Where's the post 911 domestic terror?

H

Handy

Moderator
Looking critically at 911, a fair number of people were killed, 2 and a half building destroyed and 4 planes crashed because a handful of dedicated crazies spent a few thousand on some basic flight training, some tickets and some box cutters. But it was a one trick pony, designed to work on surprised passengers that wouldn't realize until too late that they weren't actually hostages.

That was five years ago. As McVeigh and the beltline sniper proved, you don't need much to hurt the US at home. Yet there has been NOTHING. Not one successful Al Quaida attack, or even a large operation stopped. Why is that?

Are our borders are more secure? Not in any important way. Any thinking person can come up with several ways of smuggling a few items in, and things like guns and firebomb material are easier to buy here than smuggle. If poor Mexicans can do it, surely a Sheik's funding can bypass Customs.

Is it because of TSA? Haaahhhahaahahah. Couldn't resist. Airport security protects airplanes, not ground targets. No group of passengers is ever going to sit idly by during a skyjacking again. Al Quaida pretty much ruined it for terrorists and hostage taking capitalists everywhere.

Is the FBI and CIA that good? No. Even if the 911 gang did use interceptable communications, they didn't have to. Everyone seemed to understand that there was nothing the FBI could have done to predict the Oklahoma bombing, and this needed to be no different.

Are the radical Muslims not pissed anymore? Right, all's forgiven.

Are they afraid? Of what? As long as they don't identify themselves with a host country, there's nothing for the US to retaliate against.

Are there not enough radical Muslims to go around? Well, I'm starting to wonder. If that many people hate us and have Virgins waiting, why aren't they getting down to business? Islam is the world's fastest growing religion, and America hating the fastest growing international pasttime.


So why is it, after all this time and the supposedly huge worldwide jihad we are the focus of, not a single domestic sniper, bomb, fire, outbreak or whatever has occured? What the hell is going on?

Please think before you answer. I don't have a good answer either, but I'm beginning to think that maybe our view of the world might not be matching reality to closely. I'd love to hear a better answer.
 
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That's a fascinating question and I have heard it discussed at professional seminars.

The real answer is that we really don't know. We have little penetration into the workings of the terrorist groups.

There are so many astounding possibilities that one would think that a campaign in the USA would be easy to do.

I heard that there were 6000 Al-Qaeda operatives from one such. With 6000 people one could truly disrupt the country. But we haven't seen it.

I think the best answer is that Al-Qaeda proper is a small organization operationally in the USA. Second, they plan slowly and for big, showy attacks. They have decided that the smaller guerrilla like suicide bombers or snipes aren't their style.

Other groups of folks haven't as yet organized in the USA to carry out such attacks. Some small nut cases have emerged like the dude who shot up the LA Israeli terminal or the guy who ran an SUV into a crowd but these seem to be more a case of some deranged person who was Islamic rather than an Islamic plot.

I don't think:

1. We have actively stopped a lot of plots as the government would have leaked the news instantly for political benefit.

2. I don't think the War in Iraq is relevant to folks commiting such acts here.

So, IMHO - worth what you paid for it, we have tremendous vulnerabilities. That we haven't seen such is a function of them not having the ability for their own internal reasons or not wanting to.

I do think that the airlines are a touch safer from hijackers due primarily to the fact that crew and passengers will fight (as compared to searching shoes and Grandma's bra).

We just don't know the mind of the enemy well.
 
The Feds have vigorously rooted out their sources of funding, their front groups and businesses, and owned their international channels of communication. You dismiss the FBI and CIA's efforts too casually. There has obviously been a huge amount of work behind the scenes - the problem with trumpeting it, like the New York Times did, is that it changes the behaviour of the people you're pursuing.
 
"That was when a just-graduated student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, and an Iranian immigrant, drove a sport utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone. He struck nine people but, fortunately, none were severely injured."

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3450

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1336

He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to "punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world."
He explained to a detective that "people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States' turn to be killed."
He said he acted to "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world."
He portrayed his actions as "an eye for an eye."
A police affidavit notes that "Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack."
He told a judge, "I'm thankful you're here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah."

