A few thoughts about the attempted bombing:
- If this is the best that Al Qaeda can do, isn’t that a good thing? I mean this seriously: they managed to get one confused loser to carry out this attack, and it was apparently planned by the same people that managed the New Coke roll out. Compared to 9/11 or Bali or Madrid or even London (which I think is different since the terrorist apparently were entirely homegrown, unlike the other attacks, and that gave them some serious advantages) it was a pathetic attempt that failed pathetically. That seems to suggest an organization on the wane.
- Can we please, please stop panicking? The attack failed. It was probably destined to fail, depending on the people in the plane to be completely helpless and on a bomb that was meant to burn rather than explode. We can never be perfectly safe, and unless someone can point to a specific test or process that failed that would have prevented the attacker from getting on the plane, any extra security is just mindless theater and the world has enough of that. Instead of wasting money on more theater, lets spend that money on better luggage screening, air marshals an intelligence.
- Why is the TSA getting grief for this? The flight came form Amsterdam, so isn’t any screening failure theirs?
- The safe haven theory appears to be dead as a useful means of fighting terrorism. It was always a bit tenuous — the 9/11 attackers planned and trained in Germany and the US after all — but the last few years have killed it. Occupying Iraq and Afghanistan has done pretty much nothing to prevent the training and planning of attacks. They just moved, apparently to Yemen. And if we indulge Lieberman’s militaristic fantasies and occupy Yemen, they will move somewhere else. With today’s technology, small groups of people can do an immense amount of damage without needing an immense amount of infrastructure. Trying to deny them safe havens makes no sense because they don’t need safe havens. It makes much more sense on concentrating on intelligence and denying them recruits and the sympathy of their target populace — something occupying countries does not help.
Judd
Kevin
Kevin T. Keith
leanleft
tgirsch
“If this is the best that Al Qaeda can do, isn’t that a good thing?”
Had the moron followed the training the plane would have exploded.
You really are clueless aren’t you?
.-= Number9´s last blog ..Genius, socialist retail =-.
“…bomb that was meant to burn rather than explode…”
You got a cite for that whopper? I understand there was enough PETN to take down the plane.
I’m not panicking, but allowing this to slide is a bad idea. There are a bunch of reasons why this guy never should have made it on the plane. I assume you want us to leave Janet Napolitano alone so she can continue to equate returning Vets, people who believe in limited government, and people who think that the government is spending too much money as home-grown domestic terrorists?
SM
Last night CNN was describing it as an incendiary not an explosive. Even if that is wrong, and Number 9′s lovely fear filled contribution to the debate notwithstanding, the fact that this is the best they can do compared to 9/11 or Bali is suggestive that their operational capability is being degraded, and I don’t see how that is not a good thing.
.-= Kevin´s last blog ..Various Blegs =-.
Good points all.
And yes, obviously, this incident seems to reflect small-scale and somewhat marginal operational capacity (dependent in part on a supply of fanatics willing to ignite their own genitals – likely a limiting factor). Tactically, they’ve sunk back to shoe-bomber level. They do manage to pull off one tragic spectacle every 5-10 years, but on an ongoing basis they’re light-years behind, say, the IRA or even the Red Brigades – Caucasian terrorist groups that somehow didn’t manage to incite a “Global War on Tactics” even with vastly higher and more sophisticated levels of violence.
One possibility is that they will shift (at least in part) to repeated small-scale attacks like this one simply to be as disruptive as possible. Given the amount of right-wing panic even an unsuccessful attack generates, they can achieve near-9/11 levels of anti-democratic meltdown just by coughing up a pathetic stooge martyr every couple of months. But that tactic depends on our own willingness to accommodate them by losing our heads – and luckily, the people who do that are no longer in charge here.
ReCaptcha: be shambled
You don’t think we’re still losing our heads, KTK? With the list of new regulations the TSA has cooked up? It seems to be more of the same theatrics that are highly visible but don’t actually do a lot of good.
Obama refuses to call the terrorist a terrorist. If he doesn’t think he is a terrorist, he must not be.
Kevin,
the WaPo today said it was about twice as much PETN as the shoe-bomber tried to use.
…is suggestive that their operational capability is being degraded, and I don’t see how that is not a good thing.
The safe haven theory appears to be dead as a useful means of fighting terrorism.
I don’t quite see how these two ideas can stand together.
SM:
I don’t quite see how these two ideas can stand together.
They stand together quite nicely as long as one doesn’t (wrongly) assume that troop presences in Iraq and Afghanistan are the only things we’ve done to combat terrorism.
