Or for that matter, other countries that support the war on terror.
I’m dreading the day we start hearing of lunatics strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up restaurants or cafes in the US, the way it’s been happening in Israel for quite a while.
You know Al Qaeda must have thought about it. They have the resources. They have the motivation. They are crazy enough to do it. Why have we been spared?
Well, there were the 19 hijackers.
But as to the specific individual attacks you mention, I’d imagine it’s twofold. First would be access. Were they able to get their recruits over here, I’m sure 98% would go through with an attack. Fortunately that’s not very easy and pretty expensive.
Secondly, in the Palestinian refugee camps they have a huge crop of religiously and politically indoctrinated youth that have no hope of ever freeing themselves from the squalor that surrounds them. Their family or friends may have been killed by Israeli retaliations, further increasing their anger. They’re ripe for recruitment. That level of hatred and resentment is probably not as prevelant in someone of Palestinian ancestry that grew up here or immigrated here years ago. JMHO.
This is just a wild-ass guess, but I would think that if a potential sui-bomer ever got over here and got a look at WalMart, McDonalds, Comedy Central, MTV, Girls Gone Wild and whatnot, when the order came down to do the deed, he says, “Fuck that noise! I wanna live! I wanna live here!”
Or it might be something else…
“Being drunk is the best feeling in my poor world.” – Uncle Gabby
Ironically, that works against us in the west. A lot of Muslims in the US, UK and elsewhere see all this cool, ubiquitous wealth and all these hot-looking, promiscuous co-eds available to pretty much everyone but them. And they resent it. Not to the suicide bomber level–yet–but this is a sore point with a lot of Muslims in the west.
The may not have the resources. They only have so many agents (a couple of thousand worldwide), so if you’re going to sacrifice them, it’s got to be ‘cost-effective.’ Suicide bombing isn’t; the bombings usually seem to kill only a handful of people.
I agree with most of that your explanation except for the assumption that Al Qaeda is involved in suicide bombings in Israel Palestine. Not all suicide bombings or acts of terrorism are done by Al Qaeda. What’s happening is Israel is mostly the work of Hamas.
They are free to leave.
Yeah, that sure worked with Mohammed Atta and his associates. And many of them were here for much longer than it would take to strap on a bomb and get on a bus.
I think that may be part of it, actually. I once read an interview in The Independent (UK) with a would-be Palestinian suicide bomber who was captured before he could carry out his plan. Of course he made reference to religion and the intifada, but there was also an undercurrent of defeatism. The Palestinian territories are crippled by poverty and unemployment, especially among young men. Now here comes somebody who talks about achieving paradise for you, and a significant cash payout to your family (and we know that a number of outsiders were offering thousands of dollars to the families of suicide bombers). If there’s no way out of the territories (and there were and are significant travel restrictions on the Palestinians), some would certainly be willing to take it.
Now, there’s a big difference between that situation and the “19 hijackers.” It doesn’t take much training to strap on a bomb and stand at a bus shelter. Indeed, if the hijackers hadn’t been training, it would have been unlikely that they would have been allowed in the US at all. It cost Al Qaeda a significant amount of money to board and train the hijackers in the US. You wouldn’t grab some kid off the street to do that.
More than just training.
I mean, think about it THIS way:
YOU are in charge of Al-Bungholio, the Great Terrorist Movement To Bring The World To Allah, or whatever.
YOUR job is to send young men into the United States to live among the evil pervert Americans, earn their trust, and gradually assemble a great terrible plot that will blow up something really major, kill lots of important people, and bring the imperialist perverts to their knees in horror. Make 'em all turn Muslim. Or at least stop being allied with Israel.
Now… I dunno about YOU… but if I’m recruiting my terrorists from the hardened battle-ghettos of Palestine, or the seamier parts of Abu Dhabi, or the crappier parts of Cairo (like the 9/11 terrorists were) … something that is going to be VERY much on my mind is their level of commitment to the Goal Of Blowing Shit Up.
Because, YES, I would be quite concerned that some of my boys, upon whom I lavished fake IDs, plane tickets, and a shitload of money, might well just move to Texas, pretend to be Hispanic, and spend the rest of their lives drinking tequila and watching “Girls Gone Wild”…
I would think it’s a matter of cost effectiveness, as Marley23 said. If one is going to spend all the money and time to recruit train and send terrorists all the way from the ME to the US, I imagine they would try to do a spectacular attack like those which took place on 9/11.
There are only so many people in a bus or restaurant.
Thanks, censored. I think Duke nailed it on several points. Suicide bombing is a defeatist, desperate action. The suicide bombers sometimes don’t succeed in killing anyone but themselves. The statement is almost “My life is useless, and maybe I can take a few of you out with me.”
