The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    re: the Malaysian "Mystery Flight" A Very Curious New York Times Article that Everyone is Ignoring

    By CVille Dem on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 4:02pm |

    I found this article in a New York Times newsdump in my email.  I was struck by the reference to a Malaysian pilot who expressed an interest in terrorism and a second reference to another Malaysian who wanted to use a shoe bomb to gain access to a cockpit (and was given a shoe bomb).

    I sent this to Josh at TPM and also to MSNBC but did not get a reply from either.  Any thoughts from my fellow Dagbloggers?  It seems so odd to ignore this!

    Saajid Badat, who had been an AlQaida operative discussed shoe bombers and their varied plans for blowing up different planes.  This comes near the end of this short article:
     
    Much of his account is not new: In 2012, a Brooklyn jury heard his videotaped testimony from Britain in the trial of a Queens man, Adis Medunjanin, who was convicted in a plot to blow up New York subways.
     
    But in the Manhattan trial, Mr. Badat has offered new details. He elaborated, for example, on a plot he described in 2012, in which he and Mr. Reid helped a group of Malaysians, including a pilot, who had wanted to carry out their own “terrorist act” involving an airplane, he testified on Tuesday.
     
    Mr. Badat said that he gave the Malaysians one of his shoes that had explosives hidden inside. The Malaysians, he said, wanted to use the device to “access the cockpit” of a plane. He offered no further detail about how far that plot progressed.
    Although this article was published March 11 I have not heard one reference about it in any of the many accounts on television or internet sites.  It is hard for me to believe at this point that this wasn't a human-caused disaster; but for what purpose?  An anonymously caused disaster really isn't worth it.  Perhaps it all just went south before any "credit" could be claimed.
     

     

    Comments

    Whoever cleaned this up, THANK YOU!  It was a real mess when I first published it.


    by CVille Dem on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 4:19pm

    I fixed the text for your, Cville. It is an interesting connection. I would assume that the Malaysian authorities long ago acted against the men Badat described, but if they didn't get the whole cell, it's possible that others executed the plans.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 4:22pm

    ABC made the connection: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/malaysian-group-plotted-plane-hijacking-20.... A few other media sites too. No one has any info to support the hypothesis though.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 4:28pm

    Thanks, Michael.  Even if someone did do this, I cannot figure out why they would do it without attribution (unless they were planning on landing it somewhere and it didn't work out.)


    by CVille Dem on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 4:30pm

    Or maybe they did...

    ;)


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 4:44pm

    I'm told by a pilot friend that it is highly unlikely that the plane landed and is hidden from sight. It requires a lot of real estate to land, and is very hard to hide from satellite imaging. Perhaps not impossible, though. If so I still think the passengers would not be safe. 


    by CVille Dem on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 6:52pm

      It is less common these days for terrorists to take credit for their acts, because they are likely to face retaliation.


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 9:10pm

    I think you are mistaken about this AC. To the extent that terrorism is a tactic of organized groups, a part of the mission is to send a message. Besides, they are all al  Qaeda, aren't they? 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 03/15/2014 - 12:23am

    THEY clean me up all the time. hahahaha

    Not really, THEY just 'set it up' nicely.

    Normally, the bad guys brag and who knows?

    But you have 'tweaked' my thoughts about all of this.

    I could go into some mathematical model about how many people have died as a result of gunplay or car accidents during the last few days...hell some site told me that 22,000 people died as a result of lightning strikes last year.

    But, the air mishap has controlled the 'media' completely over this last week.

    This is a strange flight for sure, maybe you have discovered a source?

    Anyway, as always, good post!


    by Richard Day on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 7:03pm

    Scariest hypothesis I have read so far:

    A hypothesis - Charlie's Diary

     


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 8:16pm

    The communications systems of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were deliberately disabled, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has said this morning.

    Most sources I have looked at this morning are reacting to the Malaysian Prime Minister's statements as "finally playing it straight", like in the sidebar from my BBC link:

    ...Now, perhaps stung by criticism from China, Malaysia's PM has put what feels like close to everything on the table.

    In a surprisingly open statement he explained what the investigators now believe is true, and the huge uncertainties that remain.

    It is what many wish had been done from the start....


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/15/2014 - 12:45pm

    My takeaway from the following article. The Malaysian air force is either guilty of negligence and cover up of it, in such extreme as to boggle the mind, or (and I am usually loathe to say this) part of a conspiracy involving that flight.