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..My “Gift” To Digg =-.
1 – agree
2 – agree
3 – amazed at how TSA is getting so much grief when the guy boarded without a passport. How does this happen in this day and age?
4 – Here’s hoping no one is dumb enough to go into Yemen.
As for KTK’s comment regarding “caucasian” terrorist groups, his comparisons are horribly flawed. Neither the Red Brigade or the IRA were interested in anything other than Italy or Northern Ireland. One could even say they went out of their way to avoid involving any foreign powers in their struggles and targeted strictly “national” targets. This would in turn allow the world to turn a blind eye as they viewed their activities as being domestic. (attacks in Britain by the IRA did result in repercussions but the Brit’s wanted no outside help in dealing with a “domestic” issue). The Al Quaida group and other such terrorists give the perception they want the downfall of “western” society which brings in a great deal of nations even though the US is the most often targeted.
I do wonder what constitutes “losing our heads” when new regulations state “no carry-on luggage on flights to the US” along with 7 hour lineups at security to even board a plane. Seems someone is going a bit overboard.
Big U:
The overwhelming majority of Islamic terrorist organizations have decidedly localized motivations and intentions. Al Qaeda it the exception rather than the rule in this case. And it doesn’t help that the term “Al Qaeda” tends to get attached to pretty much everything involving Islamic terrorism these days, whether it’s justifiable or not. (You also have a lot of band-wagon splinter groups that latch onto the AQ name for its wide recognition more than any genuine ideological overlap.)
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..My “Gift” To Digg =-.
They stand together quite nicely as long as one doesn’t (wrongly) assume that troop presences in Iraq and Afghanistan are the only things we’ve done to combat terrorism.
mm..okay, I give up, what did we do to combat terrorism that degraded Al Qaeda’s operational capability and yet was not part of a strategy toward giving them “no safe haven”?
We have to rule out the Surge in Iraq, Obama’s Surge in Afghanistan, various attacks with Predator Drones, and building up and training the Ethiopian army so it could invade Somalia.
We also have to rule out the Sooper Serkrate watch list, secondary screening, the “puffer” machine, 4 ounces of liquid in a baggie and stopping people who don’t have a passport from boarding a plane headed to the US because none of that really worked.
The only thing that’s left is the Perpetual PATRIOT act, denial of due process to detainees, and the unlawful spying by telecommunication companies who all got off the hook thanks to some crooks on the hill with (D)s and (R)s after their name (mostly (D)s BTW).
SM:
Why do you have to rule out drone/missile attacks? It’s what we were doing before we had the “safe haven” idea, you know. And watch lists don’t have anything to do with that, either. Perhaps you’re misunderstanding what the safe haven theory actually is.
I also don’t know why you leave out good old fashioned legal spying, or going after their finances, for example.
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..My “Gift” To Digg =-.
The drone attacks need boots on the ground in the middle-east except for very limited circumstances (even though they can be flown from the USA, they need some forward support). So withdrawing all our troops and doing it all by remote control isn’t really practical yet.
Spying isn’t going to stop them, and I’m sure there’s people in this country buying cigarettes in one state to resell in places with crazy taxes (like NYC which was $2 + $2 + the price of the cigs themselves, last time I checked) and funding terrorism with the proceeds, so I don’t think that “going after their finances” has been all that effective.
SM:
As I said, remote strikes were how we used to do things, and it was reasonably effective. You do need some “boots on the ground,” but those are intelligence boots, not military boots.
It rankles a lot of neocon types to say so, but the most effective counterterrorism strategies look a lot more like law enforcement than like military campaigns.
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..Are the Rumors True? =-.
As I said, remote strikes were how we used to do things, and it was reasonably effective.
Examples?
Maybe you are thinking of Operation Infinite Reach? Is this how we should fight terror?
Less interested in retaliatory strikes, more interested in just taking out terrorist camps. Use intelligence and good old fashioned law enforcement to figure out where they are and keep an eye on them, and if they start to pose a legitimate threat, take ‘em out. But even better if you don’t even have to do that much. The millennium bombing plots were thwarted with neither bombs nor troops.
Anyway, Kevin’s original point still stands: terrorists don’t even need a “safe haven” to operate. Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph didn’t need any sort of state sponsorship to pull off their attacks. Nor did the Mumbai bombers. Invading sovereign nations that “harbor terrorists” is, as Uncle likes to say (fairly frequently), what we do instead of something.
.-= tgirsch´s last blog ..Unclear on the Concept =-.