Have the terrorists blown their wad?

Great Debates
1

I hope they have and that the tragic events of 9/11 will not happen again. . .

That said, do you think that if they were capable of striking again in the near future they would have already? In the days after the WTC tragedy it would have been ideal to continue striking since we were all reeling with confusion and some degree of panic.

Now that we have had a few weeks to clam down and the US along with other countries are tightening the circle around the terror cells it becomes harder and harder for terrorists to strike. (which is a good thing)

So my contention is that the terrorists “went all out” on 9/11 and have little ablity in the immediate future to strike again.

That may be foolish to believe on my part. . . what do you think?

2

Well, then I’m a fool with you. The WTC disaster seemed to me to be the ultimate acme of the terrorists’ ability to strike on U.S. soil.

The media is beginning to disseminate talk of bio/chem weapons as if it were a virtual certainty that they would be deployed. But I dismiss all that talk as hyperbole. If they could have, they would have. Bio/chem would have been easier for the terrorist to accomplish, and would not have required a suicide mission.

3

I certainly think they have spoiled things for potential hijackers for a good while - who’s going to believe them when they say “no, we just want to divert the plane to Tripoli, honest” ? The risk to hijackers of being overpowered by the passengers is now too great.

4
  • but I don’t.

Right now, and for some time to come, they’ll probably be more busy looking over their shoulder and running than with pulling off new ops.

But you can bet that they’re thinking of it as a “fall back and regroup”. “Enemy attack, we withdraw”, right ?

I believe we’ll be seeing smaller-scale crap cropping up in the months to come. There’s only a limited global pool of ressources (recruits, weapons, money) for terrorism, and organizations compete for ressources by pulling off “successfull” operations. So while they’re presumably on the run for now, some of them will start feeling safe enough to try to strike again sooner or later.

This’ll take time.
I do of course hope I’m completely wrong. :frowning:

S. Norman

5

I don’t think so.

From the Washington Post:

Now why, you might ask yourself, would people with connections to the Sept. 11 terrorists want the ability to drive semi-trucks able to haul hazardous materials?

And they’ve caught 20 such people. How many others are there? You thought hijacking four airliners at once was amazing synchronicity? I am positively freaked by what their next move might be.

From the Washington Times:

**

And you probably heard about the FBI’s temporary banning of crop-duster airplane flights, following news that one of the Sept. 11 terrorists inquired about obtaining such a plane.

A story here at FOXNews.com indicates some experts think a biological attack would be difficult, and is unlikely.

I hope they’re right.

6

The odds say that there will be more attacks on US-related targets. Given the nature of cell-based organizations, it’s highly unlikely we’ll catch all the terrorists unless we nab all the leaders and make all of them talk. There will be more attacks, although perhaps not on US soil and not on such a grand scale.

The terrorists did shoot their wad in one important sense. Only a full-scale nuclear attack could trump the visceral shock of Sept. 11. Even a biological/chemical attack that killed tens of thousands (which I consider unlikely anyway) wouldn’t have the graphic impact of the destruction of the WTC.

The terrorists have raised the bar for themselves. Having shown us the unimaginable on our own territory, they will have to try harder to achieve the same level of horror next time. They have escalated too quickly to reap the full “benefit” of terror.

This is their strategic mistake. However, they are not the first to make it. During WWII, both sides initially assumed that mass-bombing civilian targets would prove so horrifying that the enemy would swiftly sue for peace. Yet the experience was just the opposite. The needless death of thousands hardened the civilians, made them more implacable in their desire to eradicate the enemy. True, atomic weapons did cause the Japanese to surrender, but only because they threatened to literally destroy the nation. The residents of Tokyo (and Berlin, and London) had already endured countless civilian casualties without contemplating surrender.

7

I’m sorry but I have to disagree here. If you’re talking about the ‘Oooohhh’ and ‘Wow’ sense then the WTC attacks were pretty spectacular.

