If you were a terrorist in the US where and how would you strike?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This question was inspired by an amusingly histronic thread in the pit complaining about all the fraidy cat terrorist chatter going on. This sparked the question in my mind of what would be the combination of the highest impact and most vulnerable spot for a terrorist to strike in the US, where the most damage to US morale and daily life could be done with the least effort and risk?

Some may be concerned that discussing this question will give bad guys ideas, but I would respond that the terrorists have likely already thought of these ideas, and it would behoove us to think like them for a bit so we can protect ourselves defensively. We have a lot of members on this board with very advanced technical expertise in a lot of fields, and whose deep knowledge about the vulnerable parts of the US technical and economic infrastructure is likely well beyond that of your typical think tank consultants and military game planners. I ask you, where so we need to protect ourselves that no one is paying attention to?

If a mod thinks this question is too provocative please close the thread.

2

I would buy a house in the middle of the woods, about 50 miles from anyone, pile stacks of dynomite around my La-Z-Boy, sit down with a nice cool iced tea, and detonate the TNT.

I just hope those terrorists don’t get word that, more than anything else, we Americans truly cherish our vacated, secluded housing, and if our vacated, secluded housing were to be blown up, we Americans wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves.

Perhaps I’ve said too much.

Happy

3

**Happy ** You are fiendish.

My maniacal plot would be to * implode * the Pontiac Silverdome.

Boy, that would show the Lions and the City of Pontiac something.

*The Silverdome is officially no longer used by the Lions, as they have moved on south, back to Detroit, to Ford Feild. It is used primarily now for Truck pulls and motor cross events.

4

Not to sound paranoid, but I think the last thing we need to be doing is giving terrorists and terrorist wannabes out there any ideas.

5

Terrorist seem to like to blow up buses in Israel, but most public transportation systems with buses are mostly empty in the US so that would be a waste. So, to answer the OP - and I shudder to even think this - would be bombs on school buses, randomly around the country. Maximum terror.

6

Transmitter in 135.7 - 137.8 kHz range to wreck havoc on PLC.
PLC(s) are Power-Line Carrier systems used by electric utilities to contol signals, data, and voice over electric lines. You know, those circuit breakers that caused the Great Blackout of New England?

Cable snips in just the right spot. Remember that tunnel fire in Virginia. Seems the tunnel also housed a few Internet pipelines. Until repaired the 'Net was slow. So much for the Will Survive a Nuclear Attack theory.

Blow a couple of Interstate Road bridges and tunnels to bottleneck trucks coming out of major ports like Boston, Norfolk, Miami, LA, San Fran., etc. Supplies would dry up fast. Especially after everyone hears about the trouble and clears all the supermarket shelves.

Genetic warfare to produce a bacteria that ruins the Great Plains wheat and corn crops. Much like the citrus trouble now in Florida. Mmmm, I wonder if…

BTW, G. Gordon Liddy did an article for “Esquire” on this subject.

7

I would actually want to have a practical impact in addition to spreading fear and uncertainty.

So, for example, here in my hometown, we have a number of transportation bottlenecks that, if compromised, would totally fuck up the economy. If I were a psycho terrorist, I’d dispatch three truck or van bombs, coordinated a la the 9/11 airliners. One would go off on the lower level of the downtown viaduct; the other two would go off on the floating bridges across the lake separating downtown from the eastside suburb. Not a lot of death (dozens, perhaps, or more depending on what happens to the viaduct), but the regional economy would be screwed. These transportation corridors are critical for virtually every industry in the western half of the state (though this is partly our own fault, since we’ve resisted any sort of diversification to get away from the bottlenecks), and everything would be shunted onto the already badly overtaxed interstate. The impact both on shipping/manufacturing and ordinary commuters would be immeasurable and last for months if not years. Businesses would quickly begin to fail, small and large. The infrastructure (food supply, government, etc.) would be seriously damaged. And, of course, there’s the “terror” in “terrorism,” as the population wonders if the equally vulnerable ferry system, nearly as important to the region’s transportation network, could be next.

Extremely simple to plan and execute, with colossal and far-reaching effects. It would be like sticking a thumbtack into the city’s carotid artery. …And yes, I have a morbid and cynical imagination.

8

I’m stealing this idea straight from MSU1978 (or whatever year he has after the MSU): I’d sneak into a duct-tape factory and find a way to secretly smear contact poison all over the product. Then leave undetected.

9

First, I’d find a bunch of my terrorist buddies, discuss greivances that we have against management (no healthcare for suicide bombers, no reimbursement for the cost of dramamine and scapolomine for highjackers, and no collision insurance for car-bombers using their own cars). Then, I’d organize a union, take a vote, and use our collective bargaining power to stick it to the man. When he didn’t accede to our demands, we would walk off the job, make some picket signs, march over to the headquarters, and organize a picket line. I suspect we would have some kind of chanting, shaking of fists, and a few flag burnings. (With those flags that look like they are drawn by concussed first-graders, and made from bedsheets and magic markers.)

10

This post may be disturbing to some viewers.

I’d start with a big infrastructure hit, as discussed above, to get the big headlines and do some long-term economic damage. For this, of course, you want a big city.

