The dark stain of what was previously a car
transporting AQ terrorists in Yemen.
Predator+Hellfire+AQ target=stain
Courtesy GWOT
Things like this is one very good reason we havn't had any terror attacks since 9-11.
Posted on 04/16/2004 3:48:43 AM PDT by Elkiejg
Given the recent obsession with the 9-11 commission testimony, you'd think someone might ask why there has not been another attack since that day in the United States.
Perhaps the lack of any public discussion about that issue is due to an understandable desire not to jinx ourselves.
Or maybe it stems from the obvious difficulty of trying to figure out why something has not occurred.
Yet the reality is that al-Qaeda has not disbanded. In fact, it has been quite active, killing people around the world. Yet during the intervening 31 months, it has not again attacked the United States, its sworn enemy.
One answer could be that the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror, which has become a whipping boy during this presidential campaign, might just be working.
Of course, the other approach would be to chalk the whole thing up to dumb luck -- or assume that the bad guys are just biding their time.
The time and money -- not to mention the news-media overkill -- spent on historical hindsight by the 9-11 commission is worthwhile because it is aimed at understanding why the system in place was unable to prevent the tragedy.
Yet it is just as important to think about the present and what the lack of a repeat incident says about the future.
Obviously, a similar public investigation into why nothing has happened would be impractical, given the hypothetical nature of the whole exercise.
But it is something all Americans should think about in deciding how they want to fight the war on terrorism.
Since Sept. 11, we have faced countless alerts about the possibility of the next terrorist incident. Public opinion polls show a widespread public belief that the next domestic attack is just around the corner.
But that has been the case for more than two years and, thankfully, nothing has happened.
There are two explanations -- or a combination of them -- that might explain the lack, thus far, of another terrorist attack within the United States:
The U.S. government is doing a better job of deterring the terrorists.
Al-Qaeda may have decided that the costs of pulling off another attack inside the United States would not be worth the political costs.
The period of national unity that followed 9-11 has long since ended, and the Bush administration's war on terror has become a political football.
His critics have decried Bush's unwillingness to accommodate U.S. policy against terrorism to the international opposition to his tactics.
Democratic presidential hopeful's John Kerry's critique of the Bush doctrine boils down to the fact that it doesn't give enough weight to world opinion in formulating U.S. policy.
On the domestic front, the Patriot Act, pushed through by Bush after 9-11 to give officials the necessary tools to combat terrorism here at home, has become a flash point.
Criticism that the act unnecessarily subverts civil liberties that was initially confined to fringe groups like the ACLU is now part of the Kerry mantra, even though he and most Democratic lawmakers voted for it.
Is it possible that the extra powers that law has given authorities have allowed them to prevent other potential attacks?
Or perhaps it signals a stepped-up vigilance here at home that has led Osama and the boys to decide it is safer for them to blow up people in Spain and Bali.
Maybe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have tied up al-Qaeda's fighters and money and left them unable to focus on U.S. domestic targets.
Or maybe there is another explanation. Perhaps al-Qaeda has decided it would be contrary to its self-interest to strike again in the United States, especially before November.
Such an attack would almost certainly re-create a sense of national unity that followed 9-11. Politically, it would likely create a rally-round-the-president effect.
Sure, the March 11 terrorist attack in Spain days before its presidential election led to the defeat of the party of the Spanish leader who had been a Bush ally in the war on terror.
But even terrorists who despise our culture are smart enough to understand how much more aggressive and confrontational (not to mention stronger militarily) we are than the Europeans.
The last thing al-Qaeda would like is for Bush to be re-elected. My money says U.S. voters would react to attempts to scare them into voting for John Kerry by raising their middle finger to the terrorists, not surrendering like the Spanish.
As we play the blame game for 9-11, it's worth pondering what the absence of a reoccurrence tells us.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Things like this is one very good reason we havn't had any terror attacks since 9-11.
The capability has not been impaired, we know, because of the events in Spain, Bali, and others.
As surely we must see by now, the 9-11 attacks occurred not so much from an abundance of hatred, but a profound lack of respect. The consequences to the entire region (and without the bludgeoning of Saddam and the spectre of a Democracy in Iraq, the consequences IMHO wouldn't be sufficient), have restored respect through fear of same.
The obvious stunting of their will is being reversed, however with the possibility that Bush can be ejected from office by the anti-war fifth column within our country. We are in danger again for that reason and that reason alone, we are so blinded to what we have done RIGHT, that we are about to squander our victory, and allow our citizens to be slaughtered again.