For pure vsceral horror though a biological or chemical attack will make you wish it had just been another skyscraper knocked over.

Nukes, of course, are a category unto themselves and can’t be trumped by much else.

Unfortunately I’m with Milo on this one (unfortunate in the sense of what we are talking about…not unfortunate that I agree with Milo). I’m approaching freaked as well.

These terrorist cells are real big on operational security. They do not go off half cocked and they will call off an operation in a heart beat if they think security has been breached even if it means waiting months to strike again.

These groups are also organized into cells that are completely insulated from each other. The WTC guys were just one such cell. I think it is an accepted fact that there are still other active cells operating in the US right now.

I would be willing to bet we will see more attacks before this is all through and given UbL’s organized and grand attacks of the past (two embassies at once, the USS Cole, the WTC and Pentagon not too mention a foiled plan to drop 11 planes in the pacific in one day) it makes me worried.

[sub]Bastards…[/sub]

8

“Radio France International” announced today that amongst the documents seized during the arrest of a group of terrorists planing an attack against the american embassy in Paris, three chemical formulae have been found. Two of them were the formulae of explosives, the third one the formula of a combat gas, according to them lethal and with a high dispersion factor. This gas would have been develloped by the US army, and the formula would be classified.

They also announced that the health minister has joigned the french security cabinet formed to handle the current crisis following the WTC attack, and which previously included the defence, foreign affairs and interior ministers.

9

So my contention is that the terrorists “went all out” on 9/11 and have little ablity in the immediate future to strike again.

Is the immediate future your only concern? Without understanding what it is that generates terrorism to begin with it will never end. If we decimate them now it may buy us a few years. Would it be okay with you to only address the immediate threat and concede a few more thousand American lives over the next five years?

10

Okay, let’s look at it logically.

First, we know that Bin Laden is not stupid. He has avoided capture for years, despite being the most wanted man in the world. He has built an ‘army’ of at least 50,000 people. He has operatives in dozens of countries. And he pulled off a very spectacular, highly coordinated attack. And he has a LOT of money. 300 million that we know about, and probably a lot more than we don’t. And almost certainly hidden financial backing from other organizations or states.

So, if you’re a smart terrorist, looking to carry out an extended war against the enemy, what are you going to think?

[ul]
[li]First, he had to know that it would be extremely difficult to get people into the U.S. after the first attack.[/li][li]Second, he had to know that it would be very difficult to communicate with them.[/li][li]Third, he’s not counting on a single attack to suddenly change the world. He may have hoped for more Muslims to join his side, but he had to know that the U.S. would mobilize against him.[/li][li]Authorities have arrested some 300 people already, despite the fact that terrorist ‘cells’ are designed to prevent leaks from cascading through more than one or two levels.[/li][li]Utility knives (‘box cutters’) were found on four aircraft that were grounded on the 11th. The other flights had four or five terrorists on each, meaning at least 16-20 suicidal maniacs that were trying to hit targets on the 11th are still walking around in the U.S.[/li][li]Satellite photos have shown the carcasses of animals littering abandoned terrorist camps in Afghanistan, suggesting that he’s be testing chemical or biological agents on them.[/li][li]There appear to be extensive plans to transport hazardous materials around the country, coupled with attempts to rent or buy crop-dusting airplanes.[/li][/ul]

Given that, I think we have to assume several things. First, there are a LOT of terrorists in the U.S. right now, or else the battle is going to move somewhere else. If 300 were caught, there are probably ten times that many. There’s no way that Bin Laden ‘shot his wad’ in one attack.

Second, the attacks are already in place. He had to know that it would be very difficult to plan attacks and gather weaponry after the first attack, so I would lay money that a series of attacks of different magnitudes are ‘in the wings’. He’ll pick and choose which ones to use depending on how he sees the ‘battle’ shaping up.

The ‘cells’ already have their orders, and are merely awaiting a pre-arranged signal. These organizations are designed to continue functioning even if the entire leadership is killed. They have dead drops, redundant lines of communications, etc.