My understanding is that the September 11th terrorists, or most of them anyway, were from relatively well-off, middle class families. Like Duke said, unemployment and poverty are very high in Palestine. The hijackers did not fit the ‘suicide attacker profile,’ as I recall, and it was rather a surprise to many people. Again, I’m working from memory, but I think they were generally well-educated and such, not from ‘the crappier parts of Cairo’ at all.
I also think that it’s a matter of getting the most “bang for your buck”, if you’ll pardon the expression. A suicide bomb that kills 15 or 20 people outside some cafe will certainly shock America and make people feel even less secure, but it won’t have the deep and soul-shaking impact of a 9/11 scale attack.
These people want to show that they can hurt America, that they can strike at it’s very heart and show the world how vulnerable the world’s only superpower really is. Blowing up a Starbucks isn’t going to do that, but maybe blowing up the Statue of Liberty will…
Oh, and I have to disagree with this quote :
Are you saying that Muslims living in the US and UK are pissed off at America because they aren’t getting enough sex and money? Are you suggesting that the attacks against the US were motivated by jealousy?
How would you presume to know what is or isn’t a “sore point with a lot of Muslims in the West”?
It is my understanding that not all of the 19 hijackers knew the full mission. There was a post 9-11 tape of OBL and one of his deputies laffing at the guys who thought they were just hi-jacking a plane.
So they only had four guys in the US that were trained and commited enough to blow themshelves to hell.
Plus, Attack the US = Change in government in a couple of Middle Eastern countries means we may not be attacked at home again anytime soon.
Blowing up big buildings like WTC will make people afraid of going to big cities and big buildings.
A few random bombings of small restaurants or shopping centers in smaller towns will make people afraid to carry on normal life.
Did the Washington Sniper have that kind of effect? DCers?
Right, if they were looking to intimidate the nation, random bombings and acts of terror IMHO would be way scarier. Horrible tragedy thought it was, I know Al Qaeda doesn’t have the resources for many (hopefully no) 9/11-style attacks, so my chances of being affected personally are pretty low. However, if there were random bombings like in Israel, in public places, it would be a lot scarier. When you’re dead you’re dead - it doesn’t matter whether you were killed in a massive concerted attack, or in a random cafe suicide-bombing.
Not me, it didn’t. Didn’t change my lifestyle one iota. Can’t say the same for everyone, but when it’s on the news every 90 seconds, people will place more emphasis on it they would otherwise. So I’m sure there were plenty who were terrified to go out.
I probably did imply that but didn’t mean to. That arose from from reading the OP poorly and seeing the Al Quaeda reference only upon reread.
I concur 100% that the Palestinian violence is homegrown hatred, not an import.
[quote]
It is my understanding that not all of the 19 hijackers knew the full mission. There was a post 9-11 tape of OBL and one of his deputies laffing at the guys who thought they were just hi-jacking a plane.
So they only had four guys in the US that were trained and commited enough to blow themshelves to hell.
[quote]
Not quite. I think that while only the leaders of each group knew what the plan was, all 19 guys knew they were on a martyr operation and weren’t coming back.
I would suggest that it is often a matter of the extent of domestic security.
We have had no shortage of bombings in the US. I can name dozens of famous examples off the top of my head (most done by white male Americans, a smaller number by black male American - check the FBI statistics on bombings) and if you keep your eyes open, you’ll start noticing how many reports of bombs, bomb threats, and people killed in garage explosions you usually ignore. Bombs have a certain psychological symbolism (e.g. I doubt there are many high schools in the US without some adolescents who daydream and experiment with bombs, and I know they were common when I wa a child (the 70s) - and the parents of my friends would talk about the things their classmates did at our age.
Of course, there’s a difference between a serious bombing, a prank bombing, an inquisitive jurior scientist, and the guy who throws a few M-80’s into the school bathroom. My point is that we tend to ignore the “high background level” of such reports (and I am not saying we need to crack down - the impact of a crack down on civil liberties is definite and immediate, but the high level of background events we’ve lived with for generations suggests it’s not worth it)
Now suicide bombings, on the other hand, are far less common here, and indeed, were uncommon in most world hotspots until security became tough enough to force terrorists to resort to suicide, rather than the more efficient “live to fight another day”. The “moral impact of public suicide” is often an afterthought or a rationalization. Few organizations have used, say, self-immolation, as Tibetan Buddhists did - dousing themselves with gasoline. Most Americans can understand the real mature of the suicidal despair in our more “native” form of terrorism: the random shooter.
If we lived in a much tighter security environment, with soldiers patrolling the streets, and real public paranoia, as opposed to the weak “paranoia as public excuse” that we have today, then it might be necessary for bombers to go the suicide route. If you look at the patterns of bombings and terrorist acts by specific groups (including many which are still active today) in the 70’s you’ll see that suicide bombings were clustered in high security time/places