The time and money -- not to mention the news-media overkill -- spent on historical hindsight by the 9-11 commission is worthwhile because it is aimed at understanding why the system in place was unable to prevent the tragedy.A fine article, but IMHO the first paragraph above is negated by the last two. In fact, "the news-media overkill spent on historical hindsight by the 9-11 commission" is NOT worthwhile because it is aimed, NOT at "understanding why the system in place was unable to prevent the tragedy," but at second guessing the Bush Administration.Yet it is just as important to think about the present and what the lack of a repeat incident says about the future.
Obviously, a similar public investigation into why nothing has happened would be impractical, given the hypothetical nature of the whole exercise.
This is obvious in the composition of the Coverup Commission:
And that expresses itself in demands for public testimony by Bush Administration officials such as Rice and (though even more so than Rice, he extracted a price) Ashcroft, which turn into shouting matches because ben Veniste in particular and Democrats in general patently have the knives out.
And that expresses itself in the fatuous defense by Kean of the indefensible composition of "his" committee. The Gorelick Commission contains the "Number 2" ("Number 1" having been a figurehead) in the Clinton Justice Department. A person who, as Ashcroft's testimony makes clear, would be the single best witness for the committee to grill under oath.
The Gorelick Commission is constructed not to produce a reliable history but to perpetrate objective journalismTM. To produce, that is, fodder for reports which are wise ("objective") in their authors'own conceit but in fact are heavily slanted against the middle class which the Republican Party represents. No less obviously than the questions of the "objective" reporters in the recent press conference were intended to produce a sound bite for the Kerry campagn.
Because the fight has been carried to them in their own backyard and they are too busy trying to fight for survival and hunting holes in the ground where they think they can find refuge.
There have been a lot of train derailments, chemical factories blowing up, etc that are explained as, "This wasn't caused by terrorism".
Now, admittedly, all of those incidents are, most likely, not terrorist attacks but to say we have had NO terrorist attacks in 31 months, IMO, is just not true, just not of the same magnitude.
And it may not even need to be a "big" attempt - just big enough so that the soccer mommies and limp-wrist soccer daddies will know that "The U.S.A. is not safe as long as warmonger George W. Bush is in the Whitehouse - so vote accordingly!"
Maybe. Maybe not.
Throughout history terrorism has seldom been defeated, but it has been consistently redirected. To conclude that the Bali bombings, the bombings in Spain, and others since 9-11 is not indicative that a change in strategy has occurred as a result of our, to them, shocking response may prove to be costly going forward.
The eradication of the Taliban, the very public demolition of the vaunted (to them once again) Iraqi war machine, the humiliating extraction of the Arab world's symbol of conventional power from his spider hole, the subsequent presence of the Great Satan in their midst, the capitulation of Lybia, and the most important of all consequences, the kryptonite-like spectre of the implantation of democracy in the Middle East, are reasons for our enemy to realize their previous assessment of us might have been delusional, and are sufficient in my view to at least cause them to KNOW that they could not hit us once again with impunity.
As I said in my previous post, we can never eradicate their capability, nor can we get them to love us through appeasement, but we must realize that any enemy's WILL to strike is, and always has been, vulnerable to consequences. To believe otherwise not only ignores history, but in the absence of a better plan, is defeatist in the extreme.
There havbe been a lot of train derailments and chemical factories blowing up for the entire 150 years since trains and chemical factories have been invented.
There's been no increase in train derailments, just an increase in people frantically trying to proclaim accidents as terror attacks by people that seem strangely UPSET that AQ hasn't done anything in the US since 9/11.
One thing not mentioned is that AQ simply was never as big as people imagined. There were never and are not now thousands and thousands of AQ sleepers in the US. Very dangerous people, and you don't need a whole lot of people to do something pretty aweful, but doubt that even at its peak AQ had more than 1,000 ACTUAL active "operatives" worldwide, with only a fraction of that in the US.
A statistical anomoly?
Perhaps
Perhaps not.
I'm not sure about the number of chemical factory explosions. It seems I have been hearing about them a lot more lately than I ever have before. I'm speculating about them from only my own anecdotal evidence. I'll have to do some digging and see for sure.
Indicator #483756 that the Terrorists support Kerry.
Silly assumption, though. The terrorists didn't attack the US, say 19 months ago (October 2002), because they were worried about November 2004? Piffle!
Using this logic, the terrorists won't attack us before November, because they want Kerry to win. After November, if Kerry wins, they're happy and don't attack. If Kerry loses, then they don't want to attack because they'll be worried about the counter-attack, AND they'll be worried about November 2008. In other words, they just won't ever attack.
Gotta admire a head firmly planted in the sand.
Bingo.
I might add that if Kerry gets elected, then they will be similarly emboldened, and once again we will be in danger.
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