So what would I do if I were a smart terrorist? I’d wait. I’d go to ground, and let the U.S. blow a lot of money on security and military attacks on worthless targets. Bin Laden is in no hurry - he has no anxious voters demanding that he do something. He can wait a week, a month, a year. If the cover of his operatives in the U.S. is solid, they can go back to work in their everyday lives, waiting for the next signal.

I’d wait until the U.S. went back to some form of routine. I’d wait until the President looked foolish, making all these promises without even being able to produce the head terrorist. I’d wait for the people to start forgetting about what happened, for security to get a bit lax again, and then I’d strike again.

Repeat as needed, until the citizenry is completely paranoid, is willing to give up all its freedoms, or even worse, gets fed up and starts blasting away indiscriminately in the Mid-east. Bin Laden’s ultimate goal I believe is to kick off the final conflict between the radical Muslim world and the progressive democracies. To do that, he’s got to fundamentally change the way we think and make us permanently fearful and paranoid.

What we have to hope for is that our forces are even better than he thinks, that we have some tricks up our sleeve that he doesn’t know about or didn’t count on. And I think that’s pretty likely. Recent history has shown us that terrorists have repeatedly underestimated just how good our intelligence and special forces are. Whenever the SEALS, or the SAS, or the Israeli commandos have come up against terrorists, the end result has always been a pile of dead terrorists, usually without our forces getting a scratch on them. And our intel is always underestimated, because they think we are too good to be fundamentally sneaky.

11

If you’re freaking out, bear in mind that the terrorists knew full well their apartments would be searched afterwards. Authorities fully expect many of the “clues” they find to be red herrings that the terrorists placed to mislead them.

All leads need to be checked out, of course. Yet I wouldn’t be surprised if the terrorists only left traces of red herrings or failed operations, and carefully eliminated any traces of any ongoing operations. It’s just common sense.

In other words, don’t be freaked out about crop dusters and hazmat trucks–be freaked out about the stuff we don’t know about yet. Sweet dreams. :slight_smile:

12

Great post, Sam Stone.

I think that in all the patriotic hoopla subsequent to the attack, there has been a tendency to downplay the enemy’s capabilities, to deride his compentence in order to boost our confidence. That worries me; the best way to lose a war is to underestimate your enemy.

Now, I’m not an evil genius. Really. But, if I was planning these attacks, you bet I’d have all my pieces in place before the opening move. And I’d be ready for a war of attrition. And I’d have taken into account that my enemy would react strongly.

I’m expecting to see a coordinated series of smaller, but still deadly, attacks on crowded low-profile civilian areas using conventional bombs as the next move. Conserve resources, but bring the war home to the citizens, and make them afraid. Save the flashy stuff (nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons) for crises, distractions, or the endgame.

I think we can win this war against a brilliant, resourceful, determined and strong enemy; as an American, I think we’re capable of a damned good fight. There’s no need to characterize the enemy as bumbling or incompetent, and doing so makes preparing for their attacks much more difficult. Why should we do evacuation drills, if we’re up against buffoons? They’ve blown their wad; why should we be aware of suspicious activities in our environment? It’s a dangerous mindset.

Just remember; anyone who starts a fight is pretty sure they can win it.

13

F*cking chilling, Sam. And I don’t know of any logical flaw in it.

I agree, that for as grandly horrific as Sept. 11 was, there is some evidence to indicate it was supposed to be profoundly moreso.

The number of suspects that have been rounded up to date, the semi-truck connection among so many of them …

I dread even saying it, but at some point, I expect some sort of an even more terrible attack, on perhaps 10, 12, 20 of our biggest cities. At once. (Every NFL game on a given Sunday?) ::shudder::

If we’re speculating about it, though, you can rest assured the the government is, too.

14

I think the weakest link is Bush’s use of terrorist. We are losing support from many world people as one person’s ally is another’s terrorist.

For example when the EU team approaches Iran, they are terrorists to Isreal.

