I’ve just finished reading Richard Clarke’s newsy-fiction piece “Ten Years Later” in the Atlantic in which he describes 10 years of terrorist attacks on American soil, increasing control by the government, and a worsening US economy. (This is available at http://www.theatlantic.com if you have a subscription). It’s basically a piece of speculative fiction given in the form of an address 10 years from now, but it’s got footnotes on every speculation indicating why such a thing is possible or feasible. I wouldn’t say it is supposed to be a prediction of what’s to come, but a warning of what may come.
Suppose, as Clarke describes, there are a series of attacks at casinos, malls, and amusement parks in 2005. Will this cause your political opinions to shift? Will you be more supportive of the president’s program of national security? Less so? More likely to support security over freedom, or more radicalized to defend civil liberties? More likely to support withdrawing forces from Iraq, or more steadfast to win there?
I think al Qaeda was and is vastly overestimated in their scope. They don’t do small hits, they do big hits, and rarely. Scurrying out of Aghanistan under our noses probably disrupted them for a while, and around now seems like a time when they would be getting back on their feet, but I just don’t see them pulling off those kinds of attacks.
Additionally, if I were a government analyst (which most of you probably dearly pray I never become) I would say that al Qaeda attacks symbology, not to create chaos. The Cole bombing, the embassy bombings, WTC and Pentagon were all very specific symbolic targets. They were targets that they didn’t plan on utterly destroying - the WTC collapse was sheer horrendous chance for them - they probably had more in mind of what they did to the Pentagon (which clearly was not designed to destroy it in any way, just damage it).
Lastly, in order to carry out such attacks against, I’ll term it, “consumer” targets (meaning places people gather in their daily tasks), they would need a significant base of operations and very cunning operatives to pull it off. We see this kind of attack in Israel reguarly because Palestinians are so close. It is easy to hop on a bus and blow yourself up in a marketplace. It would be exceedingly difficult for an al Qaeda operative to do similar things on American soil (I’m not overestimating our security forces, I’m estimating the logistics and practicality of such attacks).
So, I say, utter hogwash fit for a Tom Clancey novel. Maybe an interesting read, but just out in right field a tad.
I suppose the closest analogy I could find would be the Chechen attacks inside Russia itself, specifically v Moskve. While the Russians have many other things to worry about, they aren’t shaking in their boots (more afraid of the police/mobs), and the attacks aren’t terribly frequent.
If some terrorists really wanted to create terror it wouldn’t be too difficult and wouldn’t require as much of a base as you suggest. The Washington sniper proved as much. Weapons and explosives are fairly easy to come by and attacking soft, vulnerable targets for lots of casualities doesn’t seem too difficult. The possibilities are only limited to how far you can twist your imagination (I wonder if this post is setting off alarms on an FBI computer somewhere).
I agree with your analysis of Al Qaeda.
As for the OP, I would support an increased law enforcement response in cases such as these. Maybe paying attention to that instead of other, lesser crimes (I don’t want to hijack). But I would not support a government that tried to increase its power via exploiting the threat of terrorists. Of course, I’m sure that would be shouted down as anti American hate speech if such events were to occur.
I fear a larger attack from a more organized and calculating force, to be honest. I don’t want to imagine what would happen if New York or Washington was the target of a nuclear blast.
You mean the bombing of the resort in the Phillipeans? :rolleyes:
If I haven’t repeated it enough today, I will do so once more.
Al Qaeda is overestimated in their coherency as a group. They are collaborating cells that most frequently operate independently towards certain goals.
The attacks in Spain were a different beast, and it wasn’t all al Qaeda - it was sympathy groups. Also note that Spain is much closer and more related to Muslim areas (it is part of the “empire” that some people figure Osama wants to create).
And what did the Washington sniper, or even Timothy McVeigh, accomplish in their antics? The former killed a few people and made news as a serial killer, the latter just killed a lot of people with little to no effect on national security. Clinton certainly didn’t raise the terror alert level to red*. :rolleyes:
I’m well aware the system wasn’t around then, I’m being a sarcastic ass about it. We didn’t panic and throw away civil liberties and crap because the OK fed building got blown up