Well I guess a large part of this for me is to figure out why the terrorists are not doing something I would consider a lot more effective and easy than what they have been doing. It makes me wonder:
Do they have a code? They won’t stoop to a certain level?
Do they not think it will play well with their audience? Is it for marketing purposes?
Do they honestly think it’s because the easier targets aren’t that great? Are they really that dumb?
(yes, I know that, like Britain, eventually America will adapt to random McDonald’s being hit, but it will be a long, painful, ugly process that will do a lot of damage to the nation.)
Sarcasm aside, yes, we have shown them a great deal. Namely that even if it costs $1 billion/day, if you’re an Arab strongman with what some called tenuous links to 9/11, we can still come and take your country from you, and eventually have the whole world watch you swinging at the end of a rope. This may be all the arab world understands, but they understand it quite well…
:rolleyes: Saddam had NO connection to 9-11, not a tenuous one. Al Qaeda hated Saddam, and hated secularism in Iraq; we destroyed both. What they and we showed the world is America is a nation of morons, run by a moron. That if you just punch the right buttons we will mindlessly do what you want.
Yea, we have proved to the world that America is the country of overreaction, which is why I think even a modest campaign against everyday American shopping malls, restaurants, offices, etc. would be devastating. Our nation would go bonkers in ways I can’t even imagine; we’ll eventually settle down into a British-style stoicism, but not until after a long period of shit.
Harming the infrastructure of financial institutions - thus making the nation lose money
An act that was meant to “inspire” other “enemies” of The Great Satan to join the battle by showing the vulnerability of the US
Would that make it a legitimate tactic of war**?
Yes, I know none of these were the primary goal, I am posing a hypothetical
** AQ considers themselves “at war” with the US, declared or undeclared, nation state or not, please go with the hypothetical and not nitpick about whether or not they can “be at war”
Not entirely related, but something that I can never get out of my mind when 9/11 is discussed…
How many have read / can remember the climax of Richard Bachman’s Running Man? (the book, not the movie)
Published in 1982 it depicts a lone man using a hijacked airliner against a hated coporation by flying it into an office tower. So at least somebody had thought of it as a possibility.
It is pretty remarkable to me that they haven’t struck in ways that would affect large parts of the American population.
I’m not saying this to be cold, but 9/11 didn’t actually affect that many people. It was a tragedy, sure, but a whole lot of people were hysterical about it because in our culture it’s almost a status symbol to be a victim - we all wanted to hop on the victim bandwagon and so people from Kansas will talk about how it deeply affected their lives or whatever. But as far as the actual number of people it affected - pretty small. There were certainly idiots who said that they’d never fly again - which is just completely, unambiguously moronic - even if there was a 9/11 style attack EVERY SINGLE DAY, your odds of dying in one would still be extremely small.
A few thousand people certainly is a large scale terrorist attack, but it’s still small in the grand scheme of things, in as far as how many people it effects.
Not to get into details about what could be bigger, but consider, for example, messing with the water supply for a major area. The threat of something like 9/11 doesn’t bother me at all because it’d be like being worried about being struck by lightning. But if terrorists started screwing with the water supply it would directly effect millions of people - and there’d be some legitimate, widespread terror, because there’d be a significant risk that hte water you trusted to sustain your life could harm you. A terrorist attack like that would scare me a million times more than infrequent, highly localized suicide attacks that ensure that there will be no follow by the perpetrators because they’re dead.
My guess? Al Qaeda isn’t interesting in terrorizing the US in the way that Palestinian Terrorist do to Israel. If they had been, you’d see many small scale widespread terrorists acts like you see in Israel.
Instead, perhaps they knew that the American public was ignorant and/or apathetic to their government’s foreign policy, and thought that one big attack on high profile targets might wake us up, and perhaps, adopt a more non-interventionist foreign policy. When they saw that it failed (indeed, it worked the American public into a frenzy to support their government no matter what, and actually allowed US foreign policy to be even more imperialistic) and was actually counterproductive, they stopped making terrorist attacks against the US Mainland - instead opting to focus more on fighting them in the actual places where the imperialism they object to is taking place.
If they’ve deliberately chosen to tone it down in the USA, I think it would not be because it’s a losing tactic, but because they’ve already gotten what they wanted. America has made an international pariah out of itself, and has probably galvanized the disparate Muslim populations of the Middle East to feel like they are under legitimate threat from Western Imperialism. A bi-polar Clash of Civilizations is probably what some of the terrorist leaders want, and America is already doing a fine job of promoting that agenda.
Well, why are there continued bombings in the UK, but none in the US?
