I’d bomb one of those college towns with a bunch of peace protesters, like, say, Santa Cruz.
Nope. Chocolate I can survive without, but I always make sure I have enough coffee on hand for at least a month. I’d hole up here and lead the revolution. Naturally, I would only share my coffee with the most trusted aides.
If I were a terrorist, I’d be reading this thread and taking notes.
Seriously though, I reckon knocking Mount Rushmore down would be a good way to destroy morale without damaging people - if you were a nice terrorist, that is.
Innocence est mort. Vive l’innocence.
I would pick a secondary major city. Identify the chief economic infrastructure (downtown). Mark a 12x12 blocks grid. Innocously over some time, set up bombs near all junctions leading into this grid (i.e. block off entry/exit). Then plant lots of chemical/biological agents liberally in the block. Synchronize blasting this grid with blasting bombs in all major ERs within a radius of say, 30 miles. BOOM.
jjimm, what about slamming something in Statue of Liberty ?
I’m sorry, I’m washing my hair this weekend.
C’mon. These guys do if for a living. I’m sure whatever plans they may have would eclipse any speculative schemes we may come up with as Monday Morning Armchair Terrorists.
“Only madmen could contain the thought, execute the act, fly the planes. The sane world will always be vulnerable to madmen, because we cannot go where they go to conceive of such things.” Amazing Spiderman Vol. 2, #36 (The 9/11 issue), written by J. Michael Straczynski.
There are some great ideas here. I think the best one is the slaughter of a whole small community of folks. There are town in places like Montana and Wyoming that only have a couple dozen people in them… that would be perfect. Make sure it’s large enough that folks would find out quickly though.
Hell, maybe just pick a suburb of a place like Sacramento (home!) or such and go down a street, quietly in the middle of the night, killing all the folks in the house. 2-3 blocks worth of dead families would make for serious news and threats.
Follow that up with a major bomb attack in a major city that isn’t on the East Coast… Like attempting to detonate a large dam or something (and I’ve got that one all figured out to, it would just cost more…)
That’s a bit more elaborate than what I suggested. It’d certainly make an impact, but you run a higher chance of discovery the more complex the plan is, not to mention using up more human resources.
…or dying.
And when you have that kind of motivation in your workforce, you can expect some creative solutions to the task at hand. Suicide Bomber’s going to be damn sure they get it right the first time, every time.
One thing you DON’T want to do is bomb schools, that would outrage us enough to demand a nuclear strike.
Contaminating the local water supply with poison/disease is very cliche’ but highly effecient and effective.
Raising a few hundred billion mosquitoes infected with malaria or something just as deadly and then releasing canisters fll of them in as many major cities as possible. A canister of mosqitoes is easy to transport and it’s self distributing. (only works in the south unless its summer but stil very widespread)
Co-ordinated suicide car bombings in gas stations all over the country. A few in small towns, lots in regional cities, even attack a few big ones. People fill up their car all the time. Imagine if people were too afraid to even drive in to a petrol station.
With a country so dependent on motor transport as America, this could cause some major terror.
Rent SUV’s all across the country. Park them outside of ER’s, fire stations, and police stations. Set them to blow up, all at the same time.
The anti-SUV backlash alone would bring the country to its knees.
I’m convinced that we’ll see the sniper thing happen sooner or later on a very large scale. Everyone in the world has recently been given an exhaustive survey of the technique, tactics, and equipment, and an equally exhaustive “Dos and Don’ts” list. It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s maddeningly effective. Plus nobody has to kill himself.
Either way, I’d guess that we’re not going to see explosions or buildings collapsing. It will be less spectacular and more genuinely scary. One of the goals will be do make sure noone feels safe anywhere in the country.
They’re not stupid. I’m more than a little skeptical that we’d come up with anything a terrorist leader hasn’t already thought of–and had his “sleepers” trained to execute.
Not to mention that anything we come up with on the fly could have a million holes upon examination.
I think that 2trew and SC_Wolf have the most effective plans yet. Why hit major cities when they’re better protected? Hit small cities that have less security.
Fortunately, it’s key to remember that the terrorists may not have as many people as would be needed to execute (no pun intended) many of these plans.
I don’t know what the next one is going to be, but given that it’s been a year and a half ince 9/11, if the next one isn’t huge, it might actually reduce the level of terror in the U.S.
A single car bomb after flying four jets into targets? Nah.
A bunch of snipers? Nah on two fronts - it’s small compared to what was done before, and, as the culprits were rounded up/killed one by one over several weeks, their nationalities could give the U.S. nations to blame.
If I were a terrorist, the next one has to have many many backup plans, because a failed terrorist plot would also reduce anxiety. And it has to be a suicide attack, or one in which the executor is long gone before it’s known.
A dirty nuke seems most likely to me.
It’s going to be next to impossible to do something with the same impact of 9/11 because it won’t be a surprise anymore.
I, too, have entertained morbid if-I-were-in-their-shoe-bombs scenarios. As I outlined in another thread, I think a highly cost-effective way to go would be to wait until summer and send one man around the West setting every forest on fire, concentrating first on those forests abutting populated areas in Colorado and California. This would cause plenty of property damage and eat up first responder and firefighting resources all around the country. The plumes of smoke would cause red sunsets all over the nation. It would look good on television, and people would see them and say “the terrorists did that!” Then, when things are at their worst, have another operative go on a “Devil’s Night” style arson spree in a major city.
Large trucks are a major weakness. A well-coordinated attack using a few good, old fashioned Oklahoma City-style truck bombs would be effective and easy. Detonate them in places like the parking lots of college football games or large concerts, on bridges during rush hour, or other places where large numbers of people congregate. Don’t do it in NY, Chicago, or L.A. --instead, pick smaller towns. The message is, you can’t make yourselves safe anywhere.
You said it!
That’s one of the reasons I kept mine fairly small. I figure you need only 1-3 suicide bombers per hospital hit, depending on whether you want to do the fake EMT thing, or just send one guy in with a few bricks of C-4 under his coat. Depending on the security checks in place, a lone bomber may be able to get in undetected.
Even if there is security in place, a powerful enough bomb detonated just outside the security checkpoint could cause a decent ammount of havoc in and of itself. Even if you don’t take out the whole E.R., taking out the walk-in and ambulance entrances can really put a damper on its ability to function.
And for what it’s worth, I do agree about smaller towns. If you use co-ordinated bombing, you can have the same impact as hitting a high visibility target.