Bush say’s we are fighting terrorists but we aren’t we are going after the ones that hurt us.

How much support will there be once we capture him? Will it die down?

Flight attendents tell me people are already gripping about no curbside check in.

Security is a joke. We now have to flash IDs as we enter and leave. Except those with cars who go out the garage enterence. We have 8 security officers for a 1000 room hotel. And the one guy has to be at the employee entrance at all times to check employees bags as they come and go and check IDs.

I emptied my garbage today and put it in the guest hall so the maid would pick it up first thing, when I left that evening it was still there. What if that had been a bomb?

You see as said in the hoopla we don’t know who we are fighting, how long or how to go about it. Sure flashing IDs makes us feel better, but does it make us safer?

15

Ooh. Can I pick this apart to scare folks even more?

Nah-- it’ll just be harder to get em in. I have a feeling it will still be possible.

Why’s that? Is the NSA blocking email? Phone calls? Mail from Germany?

That’s a bit of misguided logic. Terrorists may have used utility knives, but that doesn’t mean all utility knives are used by terrorists.

I have to say, if I was training a terrorist cell, I’d train a bunch of creative self-starters. These people would recruit, plan, and act independently once released into the general public. They’d also have some means of accessing funds.

Which basically means that eliminating bin Laden won’t do anything, because the hounds have already been released, and they spawn.

Actually, I think he wants to wipe out progressive democracies, not just start a fight, but that’s quibbling.

16

Sam has done his detective work very well. The “army” is mobilizing right now. Why is it “common knowledge” that we won’t get involved in a “traditional war” with terrorists when OBL is capable of mobilizing what amounts to a couple divisions plus against us? This article goes on to point out that many of them are armed with modern U.S. weapons we supplied them with in the Serbian conflict. Also, Chechnya is gearing up for a go against us.

I think our guys are good in a straight-up shooting war, I just wish OBL (or his organization) had not engineered the ambush on our special forces in Somalia. Sam’s post pretty much crystallized a lot of the things which have been causing me much discontent. I think OBL is gambling that we will run out of the “R” word before he does. This one is going to get much bloodier, I fear.

17

**
True, but when you find two wedged into the seat cushions on a flight that never took off out of Boston following a sweep of planes after Sept. 11, it makes you wonder just a bit more than it might have otherwise …

18

I think they teach Sun Tzu at our military academies. Unfortunately I’d say UbL gets us on points 3, 4 & 5 and points 1 & 2 are in question.

Shot his wad? Nah…so far I think he’s being fairly clever. Expect more from this guy. Even if the US manages to take him out expect more from this guy.

19

Sorry, but if you find utility knives on four aircraft, hidden in the seats, on the same day that four others are hijacked with utility knives, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to assign a pretty high probability that those flights as well would have been hijacked.

Another thing to consider: Why eight years? The last WTC attack was in 1993. Surely Bin Laden could have launched another attack in the U.S. soon after that, especially since we didn’t change our security one bit after the first attack. So how come it took him this long? The last attack certainly didn’t take eight years to plan.

To me, that suggests that this is part of a larger campaign we haven’t seen yet. Bin Laden is no garden-variety wild-eyed fanatic with a bomb strapped to him. This is a man who commanded divisions of troops in a successful war against a superpower. He has an engineering degree.

Some people are treated this attack like just another terror attack, but I think it’s a certainty that Bin Laden has a plan, with multiple attacks, contingency plans, fallbacks, exit strategies, you name it. We should be treating him like a very capable, but highly evil, general. If Colin Powell were a terrorist with a goal, do you think he’d just blow up the WTC and hope the world changes for him? Would he just blow it up because he’s mad? Nope. He’d blow it up because doing so is part of a larger, calculated strategy with a fixed goal.

But you know, the Germans had some brilliant commanders, and so did the Soviets. And we beat them anyway. I think we’ll beat Bin Laden, too. But it doesn’t help anyone if we underestimate the threat.