"His raging hatred for the West, in a video justifying the London suicide bombings, has made him seem the most transparent of the four men who detonated bombs in rucksacks and killed 52 others on 7 July. But Mohammad Sidique Khan's extraordinary and rapid transition from law-abiding citizen to terrorist is revealed in documents showing he used to work for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), helping promote British firms overseas. He also helped Leeds police deal with confrontations between rival gangs of youths."


Look at the background of the UK bombers. From what I have been reading this is possibly the next evolution of Al Quaeda from a hiearchal organization to cells/individuals who act on thier own. They have the guidance and the objectives of the organization. I beleive that there have been discoveries of caches of portable thumb drives in terrorist hands. Look at the guy in North Carolina, he was a well educated person and succumbed to fundamentalist Islam views.

The answer is that these folks are willing to dedicate a lifetime to bringing the US down. Waited from 1993 to 2001 to make another attack on the WTC. These guys learn from everything they do. In fact Iraq is the new training ground. They get to test stuff out against the US in the field. They dont care about the lives lost because those killed go to paradise. Their informational networks are low tech and give out enough information. Our networks spew out ream upon ream of paper that must be analyzed and then passed on to multi agencies. We are behind the curve.

Harmony Papers
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/Harmony and Disharmony -- CTC.pdf

50 year attack plan ?
"I only wish that could be the case but I very much doubt it," he told the conference, divulging that security intelligence thought Osama bin Laden and his followers had a 50-year "strategy" in place.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1572792.htm
 
Four potential answers:

1. They have been planning something major, and are focused on doing that. Smaller terror attacks would reveal their networks without getting the public attention/reaction they want.

2. They are genuinely afraid, having thought that 9/11 would be treated as a crime, as Clinton would have done and as occurred in Spain and London. They completely misjudged our reaction and really don't know what we would do if hit again. I'd say their support network has made support contingent on no further attacks on American soil.

3. We know far more about their ops than people realize, and have done a good job of intercepting either attacks or the logistics/intel necessary to support said attacks.

4. A combination of two or more of the above factors.

Personally, I think 4 is the correct answer. They want to hit us again, but only in a major way and only if the attack is worth the potential fall out. And the emphasis on making it worthwhile and the increased security our intel guys are forcing on them, as well as dealing with disruptions, is getting in the way.

Think of it like the Cold War. At its height, the Soviets would have loved to take us out, but they knew that unless circumstances were perfect, it was a losing proposition. So, their vast networks of spies and other resources were used for other purposes, even if they could have been used to deal a severe injury. The Cold War was hot everywhere but in the respective homelands.
 
I keep saying if you really want to do damage to the US, go our and shoot the insulators on high voltage transmission lines. You can be a few hundred yards away from the tower in the middle of nowhere and plink away until you destroy the insulator. Once you have done that you have plenty of time to escape and do it again since it will be awhile before the power company figures out the problem and where the bad insulator is. Even better are substation transformers since they are filled with mineral oil for insulation/cooling. Depending on the size of the hole you probably have between 1 and 4 hours before the oil drains enough for the transformer to blow. Plenty of time to get away.
 
Certainly, they can be biding their time until they independantly invent ballistic missiles, but since these same people seem quite happy to use sniping and roadside bombs in other places, why should America be different?


As for funding, I have enough money to do considerable damage. But past Al Quaida attacks have been quite cheap. How much does ANFO and a rental van cost? McVeigh wasn't working with millions - but what if there were 100 McVeighs out there with moving trucks some Monday? Pretty big stuff, hard to stop, yet nothing like it has happened or been exposed.


Again, US intelligence is good at stopping large organizations with ties to banking, but can do little against small cells, as the previous two WTC attacks were composed. So Al Quaida has already shown a preference for cell operation, and small budgets. I'm just asking why there isn't more of the same?


