anything about bombmaking - but im gonna guess that these bombs require some sort of
clock. i cant for the life of me work out why someone with the capacity to build and blow up 10 bombs would think that a cell fone was the best device for sed purpose. im not sure why u'd use a fone by default.

remember also that these people apparently didnt suicide - ie they knew that they were still gonna need their fones the following week - ergo it seems reasonable to expect that if they were just using the phones for their timekeeping capability, then u wouldnt blow up your own fone. they'd just buy/steal woteva they need. (the 5 arrests are from the unexploded cellphone's call history.)

interestingly, the beeb is reporting that all the cell fones were set to go off at (i think) 7.39am. despite all the talk of simultaneity however, the explosions were actually over a 15 min (or even longer) period. whether that qualifies as 'simultaneous' or not is a matter of speculation, however if its true that cell phone clocks were the mechanism, then 15 mins isnt simltaneous at all. anyone who's seen a tv spy knows that 'synchronise watches' is the first step. i dont know whats going on, but it was odd for the beeb to mention the 7.39am timeslot when the facts seem to refute that (most other agencies seem to be obscuring the time between bombings).

praps the reason that they are using the 'phone clock' story is to explain why the guy left his phone with the numbers in the bag. given how sophisticated our terrorist bombers are, and given that most suicide bombings seem to have one outlet that fails, u'd think that they'd take precautions such as 'lets make sure that no-one gets arrested if our plan fails, so please dont leave your mates phone number on the device.'

i havent actually seen the specific explsos ion times - so i dont know what the spread was over the 15 min period (maybe there were 9 at 7.39 and then one 15 mins later, or maybe they were equally spread, or maybe there were differences by location) - but it seems as tho near-simultaneity is actually harder to acheive than simultaneity per se. if the spread was intentional, then it'd help to know why - praps the first explosion is to get attention, similar to 911, altho the time frame seems a little tite for maximum effect. i dunno what it is, but i reckon there must be a reason for the delay - the signature is sposed to be simultaneity, yet given the apparent mechanism, it seems the perps have actually gone out of their way to spread out the explosions - people notice when a clock is 15 mins fast or slow, and if simultaneity is your goal, then checking the clocks is an inherent part of that. remember, we are sposed to believe that simultaneity is proof of sophistication. (altho i dont think any of the other bombings have literally been simultaneous - i think turkey was praps +/- 5 mins)

i wish i believed that this was related/isolated to the spanish election, but given the uncertainty about the perps and the purps on the eve of the election, then im tempted to assume the purpose is larger than the spanish domestic arena. again, i dont pretend to understand terrorism, but i cant find the logic of terrorists blowing up trains to influence an election, but then not give any indication as to who they are or what they are trying to achieve. if they are trying to influence todays election, then uncertainty/ambiguity is not their friend.

im not necessarily saying that eta are not involved, just that it seems reasonable to assume that the goal is not to effect todays election, which prolly reduces the likelihood that it was a domestic movement. on this logic, it seems more likely that the bombings were either independent of domestic timetables, or that they were *supposed* to appear as tho they were related to the election. its difficult to imagine that a domestic group makes a big show on election weekend, without an apparent effort to influence the outcome of sed election.

the other thing to notice for someone interested in numbers is that the failure rate (as measured in terms of unexploded bombs) seems to follow a pattern not often found in nature - ie. one failure per mission - it doesnt matter if the bombers send out 2 bombers as per the russian lollapolooza, or the 10 (or however many) in spain, theres always just one that doesnt work. thank goodness for the 'blessing' - investigators would be stumped otherwise...

we also have the increasingly difficult-to-justify position where noone actually attacks the serpent. despite the media noise about 'soft targets', lets remember - america is the snake, america doesnt take any hits, and america is exactly as vulnerable/soft as any other country. for the life of me i cant find a logic for terrorists attacking american friends as a way to attack america (and the pattern was obvious before this last week). if america is the enemy, and she is vulnerable, dont attack turkey, or spain, or italy, or australians in bali, or the funnest uk proxies in turkey. the logic seems to operate to a different dance. i dont think that anyone believes that the 'coalition' will behave any differently if spain drops out. the americans will still do exactly what they want against the arabs/muslims/poofters - it doesnt matter if the uk and australia and poland drop out either. so why attack the edges? my best guess therefore is that any attacks on 'allies' appear to be designed to increase support for the imperial beast. whiteys appear to be safe, at least at home - aussies in bali, brits in turkey, compounds in saudi arabia mite need some token attention. the spaniards arent white and kinda moorish so we can hit them at home. the japs even are less white - maybe the nth koreans are too scary.