Terror Waltz

January 20th, 2005 at 18:47 Björn Hallberg

Lets bring out the chaos engine once more. According to the FBI, four Chinese nationals are being wanted for questioning about a possible "threat" against Boston. Maybe. Or thereabout. Could be a dirty bomb. It could also be some dirty laundry. Oh, please … could it get more vague than this? Now, the question is why this is getting so much attention?

What is most interesting is that the FBI obviously has the names and photographs of the suspects but nothing more. It looks to me like those are passport photos or similar. How likely is it that the US authorities would have their full names and passport photos if they had been smuggled across the border from Mexico as the article states? And if they really were highly trained Chinese special agents (in their twenties!), wouldn’t they have been a bit more sleek?

There is something very eerie about all of this. First of all that the "terror threat" is so general. And second that the names and faces of the suspects are so quickly being distributed. Thirdly there is the rather perplexing concept motive here. Because there is none.
While I am sure that investigators are doing their jobs and that they have to look into every tip of this sort, no matter how ridiculous it seems, it still doesn’t account for the media attention. Or who facilitated the spread of the story.
I suspect that it is a field test to discredit Asians, and the Chinese in particular. By whom it’s difficult to say. Someone is polling and testing public opinion, possibly anticipating a conflict in SE Asia. Or maybe these kids just got picked for this week’s fearmongering by random and if so there is no conspiracy beyond the usual US isolationism.

Stratfor has posted an analysis now and they are not happy.

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