Our pleasure harbors are unscreened, our water supplies open, firearms easy to acquire, easy to move through the country, cash allows annonymity, funding available through crime, etc. There are many, many avenues open to a dedicated small group who want to be more effective than the moron Eghad posted.


A single dedicated man, choosing random targets and uninterested in fame or press could snipe one person a week for years without getting caught. Ask a criminal profiler if a person who kills without emotional or other connection to his victims would likely ever be caught. 100 such men would equal 5000 US deaths in the first year. If I thought of that, so did someone who's actually evil. What's stopping them?

These are terrorists who are generally opposed to everything about the US. Not Ian Flemming's "SPECTRE" looking for the perfect crime.
 
You mean 9/11, 9-11, or 9.11 and not 911, right? I don't think the 911 operators have much in the way of being radical threats to us. While I don't doubt the 911 system could somehow be used for terrorism, there is no indication it is being used in that manner.

Do you understand what domestic terror is versus international/foreign? Do you know what terrorism is? The 9/11 attacls were not domestic. Timothy McVeigh's bombing was domestic. The anthrax scares of post 9/11 are unresolved as far as I know as to whether they were domestic or international. I think you have confused the terminology of "domestic" to indicate that it happened on our soil. While military and not terrorism, would you have called the attack on Pearl Harbor a domestic attack since Hawaii was American territory? Of course not.

The 9/11 attacks were terrorism. McVeigh's bombing was terrorism. The Beltway Sniper(s) was not terrorism. Terrorist acts are those acts against non-military targets or targets inclusive of non-military people that are waged for political, social, religious agendas. The notion is to attack the non-military aspect of a society, striking fear in those people who then put pressure on their leaders to act in a manner to satisfy terrorst demands.

The DC Snipers were simply serial killers that scared the hell out of a lot of folks. They were not committing said acts for the purposes of promoting any agendas. Similarly, Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, and other such serial killers were not terrorists either as they were not committing the acts for terroristic agendas.

Aside from McVeigh, we have been suffering domestic terrorism here in the US such as by Eco terrorists, animal rights terrorists, and abortion terrorists who do things like arson, vandalism, bombing, and murder to promote their views on how the world should be run.

So why is it, after all this time and the supposedly huge worldwide jihad we are the focus of, not a single domestic sniper, bomb, fire, outbreak or whatever has occured? What the hell is going on?
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What is going on is that you apparently are not all that well informed. Heck, you don't even know the damage caused by the attacks. Are you living under a rock?

Looking critically at 911, a fair number of people were killed, 2 and a half building destroyed and 3 planes crashed because a handful of dedicated crazies spent a few thousand on some basic flight training, some tickets and some box cutters.
Click to expand...

First, 4 planes crashed, not 3. The terrorists were foreign, not domestic. In addition to the 110-floor Twin Towers of the World Trade Center itself, five other buildings at the WTC site, including WTC building 7, and four subway stations were destroyed or badly damaged. In total, on Manhattan Island, 25 buildings were damaged.

You are completely wrong in categorizing the terrorists as crazies. They weren't crazy. They were simply willing to die for what they believe in and they thought these attacks were in the interest of what they believed. Discounting them as crazies is naive and dangerous.

So you want international terrorism on our home soil examples, I believe. I guess you won't accept the bombing of US embassies overseas as terrorism on American soil even though they are considered to be on American soil but are located overseas.

As noted, there have been many attacks stopped or stopped long before they could be launched.

So you seem to be implying that this has been a bit todo about nothing since we aren't safer and haven't suffered more attacks. Congratulations, you are just about fully lulled into the condition white false sense of security. People feel safe, discontinue safety programs, and once again we end up like a field full of hobbled sheep, ripe for slaughter. One example working in that direction is the reduction of airline security.

