Well, you don't see Bin Laden strapping on Semtex himself. We're creating 10,000 guys who kind of hope someone else blows themselves up.

Or that a Starbucks opens up in the Souk. Either would be pretty cool.

LINK

It appears the London Terrorist Bombers did a dry run. Does that support the proposition they did not intend to blow themselves up?

Also, they are reporting Elie Wiesanthal has died. Much sorrow. Long life. Good works.

Does that support the proposition they did not intend to blow themselves up?

Doesn't mean anything one way or the other to me.

Practice runs are just that - practice. Establish timing constraints, secondary/alternate targets.

Blowing yourself up or not is probably more a function of the bomb maker rather than the delivery boys. If the bomb maker thinks you're a talkative flaky lot, then you are going to get the "special" bombs. If you got an IQ greater than your shoe size and seem kinda useful, then maybe you get the ones with an actual delay instead.

Or maybe the bombmaker forgot about the time difference . lol!

In my opinion, they've made 10,000 Todd Beamers. "Let's Roll".

I'd like to think you're right, but... that's a big extrapolation from a very small data point.

Maybe you would want to hear what Anthony Cordesman has to say. The Center for Strategic and International Studies is not leftwing, folks. Really, really not.

Sorry Ace, but no. Using kids is pretty much SOP for Islamic terrorist forces - Arafat was putting 12 year olds in the lines with RPG's as far back as 1982. Using kids (from their point of view) actually makes a lot of sense:

1. They are cheap.
2. They are easily indoctrinated.
3. They allow the more valuable adult terrrorists to do other stuff.
4. If they succeed, well and good. If they fail they are "martyrs" for the cause and good propaganda. Win/win either way.

Kids have a lot of things going for them.

Quick. Wiry. Also, kids being more fragile, fragment more easily on explosion. More shrapnel.

Really, looking at all the angles, you're gonna wanna go with a kid.

I think the point is a good observation, and I don't think he meant it to be construed as direct factual evidence. Although it would seem to me that some people that want to refute such an observation with the points that this is nothing new, and that kids are usually brought up with such ideology and such, are missing the point. If the guys story is true, then the terrorist bomb maker, etc. had to go to the extent of beating and drugging this guy to get him and others to do it.

Actually Jack, the little buggers are more flexible, cause their bones haven't fully hardened yet. On the plus side, their thin little bodies wouldn't absorb much of the blast nor the shrapnel.

Maybe the US has radicalized the insurgency

Maybe D-Day radicalized the Germans

Who cares? They called down the thunder and are crying because it is raining

Plus, kids don't feel pain like we do.