BP disaster spouts new terrorism worry

Our never-ending demand for oil now has us operating oil well rigs far out into the ocean to tap into new sources of energy as land based sources become scarcer. BP seems to have had the engineering expertise to get a mile deep into the ocean to bring up the oil but seems to have fallen woefully short on expertise to prevent or deal with the likes of the present ongoing disaster.

We have the ability to quickly cap a land-based oil well gone wild but evidently BP trusted to luck and had no sea-based plans to deal with blow outs a mile deep other than the Rube Goldberg type ideas they came up with that didn't work. Both BP's and Obama's lackadaisical approach in dealing with this disaster is rapidly destroying what nature took millions of years to create. The end to this nightmare will come and we will summarily have marine biologists busy for years researching the long terms effects of this massive spill's effect on nature and mankind.

Off shore well operations will now have to be stringently monitored to prevent other occurrences. Hopefully, it will include plans to thwart terrorists attacks on off shore wells. Remote-controlled drone planes armed with explosives might become available to them and there is danger of frogman attacks from below the sea.

Prewar Italy's Navy introduced today's "frogman" concept and used it with success against the British during World War II losing very few men. Frogmen rode motorized torpedoes to warships, or freighters at anchor in neutral ports and attached them with magnetized clamps, set the timers and swam away. Fourteen British war vessels were sunk or disabled with this simple technology. Worrisome is the fact that today similar underwater scuba gear and motive devices are readily available in sporting goods stores ... for pleasure or sabotage.

Walter Santi

Bloomingdale