The followup is important, though. You don’t want to leave the hated American devils with the idea that they’re safe because they aren’t in New York or Los Angeles or one of those other places that they don’t really consider to be a part of “America” anyway.

About a week later, I’d have my operatives do everything within their power to kill the entire population of a small town somewhere in one of those states that doesn’t make the news alot. The kind of place where people in the first target city are from. Major property damage would be a plus.

The idea is to create terror, and in order to do that you can’t just concentrate on airlines (not everybody flies), big buildings (a lot of people have never seen or been in one), or political targets. A skyscraper or a government office building makes a potent visual statement, but a row of burnt out houses just like the one the viewer is sitting in hits closer to home.

You have to make the enemy feel that there is no safe place. A strike at the roots of the “heartland, small town, never have to lock your doors at night, family farm, good place to raise your kids” portion of the American story is also good propaganda, if spun right.

Methods would depend on the material and manpower available. I don’t know the physics, but I bet you could make a good start by floating a hijacked tanker truck full of gasoline into the storm sewer system and sparking up the fumes, say around 2:00 in the morning. It’s going to be effective (I saw footage once of an accidental leak from an underground storage tank that had become ignited), and it’s not manpower intensive or high tech.

Thanks for giving me access to that nice part of my psyche. I’m going to go rinse my head out with incredibly cheap liquor now.

11

Well, in that case, I think if I were a terrorist, I’d detonate a large, conventional bomb in an uninhabited portion of the US. Then, as a “second strike,” have Osama challenge Michael Jordan to a game of HORSE.

12

Anywhere but NY.

13

I always thought that if the terrorists wanted to bring us infidels to our knees all they have to do is cut the coffee and chocolate supply lines.

We’d be slaves within days.

14

Unthinkable.

15

If it were me? Co-ordinated simultaneous bombings of every hospital emergency room in multiple major cities.

By their very nature, the organized chaos of any typical big city ER precludes stringent security checks. Ambulance pulls up and a bunch of guys dressed up as EMTs pull a gurney out in a hurry, shouting about the patient, are you as a security guard going to make them stop so the bomb dog can have a sniff?

From an infrastructure point of view, it makes for a juicy target. If you take out every E.R. in a major city, then not only do the imediate casualties of the bombing have to be airlifted out to hospitals in the 'burbs, but you also have to re-route any subsequent unrelated emergency cases out of the city as well.

Making the attacks simultaneously would have a big psychological impact as well, and wouldn’t take nearly as much organization as you’d think. A handful of two-way messaging pagers is a cheap way to co-ordinate the attack, and if you wire a pager to the detonator, you could easily detonate all the bombs at once, with a single group call.

And for the record, yes, I’ve scared myself that I could even write this post.

16

Two dozen sniper teams across the country doing the same thing the October snipers did to the Maryland/DC/Virgina area.

With each team getting a daily hit count before moving on, they would bring the entire country to an economic/political halt in only a week. Had they done this in the six weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, America would have been on the verge of a depression by New Years.

17

If I were a terrorist I would release a virus of some sort into the rail system of a major city. A subway is the perfect place for it for a few reasons,
#1 is that it is cool and dark down there. Sunlight can destroy fragile viruses.

#2 the subway tunnels stretch for miles. Virus cells clinging to the outside of the train could be carried through the tunnels and distributed at every stop a long the rout.

#3 Hundreds of thousands of people use the train every day. That means that ALL of them could potentaly be infected.

#4 Rats can be infected with the virus and transmit it to other rats. The other rats can spread it out away from the train tunnels and into every part of the city.

#5 One person can distibute the virus to almost all of the tunnels in a few hours by just changeing trains at major hubs.

After the people start to become sick the hospital staff and rescue workers that come in contact with them can also become sick. If enough medical workers become ill the hospitals will not work as well. Eventualy people will be unable to receive care and start to die in droves. Panic will set in after the first large groups of people start to die. As people who might be infected start to leave the city , they take the virus into new locations and start to spread it there.

Something like this would be more mentaly taxing that a bombing because there is no way to tell where it came from. A terrorist with a large supply of a virus could start in Boston, then go to NYC, then Phily, then, Chicago and so on accross the countie all by train. That terrorist could spread the virus to the people on each and every train at each and every stop. Within a 2 week time period a terrorist could make it accross the countrie and leave such a swatch of devestation in their wake. With so many sick and dieing there is no way enough medicine could be made available quickly enough.

If I was a terrorist, that is what I would do.

18

Circulate huge amounts of counterfeit money.

19

Better yet, counterfeit bonds and stocks.

20

This thread just proves that OBL really picked the wrong country to f_ck with. We are far scarier than they are. Myself included.

So, here is mine. Nuclear power plants. Ultimate dirty bombs.

Attacking smaller cities is far more terrifying than NYC, LA or DC. It is almost expected there. But Buffalo, NY? Raleigh, NC? Who expects a terrorist there?

10,000 envelopes that contain a note that simply say, “There is anthrax in this envelope.”

Frequency is far more important than body count. Lots of small episodes will tear at us more than one big episode, which would serve more to strengthen our resolve.