It begins....

[ebbomega]

Huh

Wondering if this has anything to do with half of Vancouver Island losing its power for an hour over the weekend.

[Phrenetic]

OMAGAH ITS THE TERRORISTZ!!!!!!!i

[ebbomega]

Officially being classified as "intentional vandalism" right now, not "terrorism". They're attacking infrastructure, not people.

[Phrenetic]

the best way to attack people is through infrastructure. look at Iraq

[GSG9]

to rule this off as vandalism is naive. especially when considering that muslim groups have publicly specified canadian and mexican pipelines and rigs as prime targets for attack. and especially considering that our military and rcmp has been specially training for at least 2 years for just such an event.

my money says the rcmp considers it to be terrorism but doesnt want to cause a scare and wants to play stupid. the feds arent half as stupid as they put out to be.

edit: in the case that this WAS a terrorist attempt, i recon that this was sort of a trial run for them to sort of see what the reaction would be. dont wanna be doing anything major too soon for fear of JTF2 running down your throat.

[ebbomega]

Except that if it were terrorism there'd be someone claiming responsibility, trying to influence the hearts & minds of the people, etc.

Terrorism is about public opinion. Vandalism is about inconveniencing someone with cleaning up your mess.

[GSG9]

to an extent. but the objective of their targeting was not to prove a point it was to cripple the US related economy (or so they said). hiding and hitting more targets is a much more logical tactic in this case than drawing attention to yourself, and increasing the defence of said pipelines twentyfold.

[ebbomega]

^ See, only the Americans would brand that "terrorism". That sounds more like a military objective.

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by GSG9

to rule this off as vandalism is naive. especially when considering that muslim groups have publicly specified canadian and mexican pipelines and rigs as prime targets for attack. and especially considering that our military and rcmp has been specially training for at least 2 years for just such an event.

i'd pretty much rule out muslim extremists. there are a lot more home grown people who would have much more interest in doing something like this.

[GSG9]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

i'd pretty much rule out muslim extremists. there are a lot more home grown people who would have much more interest in doing something like this.

i agree. but keep in mind that the global jihad is just that, global. there are large quantities of extremists all over the globe and right here in our back yard. not saying that it is certain to be these circumstances, but i would not rule it out.

LOL and yea dave it does sound more like a military objective. except that there is no nation behind the objective, only a small portion of muslim extremists and muslim factions. as i understand it, if a group makes an attack as opposed to a country making it, then it would be consitered terror.

not to mention an oil companies pipeline probably isnt consitered a military target ;)

[Vitamin-X]

Time to round up some suspects and waterboard the hell out of them!

[ebbomega]

*sigh*

Terrorist vs. Insurgent vs. Freedom Fighter. The unfortunate rhetoric of the last 7 years has blurred the lines of what each of those words mean so that they all mean "angry guy with guns and no territory". Which is really unfortunate because they aren't the same things necessarily.

Militias are often built up of people operating under no government. Also there are contractors and mercs out there too. They can all perform many acts that don't involve invoking fear in the populous of a nation.

If you want to invoke fear (or "terror") in people you kill people, you don't bomb strategic strongholds in order to weaken an enemy. Suicide bombers, public shootings, mail bombs... stuff that'll make people think "Maybe I'll be next"

I'm sick of FOX news labelling every single dead Iraqi as a terrorist or suicide bomber. It's a shame they're so in bed with the government because they pretty much violate every single news media ethical standard in existence and really need to get their license revoked on moral grounds, just to serve as a warning to any other company that chooses to report sensationalised opinion in lieu of the news.

[GSG9]

ive never looked at it that way. deffinitely see it differently now

[tiedye]

You guys can debate about what to call these actions, but in the meantime, this is happening hours away from me and I work next to one of those things AND I'm on the night-shift as of Tuesday.

I'm pretty cool with rational, peaceful acts against oil and gas, but they're risking major environmental contamination (do you have ANY idea what kind of shit we pull out of the ground? It's not just oil. Most of what actually comes out will kill a man in less than three minutes. If he is rescued in said three minutes, he will only suffer permanent brain damage) so I can only assume that these acts are not done with an environment-friendly purpose. More likely an effort to further cripple the North American economy.

[kir mokum]

environmental terrorists aren't exactly know for their forethought.

[lildonkey]

Originally Posted by Vitamin-X

Time to round up some suspects and waterboard the hell out of them!

I'm persian! i volunteer myself and my family to be waterboarded!!!!!

wooooooo!!!!!!!

[Goat]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Officially being classified as "intentional vandalism" right now, not "terrorism". They're attacking infrastructure, not people.

If you've ever been to dawson creek or the peace country, any explosions after midnight are solely from drunk fucks that a)shot a pipeline or b) set fire to a pipeline or c) got ambitious with blasting caps.

[Vitamin-X]

Originally Posted by lildonkey

I'm persian! i volunteer myself and my family to be waterboarded!!!!!

wooooooo!!!!!!!

You had better get a speedpass so you don't have to wait in line.
Waterboarding is latest new ride. It's not torture, it's simulated
drowning (weeeeeeeeeeeeeee).

Coming to the PNE this fall!

[tiedye]

Originally Posted by Goat

If you've ever been to dawson creek or the peace country, any explosions after midnight are solely from drunk fucks that a)shot a pipeline or b) set fire to a pipeline or c) got ambitious with blasting caps.

I refuse to drink the tap water in Dawson Creek.