CERN Worker Arrested on Terrorism Charges
It seems like another case of foiling what was at best a half-baked plot:
France has arrested a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) for suspected links with al-Qaeda, officials have said. [...] “He was not a Cern employee and performed his research under a contract with an outside institute. His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” it said. [...] The physicist had exchanged messages over the internet with people known to be close to the organisation al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and expressed a desire to carry out attacks, but had “not got to the stage of carrying out material acts of preparation”, one said.
When we’re debating Afghanistan, I think it’s important to keep in mind that to undertake a terrorist attack in France you have to be in France. To undertake a terrorist attack in the United States, you have to be in the United States. Anyone in a “safe haven” in Central Asia is, by definition, not nearly as dangerous as someone working at CERN. So in terms of short-term terrorism prevention, domestic law enforcement is always going to be the most important priority. And in the long term, the key issues relate to motivation and recruitment; decreasing the number of people who feel that it makes sense to engage in violent attacks against western targets to advance a political agenda. What happens in the “AfPak” area is important, but not really the most important thing.
19 Responses to “CERN Worker Arrested on Terrorism Charges”
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October 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Let’s make a deal, Matt. I’ll support a US pullout from Afghanistan if you promise that if a future terrorist attack that kills more than 100 people can be traced back to Afghanistan in some fashion, you’ll go down to your nearest recruiter and volunteer for military service.
After all, if you’re wrong about “safe havens”, shouldn’t you be the one who has to bleed and die for it?
Mike
October 9th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Please tell me you’re in the military.
October 9th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I don’t know, Dave. I’d prefer to have one more hypocrit living in his mother’s basement to having a guy like that in the military.
October 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I heard that this guy was planning to seize control of the LHC and produce a quantum black hole that would proceed to devour the Earth… eventually. If you oppose occupying CERN with US troops forever, Matt, promise me that if a quantum black hole devours more than 100 people, you’ll go down to your nearest research university and enroll in a theoretical physics course.
October 9th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Matt:
And in the long term, the key issues relate to motivation and recruitment;
It’s really difficult to make the Saudi or Pakistani governments better and more effective at delivering services. Iraq is sort of a knights move against Saudi Arabia. A more democratic, improving Iraq will help things in Iran and Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. All we can do its keep at it. Obama’s speech in Cairo was a good start.
It’s really difficult to lessen our dependence on oil. Otherwise we could treat the Middle East like Africa and ignore it.
Bush was in office for 9 months. Did his wargmongering against China piss of al Qaeda? It was the troops stationed in the holy land. Which were there to keep Saddam in his box. So Fuck Saddam. And Bush did move the troops out of the holy land. And into Iraq and Afghanistan.
al Qaeda never attacked AMERICA (AMERICA NOT EUROPE) again after 9/11. DIdn’t Bush motivate them and make new recruits in Iraq and Afganistan? The peaceniks logic fails here.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Damn, mds stole the obvious joke before I could make it.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
But, was he helping plan to blow up the Moon?
October 9th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Poptarts, please stop talking about foreign policy. You know nothing, and you contribute nothing. The fact that you keep yammering on about “peaceniks” demonstrates that your ideas of foreign policy are based on your delusions, not on reality.
In reality, the wars you supported have done fuck-all to protect American lives and have slaughtered, at a minimum, 30x as many innocents as the terrorism you so fear.
Yes, 30x. 100,000 innocents, at a bare minimum. If any psychotic fuck had murdered that many Americans I would be right with you in supporting an overwhelming retribution against him. But to you that’s just the price “those people” have to pay for you to continue living in a fantasy world.
How many innocent lives will slake your bloodlust you sick fuck?
October 9th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
“I don’t know, Dave. I’d prefer to have one more hypocrit living in his mother’s basement to having a guy like that in the military.”
Let me ask you, what kind of people do you think join the army instead of him? Armies were always idiot self selectors, now with two useless wars that process is on steroids.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
How many innocent lives will slake your bloodlust you sick fuck?
I love you too, man.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
With a helluva lot of luck, this might be an important thing to think about in 3 or 4 decades. Right now, I think a lot of Saudi and Iranian leaders would giggle at this being a “knight’s move” against them.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I worry that if terrorists seize control of the Large Hard-On Collider, our supply of porn will disappear.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
http://largehardoncollider.com/
See? It’s on the Intertubes.
October 9th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Personally, I’d prefer that all references to CERN include detailed analyses of Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. That way we can include Vatican conspiracies and the Illuminati in the thread. Thank you for your consideration.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
[...] CERN Worker Arrested on Terrorism Charges - Matthew Yglesias [...]
October 9th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
MY “What happens in the “AfPak” area is important, but not really the most important thing.”
Agree. It represents maybe 1/3. Diplomacy and world wide police work, other things, represents the other 2/3.
The sad thing is the 1/3 is 1,000 times more costly than the other 2/3. But it is what it is.
How much would it cost us to send Hillary and her retinue to Tehran? Not much. I don’t even think it would cost Obama Florida in 2012 -only a few months of broken ear drums having to absorb the Right’s high pitched shrieking.
October 9th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
@9 fuck off you twit
October 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Not sure what you’re claiming here, Matt. Are you saying it doesn’t matter if the Taliban returns to power because it’s up to the FBI to catch terrorists over here, after they’ve been dispatched from abroad? Doesn’t that seem a little too sanguine?
The biggest concern is that terrorists will get hold of nuclear materials in Pakistan or from the old Soviet Union. Also bad would be the establishment of a territory in which they could, with impunity, spend the millions they receive from fundamentalists around the world to establish training grounds and work to destabilize Pakistan.
Does it really do us no good at all to prevent that or at a minimum work to integrate the Taliban into something that looks more like normal politics in Afghanistan?
I don’t know how the balance comes out, but saying that the only long term issue is terrorist recruitment makes the problem seem much easier than it really is.
October 10th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Taliban returns to power
??
The Taliban are still in power.