You have to know they are coming. IS and other Jihadist groups like al Qaeda aren’t completely full of dummies who have yet to figure out that we are in their lands killing them while we sit back here in the USA untouched. We’ve been lucky. Our wars against the terrorists have been fought on our terms and on their territories.
At home we have had peace from foreign interventions with minor exceptions since 1812, over 200 years. We had two major attacks by foreigners on us during that time, both were one-offs, a day of attack and that was it. During the latter part of the 19th Century and early 20th Century certain foreign anarchists entered America and set off bombs. Outside of that we have known peace at home while we war in the lands of other people. Imagine that, in this time when international travel and communications are so easy we are still free from foreign attacks.
Lately we have seen the FBI arrest home-grown terrorists. Usually they a knuckleheads who get caught up by dealing with FBI informants who provide them with the plan, the weapons and then set them up to be caught. It makes for good headlines which the FBI covets but those are not the type of people who are going to cause us any great harm. Most had no chance of ever being able to acquire the weapons or explosives to act on their evil intents.
The FBI is so dependent on informants it is pretty much out of the game as is shown in the Tsarnaev case where it should have acted with more diligence before the Marathon bombing. We have yet to see the FBI catch the 9/11 type terrorists. Those are foreigners who all know each other before they come to the country and when they arrive keep away from others.
I’d suggest you think of this basic tenet: no real terrorist of the type we have to fear would introduce anyone into his planning who he had not had a long-term relationship with. The FBI’s idea of relying on informants will not work against the real threats to America. Every time I see one of the arrests it is making which is based on gaining information from informants I shiver knowing like with its Top Echelon Informant program it just has no idea what it is doing, is wasting its efforts, and does not have its eye on the real problem.
Noted terrorist scare monger expert U.S. Representative Peter King (R-NY) a member of the Homeland Security Committee recently told a group of college kid: “Several hundred Americans have joined the fight alongside ISIS [as well as a large number of Europeans who are] trained, they’re deadly, they’re vicious.” The American numbers are exaggerated but for the most part he is right. He then talks about them getting a “dirty bomb”
Dirty bombs don’t exist. If they did it is doubtful any could cause significant harm. That Rep. King talks about them as a danger does show that those in charge of protecting us are looking in the wrong direction. The terrorist who come do not need dirty bombs to cause havoc in our country.
Do you remember the terror caused by the Washington D.C. sniper attacks that were carried on by two people who were drifters, one being 17-years-old? Schools were closed, outdoor activities stopped or curtailed, traffic was blocked by police roadblocks, people driving white vans were stopped and search, and a great fear spread among the American people living in the greater D.C. area.
Imagine what will happen when the attacks are carried out by professional, heartless killers like those who belong to the Islamic States. Tomorrow, in part two I’ll tell you how it will come about.
40 CPS mentions Carnes Lord’s book concerning “hearts and minds” (2006) in an earlier post on this thread. I hadn’t heard of him. I was hoping his stuff was available on the INTERNET.
Make that “initiative” in the first line of my last post
Khalid:
Done
The first “heart and minds” initiative in VN was called CORDS. The Phoenix Program, part of CORDS, was specifically designed to meet the needs of those whose hearts couldn’t be moved, nor, minds changed.
Even the cleverest spin-master would have trouble influencing the communal psyches of those populations the US is currently making war against. The very visible effects of drone strikes and smart bombing cannot be explained away, they are stark reality. Most of the propaganda Washington churns out is for domestic consumption. It helps us to feel good about ourselves, and, our efforts to democratize the world.
Why are overseas attempts to befriend the people we are killing so miserably unsuccessful?
Is the Carnes book on the INTERNET?
Khalid:
I agree that there is little we can do to overcome the facts on the ground which when boiled down are quite simple: Americans are killing Muslims in Muslim lands. It is not something that can be spun. Who is Carnes?
The tsarnaev family arrived at a hotel in revere earlier, there is heavy security around the hotel, curiously enough it is the Boston FBI doing security. Not the state police or revere, you can argue this is because obviously a federal death penalty case that many a victims family would want to cause harm to them. But knowing what I do about the Boston FBI, this could also be due in part for retribution of Tamerlan being an informant and to constantly remind them they’ll never make it back to Chechnya if they want to keep joker alive by bringing that up. This’ another USAO puppet case, I just hope they give him the worst human punishment possible for what he did, to Martin Richard alone.
Interesting topic.
Here is a link to a database of suicide bombings from the early 80s on:
http://cpostdata.uchicago.edu/search_new.php
Matt: Good analysis. I agree with many of the points you made, but I’m much less pessimistic than you are. By the way, have you seen movie trailer with Johnny Depp (formerly “Tonto”) as Whitey Bulger?
Losing Hearts and Minds?: Public Diplomacy and Strategic Influence in the Age of Terror (Praeger Security International) Hardcover – August 30, 2006
by Carnes Lord (Author)
“Carnes Lord’s Losing Hearts and Minds is one of 2006’s more salient and disturbing books….Lord, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College, understands that the War on Terror is an ideological struggle, pitting democracy against tyranny and terror. Carnes argues that the United States and the West have not successfully engaged the ideas inspiring Islamist-led terrorism. It is indeed a tough subject–the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group barely touched on the terror war’s ideological dimensions. Carnes notes how the media and Hollywood frequently compromise American soft power (moral, political and information persuasion). His suggestions for improving the selling of democracy include a revived and revamped U.S. Information Agency.”
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
Who’s the opposition? Can they be penetrated? What’s their M.O? How will they get here?
Hezbollah recruited the personnel for its’ Special Security Apparatus (SSA) from specific septs/clans of the Mughniya, and, Hammadi, tribes from the Hermel/Baalbak area of Lebanon. Familial bonds makes their security very difficult to penetrate. Everybody in the outfit is a cousin, a brother, an in-law, or, an uncle to each other. In the case of the Mughniyas, the relation was two generations, fathers and sons, operating for SSA. In tribal societies, the nuclear family, clan, and, tribe, are the primary identifiers for an individual (Magnus Rangstrup). Snitching on the family is unthinkable. The higher echelons of Al-Qaeeda are organized in a similar fashion.
The DAESH took a different tack and organized their security organs along Soviet lines, which isn’t surprising, since, East-block advisors, from the Stassi, and, KGB, trained many of the Khilafat’s intel people when they served in pre-war Iraqi army intelligence and the mukhabarat. The Soviets had a intelligence relationship with Iraq that started in the late fifties and lasted until the wall came down.
It’s likely, but, that one, or, more, of these organizations will sponsor a serious strike on the US. How they’ll get their people in is another question. Customs and Immigration do a crack job screening incoming travelers at the airports and border stations. Terrorists would have to sneak in over the northern, or, more likely, southern border. They’d have a problem getting in from Mexico. All the coyotes know that the US would pay ten times the fee that the people-traffickers charge their non-Hispanic clients, if they just turn them in. Up north, I think the Mounties could be depended on.
Nothing has happened since 911. I don’t believe that’s purely a matter of luck. Somebody is working hard. It’s been recently disclosed that Azzam al-Amriki will no longer be broadcasting on behalf of Al-Qaeeda. I’ll miss his scowling boyishness and rambling condemnations.
Good post. If the primary bureaucratic objective of the security agencies is to gain favorable press, we’re in trouble.