Even with the heightened security of the post 9-11 world there are dozens of avenues of attack an organized group of people inside the US could implement against the US, and yet we’ve seen almost nothing.
At first I’ve be potentially willing to grant that Homeland Security and it’s hefty consumption of budget resources is responsible, but seeing the fact that they typically make a huge deal out of every incipient terror bust, no matter low loosely defined, in order to justify themselves, and there’s not that much being reported it would seem to indicate there’s just not that much actual terrorism going on in the US.
My WAG- things of this type require communication, which has always been out there to intercept, only pre 2001 the US got complacent and a bit arrogant. Now they are taking everything seriously, even the things they never thought someone would follow through on.
Either that, or they’re forgoing all the small stuff while planning something really big that has yet to take place
As devastating at the September 11 attacks were, they were the amateur efforts of the handful of few competent people Al-Quida could recruit to be suicide attackers. I recall that immediately after the attack several pundits were proclaiming that the attackers had to be backed and trained by some major nation (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) in order to have succeeded…then it turned out that these guys were showing up in U.S. commerical flight schools and asking to learn how to fly but not take off or land. No intenstive spy training required. Hijacking airliners and crashing them into buildings was essentially “low hanging fruit”, possible because of the weak security then permitted by the FAA and airline industry; merely having secure, locking doors to the flight deck would have prevented the attacks, or at least given sufficient time for the pilots to warn controllers.
And while heightened security and surveillance has no doubt made it more difficult to repeat these actions or infiltrate obvious targets, the fact that no coordinated attacks by Al-Quida operatives have occured in North America since that time indicates that either the American national security apparatus is far more effective than previously demonstrated and yet at the same time unwilling to publicize their successes (highly unlikely, given political impetus to demonstrate success in order to justify larger budgets) or there just haven’t been anything but “credible evidence of unspecified threats” at every major holiday and public event since the September 11 attacks. The fact that illegal immigrants from Mexico are able to stream over the southern border of the United States in quantities sufficient to keep our low-end labor market supplied (and the fact that you can literally walk across the border between US and Canada or sail into non-major ports on the West Coast with only a small likelyhood of being challenged), and then move around the continental United States without identification argues against security measures being all that effective in terms of stopping determined, well-planned attacks. The mass of underground terrorist cells embedded around the country is probably slightly more credible than the Militia of Montana warning about Red Army troops massing in salt mines under Lake Michigan, but not by too much.
And besides, Al-Quida and other fundamentalist Islamist factions have achieved exactly what they needed by those attacks; a vast schism between Western liberalism and Islamist governence, the eradication of the more-or-less secular state of Iraq, the rise in popularity of Islamic fundamentalism, and most importantly, divisiveness between the US and European governments regarding the relationship and handling of Islamic regimes. The resulting antagonism of the War On Terror has served the interests of the Fundies quite well in keeping the fight going and destabilizing attempts at moderation and just division in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, et cetera. The occasionally smaller scale bombing of a nightclub or train station in Asia or Europe is all that is needed to keep attitudes inflamed on both sides. Another terrorist attack in the United States might be good publicity for them (and may yet occur if there is sufficient need and Al-Quida can muster that capability) but I doubt it’ll be on the same scale.
You’re also assuming that the terrorists have some sort of wish to accomplish some strategic goal.
There’s plenty of terrorists living right in the US, ala the Oklahoma bombers, who are probably mostly ignored as a threat since they’re palefaces—and yet rarely do anything newsworthy. Why? Because so long as the leader of their group can plausibly convince his minions that he’s out to fight the US, all he has to do is sit around and be king, marry his daughter, have eighty children, and live in his personal fortress in the middle of nowhere.
With the US right in the middle of the Middle East, Muslim terrorists can merrily sit back and toot their own horns. Keeping up the image just involves sending a few guys over to shoot at the American base every few days. Why get creative?
As long as this is a what-if, it could also be that revealing details would upset present and future investigations.
Except for Iraq, everything you mention has been there for a long time, including general “divisiveness” between the US and Europe. The schism between the West and Islam has been there since Islam’s founding. It’s widened mostly because the more radical parts of Islam are still a lot closer to the Dark Ages. And Iraq is certainly not more dangerous than under Saddam.
What the radicals want is for radical Islam to rule the world. If we give them what they want, they’ll take it. If they have to wage jihad, they’ll do that until they win or they’re defeated by enough terrorists dying.
2 Oklahoma bombers. Anybody else? You were thinking of the eco-terrorists, right? If you know where domestic terrorists are, turn them in.
And which is it? Are they ignored for racist reasons? Or do they do very little actual terrorism?
I think it’s more about the US and allies playing offense. Estimates are that up to two thirds of Al Qaeda leadership is now dead. It’s hard to plan and carry out attacks when attrition is that high and you’re hiding in caves all the time.
After the first WTC attack in 1993 we did nothing and our embassies and ships were attacked several more times. This time we made the bad guys pay and it seems to have an inhibitory effect.
Also, I know this isn’t GD, but I’d to gently disagree with how much of an amateur operation 9/11 was. I don’t know if you’ve ever headed a team project, but anyone who has will tell you that getting 19 volunteers from several nations to give up their lives simultaneously, along with the money that had to be raised to pay their expenses…it’s not easy to pull that off.
Also, the comment about the “divisiveness between the US and European governments regarding the relationship and handling of Islamic regimes” may be old news. The recent pattern is for pro-US candidates to win.
Yeah kind of like those other “completely random and isolated incident(s), a once-in-a-century lucky break for the perpetrators,” like the Madrid and London subway bombings, the USS Cole, the Lebanon Marine bombings, the embassy bombings, etc., etc. Of course it was dumb luck.
FYI: I know the lead of one crew who provided rental HVAC and generator power equipment to the WTC after the first attack. They say if the charge had been located just a bit closer to the elevator shaft, IIRC, it would have been a lot worse.
…Because its 7 years later and we’re still running around in a panic, like chickens with our heads cut off, trashing everything our parents, grand parents, and great grand-parents fought to protect about this ‘free’ country of ours? Because we changed our entire way of life to suit the terrorists? Because we let fear win? There’s no reason for them to call any more plays when we quit the game. Terrorists hate Freedom®, but we let America be turned into a paranoid military-state from the free country we inherited.
Land of the Brave, my Ass.
…and Ken Oberman, if you’re reading this, I owe you a beer.