A wonderfully classic and tragic example is the calls of "NEVER AGAIN!" that went out after the first bombing of the WTC. Apparently the cry of "NEVER AGAIN!" doesn't mean never again, but just until our patience wears thin and we get fed up with promoting safety. By the 9/11 attacks, the WTC had no mandatory evacuation drills for occupants. After the attacks, many companies practiced drills, but the towers were not evacuated as a whole for drills and by 9/11, only one or two companies bothered with evacuation drills. If you saw interviews with some of the folks who did get out in time, then you heard how many of them used emergency staircases that they had never used previously or knew exactly where they went. Be it for a terroristic attack, natural disaster, or just a fire in the WTC towers, there were a tremendous number of people who had no idea what to do and they never took it upon themselves to find out. After all, the first bombing was just a freak incident...nothing to worry about.

I find it interesting that you think the attacks have stopped for whatever reason. I think you have misinterpreted events. The effects of the 9/11 attacks haven't stopped and we are still enduring their insults. We had huge market instability as a result of 9/11. We had a lot of companies go under as a result. The airline industry is still suffering. We have people afraid to go abroad. We have people afraid to fly. We have people like me who opt not to fly because of the hassles involved. America is still in the midst of directing considerable attention on addressing terroristic attacks, finding them, stopping them before they happen, and trying to be more secure at airports, ports, etc. This has raised consumer prices. We are spending billions in reaction to the attacks.

So the damage to our lives is still ongoing via the aftershocks. Do you think terrorists need to be attacking us now? Do you think they would if terrorism was a threat? Giving that we are still suffering and still on higher guard for such matters, why should they risk getting caught? They can sit back and chill for a while, and then pick their time to attack when they feel it is in their best interest.

I honestly cannot see why you think that 5 years is a long time between attacks here. Keep in mind that the religious battle between Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other groups have lasted many centuries. It isn't going to end overnight.

Handy, I am thinking that you don't think things have improved in our security or that there is any real terrorstic threat to us because you really seem to have a quite limited picture of what happened then and what has gone on sinse then. You don't even have the historical information correct and so much of it is public knowledge and has been widely discussed in the various media circles.
 
DNS,

No need to be a jerk because I left the "/" out of 9/11. I didn't realize there was a correct way to use that bit of media shorthand, so I apologize for forgetting the all important punctuation.

I did misstate the number of planes, thinking of the incidents/targets rather than the planes themselves. I am sorry, as I was not trying to downplay any of those deaths.


As to the rest of your insults, I was a Navy Anti-terrorism briefer for 6 years. In that time, I never felt the need to put down anyone in my class for how they described what is going on. It is obvious from my description that I was speaking of "domestic" as shorthand for "on US soil", since all the discussion was about attacks HERE. No one was confused until you came along.


Speaking of confusion, I listed the beltway snipers because they are an example of the type of operation I'm speaking of, not the motivation.




So now that we've dealt with your 95% malicious post, let's see if we can locate a point:

1. You think that the attacks did so much damage that Al Quaida doesn't feel anymore is necessary. Sure. Or:

2. They are lulling us into the perfect position for what, exactly? I already outlined that there is plenty of opportunity NOW, and the no airliner will ever be useful again. So what, exactly, are they setting us up for?
 
Another thought:
We're seizing a lot of their assets, capturing a lot of key leaders, etc.

Maybe we're putting just enough of a monkey wrench into things that they havn't been able to get a big attack organized and executed.



But boy oh boy do I feel safer knowing that you can't bring nail clippers on an airplane :rolleyes:
 
"Certainly, they can be biding their time until they independantly invent ballistic missiles, but since these same people seem quite happy to use sniping and roadside bombs in other places, why should America be different?"

Iran anyone? They can kill a lot more people and get to paradise at the same time.

What is a death sentence to these people? There is no deterence to stop a Islamic fundamentalist who is willing to kill himself. This is not warfare as we know it between state vs. state. With Japan and Germany we had a georaphical area that we could subdue. Islamic fundamentalism has no state or country to subdue. As far as the long term goal of defeating Islamic fundamentalism goes Iraq will be a chapter in the war on terrorism, not the end or beggining.
 
With the idea that any answer is going to be a SWAG at best to this question, measure the response time between the first and second attack on the WTC, when we were treating this as a police matter. Now that the military and a lot of the alphabet federal agencies are involved, their organization has to have felt some impact, if nothing else, to break up their club house-Afghanistan.