The fact is, there just aren’t that many potential terrorist recruits here in the US, and it isn’t easy for your jihadis to enter the US without being noticed. Exactly how many suicide bomber cells do you think are sitting around waiting in Terre Haute Indiana for a call from Osama bin Ladin?
WindWalker I think you overestimate the loss of face the US fielded on the world stage. In fact, I think you’re just flat out wrong. What France thinks of us is basically irrelevant. They still vote along the same lines we do in the UN Security Council. No one was happy with our treatment of Iraq, and they didn’t help us, but we largely did not need their help. When people want the genocide in Darfur to be stopped they still look to American troops to do it.
America is still the top dog militarily, economically, and yes diplomatically. The fact of the matter is we have consulates everywhere, we have a vast network of intelligence spanning the entire globe. Some people actually LIKE Bush around the world. I read recently that the Bush admin has done more for Africa than previous administrations. I do not know how this could be true, but I would be interested to find out.
We are still in bed with the Saudis, we have relations with Pakistan, we are still in good with the Indians, our relationship with China and Japan has never been stronger. Russia is still our rival, but will always come to the table when we call.
I think SenorBeef is pretty on point with this. I remember reading a few years back, some supposed comments from Osama bin Laden to that very effect. They could have been hearsay though.
Contrary to popular opinion, Iran is in no position to become a real power. Israel is not under any serious threat. We can still project overwhelming force anywhere in the world in less than a week.
However, I think when we pull out of Iraq, people will be much more chastened and afraid of pulling third Vietnam, from that perspective Al Qaeda will have been successful in the long run. However, in reality the wars we will fight in the future will be more about predator spydrones, stealth fighters with precision guided airstrikes, tomahawk missiles, CIA training camps, Delta Hostage rescue, and Blackwater kicking in doors. That’s how the war on terror will be fought when they realize what an effective strategy will look like. It’ll be more Rainbow Six than Call of Duty.
Anyone in the nationalist community feared for their lives who so much as expressed disapproval of the I.R.As tactics let alone anything else.
If anyone did disapprove of the terrorist bombings they did a very good job of hiding it, the normal response on learning about the latest atrocity was spontaneous loud cheering and many pints being bought for anyone connected with Sinn Fein /I.R.A.
The popularity declined when Protestant terrorists began a campaign of murdering members of the Nationalist community at random in Tit for tat killings every time the I.R.A. murdered someone in Ulster.
A woman who comforted a very young dying British soldier was picked up by the I.R.A. and was never seen alive again in spite of her families repeated pleas to tell them where her body was buried, they refused to help them .
Though this maybe because they sometimes disposed of their murder victims
bodies by feeding them to the pigs.
Ironically it was usually people in the I.R.A. itself who became informers for the security forces.
Some quite senior Republican officials were outed as “Touts” the most amazing one (though he denied it ) being the head of the “Nutting squad”,the terrorist cell responsible for torturing and then murdering suspected Security Forces collaborators or even those whose sympathies were suspect.
On the subject of bombing the I.R.A did go for what could be considered legitimate targets by those who dont believe in the democratic process,politicians and the military(though killing bandsmen and ceremonial horses stretches their credibility even further) but most of their bombings were aimed at shops,offices and pubs where it was only by a miracle that they didnt murder any of the huge amount of Irish who have emigrated to England wether first ,second or third generation or for that matter American and other nationality tourists such is the indiscriminate nature of terrorist bombs left in public places.
And all this in an attempt to force the unwilling majority population of Ulster to leave a first world nation to join a beautiful but sleepy rural backwater country whos economy is kept afloat by E.C. monetary aid and their workforce finding employment in the U.K.(Also a booming smuggling racket in cigarettes and fuel to the U.K. as the R.O.I. coincidently has imposed substantially lower taxes on these items then Britain)
Also a country where corruption at all layers of government is endemic.
To the Ulstermen about as popular as it would be for Texans to be forced by terrorists to leave the United States and become part of Mexico.
I’ve read, here & there, that revolutionary movement assign members to act as phoney paid informants. This raises money, disseminates disinformation, & allows them to rat out people inside the organization that might try to challenge the power of the leadership.
Indeed the I.R.A. did encourage a wealth of fake tip offs to the S.F s on the “tout” line in an attempt to drown out any real information that may have been communicated but the genuine agents working for the Brits were judged by the accuracy of their information if it was fake once then they were discredited .
Though some I.R.A. operations were spectaculary terminated by army ambushes in a hail of fire many more were quietly sabotaged by "jarking "their weapons or ammo,causing vehicle breakdowns and other similar stratagems to prevent the identity of their informant becoming apparent .
I have no cite but I was told that virtually all the long term agents did it for the money and the knowledge that they wouldnt be arrested or shot if caught in the act.