    Series of Errors by Malaysia Mounts, Complicating the Task of Finding Flight 370

    By Keith Bradsher and Michael Forsythe, New York Times, March 15, 2014

    The article certainly explains why countries like the U.S. are inside the investigation now. Sending a bunch of other countries who have offered help on a wild goose chase, where they should know from their own records that the plane cannot possibly be, is a pretty egregious thing for a country to do. Higher ups who didn't know about any cover up have to admit the failure or be implicated in a possible coverup, hence the Prime Minister's speech, and now, the Defense Minister's additions.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/16/2014 - 3:31pm

    More speculation on possible Al Qaeda influence in today's New York Times. Though the first half of the article is mostly discounting terrorist possibilities (including Uighurs), the end of it has this:

    As U.S. Looks for Terror Links in Plane Case, Malaysia Rejects Extensive Help
    By Michael S. Schmidt and Scott Shane, March 16/17, 2014

    [....] Investigators are keeping in mind the long history of Qaeda connections and terrorist plots in Southeast Asia, including the double bombing of nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002, which killed more than 200 people. That attack was carried out by members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

    As investigators focus on the pilots and study possible motives for a hijacking, certain tactics that Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah considered years ago may be newly relevant. In 2001, leaders of the two groups discussed recruiting a Malaysian or Indonesian commercial pilot for a terrorist mission, according to a 2006 book by Kenneth J. Conboy, an American author who specializes in militant groups in Southeast Asia.

    Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, considered using such pilots for a second wave of attacks on buildings or landmarks in the United States. Yazid Sufaat, a Malaysian who studied biochemistry at California State University and experimented with biological weapons for Al Qaeda before Sept. 11, proposed crashing a commercial airliner into a passing American warship, the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, according to a local intelligence report cited in Mr. Conboy’s book on Jemaah Islamiyah, “The Second Front.”

    Mr. Yazid was free from 2008 until last year, when he was detained in Malaysia and charged with helping to recruit fighters to send to Syria. He remains in custody.

    I'd be remiss if I didn't note this one for tomorrow's New York Times as well. It is interesting along the same lines (as well as introducing yet another revision of what actually happened while it was still in flight), as it adds some intrigue about the pilot and his at-home flight simulator:

    Change in Plane’s Path Was Entered via Computer
    By Matthew L. Wald and Michael S. Schmdit, March 17/18, 2014

     


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 10:09pm

    Hasn't anyone noticed that Resistance hasn't been around since just about when the plane went missing?  We all know for whom he works...


    by jollyroger on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 11:55pm

    Makes sense to me. God won't stop a hurricane or earthquake from killing innocent people, but he takes time out of his busy schedule to play hide-and-seek with an airplane. Why not?


    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 03/18/2014 - 7:13am

    Indeed...and this penetrating analysis was given precious air time on a major cable news outlet...Be afraid.  Be very afraid...


    by jollyroger on Tue, 03/18/2014 - 8:22am

    Got to admit this came to mind.

    Got a mystery? Go to Revelations! wink


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/18/2014 - 8:22am

    I'd actually really like to hear Resistance's take on this. Resistance?  Speak now, please!  


    by CVille Dem on Tue, 03/18/2014 - 10:48pm

    You'all haven't seen this on the missing plane at Wired?

    The pilot theorizes the plane had smoke, fire, possibly from tire well, changed heading directly to the largest and closest runway in Malaysia, and for whatever reason they were unable to radio the situation.  And didn't survive the smoke to land the plane.  Yet the fire didn't bring down the aircraft until it ran out of fuel. Mentioned are other instances of fires on planes that developed quickly and became deadly.

    I don't know the math or the science behind those satellite 'ping' generated curving loops but this article says the search should be straight out to the east on the heading the plane was on over when last racked over Malaysia. Not in Kazakstan etc.

    It just so happens the Maldive islands are on that eastern heading, and it just so happens residents reported a low flying jet matching the Malaysian jet flying over that morning.

     


    by Anonymous ncd (not verified) on Wed, 03/19/2014 - 12:30am

    You know his take. Its his solution for everything. If everyone on the plane was packing a gun it wouldn't have happened.


    by ocean-kat on Wed, 03/19/2014 - 2:04am

    Doh!


    by CVille Dem on Wed, 03/19/2014 - 5:12pm