I think it stands to reason that it is going to take more time to plan and execute an attack here. That is assuming their leadership is involved in any future plans. The occasional lone wolf may decide to stir things up on their own, but it does strike me as odd that of the 6K terrorists in our country that are supposed to be here, none have tried anything of significance.

The government has shut down some groups who were panhandling for the bad guys, both here and in other parts of the world. Assets are being seized around the world by several governments.
Sure, box cutters are cheap and put a person of other than middle eastern descent in a flight school and you might not notice them. Charter flights do not have the security systems which the airlines follow, such as they are.

Compare the present day with WWII. Our borders were not sealed up then, either. The biggest attack on our shores back then was the destruction of the french liner Normandie, and a few Nazi fanatics failed in their attempt to strike our manufacturing capability.

It's impossible to prove a negative, but the one thing the terrorists did was to make people alert to suspicious activity where they weren't before. That may account for at least driving them underground. I can't tell you how many times I have heard a co-worker or someone I did not know talking about seeing a person of middle eastern descent "looking suspicious". Most likely, nothing more than paranoia, but I do not see these people circulating as freely as they once did. Out of sight-out of mind? Who knows?
 
"The DC Snipers were simply serial killers that scared the hell out of a lot of folks. They were not committing said acts for the purposes of promoting any agendas."
Click to expand...

"When the Washington-area snipers were caught in October 2002, I criticized the media in "The Snipers: Crazy or Jihadis?" for tip-toeing around the possible Islamist motives of the two suspected perps, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo, and instead insisting on alternate explanations for their actions (making a quick buck, family problems, "stark realization" of loss and regret, a desire to "exert control" over others, Muhammad's relationship with Malvo, and so on). The operational sentence in my article was:

when Muslims engage in terrorism against Americans, the guiding presumption must be that they see themselves as warriors in a jihad against the "Great Satan."

"Oct. 23, 2003 update: This report in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer adds a worrisome new dimension to John Allen Muhammad's possible motives:

FBI agents with the Joint Terrorism Task Force made a chilling discovery in a South King County storage locker last week: a small arsenal of weapons including the same model rifle used last year in random killings around the nation's capital.
The cache of weapons belongs to James Wilburn of Seattle, who according to court records, has a long history of federal firearms convictions. Agents and the U.S. Probation Office have uncovered some alarming parallels between Wilburn — who is behind bars after being arrested last month on a probation violation — and alleged D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad.
Like Muhammad, Wilburn, 51, is a convert to Islam. In addition to having the same model rifle allegedly used in the Washington, D.C.-area shootings, Wilburn, like Muhammad, has had a long-documented fascination with firearms. And Wilburn recently traveled to Virginia Beach, Va., where Muhammad is on trial, federal criminal justice sources said.
Among the items found in the storage locker: a sniper outfit, a range-finder scope, silencers, gas masks, road spikes, knives, guns and "a black leather bag full of ammo," according to an affidavit filed by Special Agent Fernando Gutierrez of the FBI's domestic terrorism squad."
We have assumed that Muhammad acted alone; could it be that he was part of an organized effort?

Oct. 31, 2003 update: The James Wilburn angle gets ever-more worrisome, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today. FBI Special Agent Fernando Gutierrez paraphrases Wilburn in an affidavit saying that Wilburn "agrees with the actions of the September 11, 2001, terrorists, and that he wishes a full terrorist attack would occur in Seattle." To make matters worse, Wilburn is a suspect in the mysterious death on Sept. 23, 2003 of his girlfriend, Joleen Abbott, in Virginia Beach, Va., the same town where John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. sniper, is on trial for murder. "Wilburn fits the profile of a lone-wolf type of terrorist similar to the D.C. sniper," Gutierrez noted in his affidavit. One wonders how many more such individuals are on the loose out there.


http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/82
 
David,

I see what you mean about the lag between the two WTC attacks, but understand that both attacks were the product of the same man and his cell. It apparently took him several years just to convince the Al Quaida leadership to let him try it again. I guess Bin Laden didn't want them looking like bumbling fools. I point this out because WTC wasn't an Al Quaida project, but a goal of just one small part.