Again I have no cite for this but I was told that it was not uncommon for genuine tip offs to be given for personal reasons ie. someone wanted a pretty wifes husband put away so that they could “look after” her while hubby was banged up or revenge for a drunken fight or even the chance to take over someone elses coveted job within the “cause”
A lot of people had thought of this as a possibility.
Operation Northwoods was before 1982.
And since then, it is something our government has known was a possiblity and has prepared for. I think this is one reason so many people are angry since the 9/11 commission report was released. Nobody is being held accountable for what is, at the very least, criminal negligence. Nobody will investigate the omissions, the cover-ups, and the lies. Hell, nobody will even talk about them.
And here’s a USA Today article that discusses NORAD drills of jets as weapons.
For Bush or anybody else to claim ignorance of the possibility of hijacked jets used as weapons is a LIE, plain and simple. For Bush or anybody else to claim ignorance of Al-Queda activity in the U.S. is a LIE, plain and simple.
I think this is why so many people question what happened on 9/11. It’s not because they’re crazy. It’s because so many lies have been told that they don’t know what to believe. Why would they believe the people who are lying? It’s only natural to poke holes at the official story (another conspiracy theory) when the administration left so many openings.
Something I’ve never quite understood about Islamic terrorist threads like the OP… what, exactly, is the assumed motivation of these terrorists? Presumably, the terrorists are picking certain targets and not others for an underlying reason, so what would that reason be?
Picking a bunch of soft, easy targets would make lots of everyday people uncomfortable and afraid, sure, but what would the message be? “We’re terrorists. We’re everywhere, and we’re good at what we do. You’ll never live normally again as long as we’re around. Be afraid of us.” Terror for the sake of terror?
Or what if they aimed for the maximum number of deaths? That might seem like they were saying “All Americans must die. We’re going to systematically and continuously kill large numbers of you and we won’t stop till the last one of you is gone”? Are they really just genocidal maniacs out to completely eradicate the American culture and people?
What if they had an actual message at some point, before it got lost in the medium? The attacks so far seemed more like the “Yo, motherfuckers! You won’t listen any other way, so let me – boom boom – make this very clear to you… stay the hell out of our countries and stop supporting our enemies!” variety, as opposed to the “DIE! DIE! DIE!” kind. Maybe they were just aiming for maximum attention, not necessarily maximum pain and suffering, and unfortunately for them their message fell on deaf ears because we basically reacted in the “What did you call me? You wanna take this outside, bitch?” sort of way. The few statements/proclamations I’ve seen so far suggest that they’re not out to get us for no reason; it seemed more like they were trying to scream “Wake the fuck up, America!” but, of course, we were too pissed off to listen…
It’s amazing to me that almost all Americans don’t actually care what Al Qaeda is attempting or accomplish or what point they’re trying to make. Not that I’m saying tha we should bow down to whatever they want, but people aren’t even curious as to why they do what they do. They just assuming they’re crazy and want to kill us for very little reason, and they actually buy retarded stuff like “they hate our freedom”
I just read the first couple of posts in this thread, so forgive me if this has been covered already.
I have thought for years that the ultimate terror attack would be to send a few people a month over the mexican border until you get a couple of hundred. Then, on the friday after thanksgiving, you fan them out two or three at a time to one hundred or more of the malls across america. On “the biggest shopping day of the year”…carnage on an unimaginable scale.
Except where is Al Qaida going to get hundreds of terrorists? The number of people willing to give their lives in furtherance of Islamism is not nearly as great as people seem to believe. There simply aren’t hundreds of terrorists living quietly in America, just waiting for the signal to strike. And co-ordinating large numbers of people dramatically increases the chances that the operation will be compromised.
Right now, they’re being employed in Iraq. And every day, the corruption of Wahabbi Islam is spread and reinforced in mosques around the world. There are, and will continue to be, plenty of muslims willing to die if they can take a few infidels with them. That’s the problem. Most people can’t bring themselves to admit that we are in a war with radical islam, but our opponents have no problem with the concept at all.
I can think of two reasons that another 9/11 scale attack has not happened inside the United States. Number one…the post 9/11 response has slowed the ramp-up time because of operational difficulties. Number two- Cooler heads above the cannon fodder level have realized that another attack would shut the mouths of people in the United States who are naively working for thier interests without realizing it. It would also galvanize the population to take care of the issue once and for all. For example, most people are clueless about the Pakistan issue. But if thousands of holiday shoppers are killed, the response would be “I don’t care who you have to kill…just deal with it.”
I have said for a couple of years that it’s going to take another 9/11 scale attack to force some people to pull thier heads from the ideological warm dark places where they reside. It’s too bad more death will be necessary before it happens.