Taking Credit For Fun And Terror
By Ann Huggett (08/22/03)
Last Thursday, at 4:15 PM, the lights went out in Newark. Our office thought that workmen had inadvertently severed a power line within the building. Then our building’s private power generators belched forth into life and a loudspeaker announcement told all employees to vacate the building.
We had the choice of either going home or hanging around for an outdoor barbeque in the employee parking lot at 5:00 PM. As we made our way to the stairs, you could hear unlucky employees stuck in the elevators ringing the emergency bells. Word rapidly spread that the power outage was a regional blackout so most opted to go straight home rather than hang around hoping for indigestion on the company’s dime.
Driving on surface streets was interesting in that none of the lights were working and many intersections weren’t simple cross streets. That meant the honor system of imaginary stop signs went out the window when three streets merged but with both cops and talented pedestrians directing traffic, we managed to get home without any bumper thumpers.
Fortunately, the lights were on in our place by the time we made it home. New Jersey recovered rapidly but any areas on the Niagara-Mohawk grid were still in the Dark Ages. That meant people in New York, Ohio, the Northeastern states, and parts of Michigan and even Canada were dining by candlelight not out of choice but out of necessity. It took days for them to get the power back on.
Perhaps you heard of it? The Great Blackout of 2003? It was in all the papers and bored you all silly on the news for days afterward. Considering that most major news services broadcast out of New York, this was like a major big deal to them what with New York being the Center of the Universe and all. However, even before the cream cakes could spoil or the ice cream could melt, the finger pointing began. From blaming God for non-existent lightning bolts to President Bush just because he’s a Republican, everyone started looking for a fall guy. What everyone agreed on though was that the blackout was NOT due to terrorism. Oh yeah? If you don’t know the cause then why immediately rule out a possibility especially in this time of asymmetrical warfare?
Oh, that’s right; it’s not politically correct. So how to explain this latest communiqué from Al Qaeda laying claim to the blackout? Spotted by the Egyptian news site Dar al hayat, the Al Qaeda statement was found on the International Islamic Media Center’s own website. The communiqué claims that the blackout, “…"was carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden to hit the pillars of the U.S. economy," as "a realization of bin Laden's promise to offer the Iraqi people a present."
Oh goody and what fun. Let’s go through this step-by-step and dissect what is essentially a cheap shot/bit o’ propaganda from people who have declared eternal war on us.
One of the juicer passages states, “"let the criminal Bush and his gang know that the punishment is the result of the action, the soldiers of God cut the power on these cities, they darkened the lives of the Americans as these criminals blackened the lives of the Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Americans lived a black day they will never forget. They lived a day of terror and fear… a state of chaos and confusion where looting and pillaging rampaged the cities, just like the capital of the caliphate Baghdad, and Afghanistan and Palestine were. Let the American people take a sip from the same glass."
Well, I don’t know about you but driving on New Jersey turnpikes into Newark means that every day for me is filled with chaos and confusion. News stories from around the East show Americans behaved in a civilized fashion, walking home, hitting the bars, or sleeping out in the open. I did hear that Ottowans went on a looting rampage but that was probably just to reinforce their much-vaunted Canadian moral superiority.
As to the “soldiers of God” getting militant, has anyone alerted the Pope that the Jesuits are running amok? And it was the Iraqis themselves who looted Baghdad but that’s a mere detail.
So Al Qaeda’s bragging continues with, “"one of the benefits of this strike is that the U.S. will not live in peace until our conditions are met, such as releasing all the detainees including Sheikh Omar Abdulrahman, and getting out of the land of the Muslims, including Jerusalem and Kashmir."
I see Al Qaeda has ratcheted down its demands quite a bit but the only people I’d release Sheikh Omar Abdulrahman to is the Mossad. As to Jerusalem and Kashmir either being occupied by Americans or actual Muslim lands, wrong on all counts there, sport.
Now for the good part; Al Qaeda claims to "hitting the major pillar of the U.S. economy (the Stock Exchange)," and that the strike was "…a message to the UN, which is opposed to Islam, and is based in New York. It is a message to all the investors that the U.S. is no longer a safe country for their money, knowing that the U.S. economy greatly relies on the trust of the investor." Al Qaeda bragged that “…seven major airports stopped working, which is a strike to airlines companies; nine nuclear reactors broke down, something that never happened before, and this is considered as a major economic hit for the nine reactors in the states of New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan. Means of transportation broke down: trains, cars and trucks, which resulted in great losses. The Internet stopped, leading to a freeze in trade transactions. The international banks headquartered in New York closed, not to mention the great losses incurred by the insurance companies, and the massive deployment of the police and security forces."
Sheesh. Where to begin? The New York Stock Exchange closes at 4:00 PM and the blackout happened a full 15 minutes AFTER closing. The Exchange was up and running on schedule for Friday’s opening bell. No loss there. Some trains were stopped but cars and trucks were running just fine seeing as how they have power sources independent of utility companies although I suppose if you were a green weenie driving one of those electric cars you’d be SOL as soon as your battery drained. As to the UN being, “…opposed to Islam”, all I can say is that the UN is so in favor of Islam, I’m surprised the whole thing hasn’t been turned into a mosque by now! All the UN does is flatter and encourage Islam and Islamic dictators every chance it gets.
There is not one day that goes by where Islam’s demands aren’t met in those corrupt halls. While the airports were shut down temporarily, flights were soon resumed. And since when does anyone’s flight arrive on schedule anyway? Any delays ended up looking like normal flight patterns after a while. As to nine nuclear power stations going kaflooey, a temporary shutdown is not the same thing as breaking down. Now Chernobyl was a breakdown!
Oh, and the Internet, the banks, and after hours stock transactions did not go belly up and the police took everything in their stride.
Then Al Qaeda went on to say, “…break the hearts of U.S. officials, just know that the cost paid by the Moujahideen to sabotage the power plants was a mere seven thousand dollars. Die of sorrow!"
A mere $7K? Sounds like Al Qaeda did the globally fashionable thing and outsourced its high tech sabotage to either China or India. Is dying of sorrow anything like having our stomachs burn in hell?
Al Qaeda finally finished up with further tedious threats, "We tell the Muslims that this is not the awaited strike, but it is called the war of skirmishes (to drain the enemy), and that the American snakes are enormous and need to be consumed and weakened to be destroyed. We tell the people of Afghanistan and Kashmir that the gift of Sheikh Osama bin Laden is on its way to the White House; then the gift of Al Aqsa, and do we know what is the gift of Al Aqsa, where and when? The answer is what you are seeing!"
The only American snakes I know are some former boyfriends and Ziggy, the 8-foot boa constrictor our downstairs neighbor keeps as a pet. As to the rest, to quote President Bush, “Bring it on.” Quite frankly, I rather relish the idea of another blackout. You see, the UN had to shut down for days and in that sense the free world was safer during the Great Blackout of 2003 than it’s been in years.
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