Since then, the US has invaded two Muslim countries and ousted radical Muslim rule. If we were bad in 2001, we're definitely "asking for it" now.


This does suggest another possibility, though: The immediate backlash of 9/11 was world wide sympathy and support, making the ousting of the Taliban something of an international project. Al Quaida may have learned a lesson from this that attacks on US soil are received differently than attacks on US embassies and deployed military assets (which received much less direct criticism). So they may have actually changed tactics in regards to us, despite bombing Spain. Perhaps they have decided straight up terrorism isn't particularly effective - most Americans don't live any differently than before. I guess it depends how much credit you want to give Al Quaida for being strategic vs. blood thirsty.
 
That does seem to be an interesting possibility, Handy. The whole Bin Laden ideaology was supposed to be predicated on his view of US troops on Saudi soil during and after the first gulf war.

The people who align themselves with or at least show some sympathy towards them are likely to show more support for attacks on a US installation located on "their turf". Obviously, the size and destruction of their attacks worldwide has been scaled back quite dramatically.

One does wonder when or if Iran is going to throw in with these people, given the sabre rattling these days. Strange, but you might think that a religious extremist government would be more than happy to provide support for these guys, but nothing obvious has shown up, at least to this point in public.
 
form the horses mouth as they say....

Bin Laden: "The enemy fears city and street wars most, a war in which the enemy expects grave human losses."

"We stress the importance of the martyrdom operations against the enemy - operations that inflicted harm on the United States and Israel that have been unprecedented in their history, thanks to Almighty God."

"We also point out that whoever supported the United States, including the hypocrites of Iraq or the rulers of Arab countries, those who approved their actions and followed them in this crusade war by fighting with them or providing bases and administrative support, or any form of support, even by words, to kill the Muslims in Iraq, should know that they are apostates and outside the community of Muslims."

"The most qualified regions for liberation are Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the land of the two holy mosques [Saudi Arabia], and Yemen."

" Under these circumstances, there will be no harm if the interests of Muslims converge with the interests of the socialists in the fight against the crusaders, despite our belief in the infidelity of socialists."

"So, Khalid told him: "Shame on you. Armies do not triumph with large numbers but are defeated if the spirit of defeatism prevails."

"Keep this saying before your eyes: "It is not fitting for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he hath thoroughly subdued the land."

"Therefore, when ye meet the unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks."

"In the end, I advise myself and you to fear God covertly and openly and to be patient in the jihad. "

"Victory will be achieved with patience. I also advise myself and you to say more prayers."
 
Yep, it certainly is from the horses mouth, but I have news for Mr Ed. Any major attack he or his generates in this country is going to be met with major violence in his world.

I don't see much evidence of his handiwork here in the US, in fact, I don't see much of Bin Laden at all. Spins a tape out occasionally, but he is largely reduced to a figurehead in the current fight. I see he is hanging on tightly to his AK-74, but unless there is a large population of desert gophers, he might consider passing it on to those who are actually fighting, instead of emitting gas to the occasional microphone.

Notice how the bombing of the two hotels in Jordan kind of backfired on his cause? There was a great deal of sympathy towards his cause until the hotels were hit. He lost a lot of support there. I also believe he would be in the stuff up to his ears if he attempted major attacks in Pakistan. The rumor is that he is hiding on their border, but if so, and Pakistan is such a juicy target as he claims, there is not much happening there either.

Morocco and Nigeria, I am not sure of, but it does surprise me that he has not put up much effort in Samolia. He is going to have a pretty good sized fight on his hands should he try for Saudi or Yemen.

Bin Laden cannot show his face outside of where he is right now-with all the firepower circling the globe looking for him, it would surprise me if he took more than minimal chances.

Really, I do not worry much about Binny at all-the ones I worry about are the yet unnamed, wherever they might be.
 
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