People can be very resilient. Witness the endurance of the British during the Blitz of WWII. We experience tens of thousands of deaths from traffic accidents year after year, yet a large percentage of people can't even be bothered to wear their seat belts. I suspect hundreds or even thousands of deaths a year from terrorism might be something we'd eventually just learn to live with. After all, many thousands of Americans already die from violent acts yearly. There would likely be a diminishing return with each successive conventional terror attack. That's why I believe that terrorists seek the sort of paradigm shift offered by a successful CRBN type of terror attack.

I also suspect that there is a psychological tipping point with violent extremists, who are already likely clinically insane, where they become so enamored with violence itself that they no longer really care about the cause that initially motivated them. Therefore, they cannot be deterred by the possibility of reciprocal damage to that cause. They'd rather just keep killing. I don't think Osama bin Laden would be put off in the least by us nuking Mecca. In fact, I think he would welcome it as an excuse to keep on killing infidels. Retaliation is not the solution to terrorism.

Indeed, there is little we in the West can do directly to stop Islamic extremist terrorism. It will only end when the people in the Islamic world are ready to stop it themselves. I suspect that won't happen for 25 years or so, when a new generation rises to power with a lifetime of experience living with the consequences of extremism and violence. In the meantime, all we can do is remain firm, vigilant, restrained and patient. It's the only effective way to deal with a hostile ideology. Given time, violent Islamic extremism, like PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER., will be snuffed out by its own people, not us.

Jeff

When you look at the terrorist groups today I see very little real threat of any Islamic extremist group or the like carrying out a nuclear attack. Getting a nuclear weapon and deploying it isn't as easy as it looks in the movies. You don't exactly go to Ukraine and buy a nuke for $10.000 from some drunk guarding an abandoned missile silo. How are you going to transport it anywhere? Even showing any potential interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon would instantly make you a high profile target for any of the countless services and agencies all over the world.

Building a nuke from scratch is, realistically speaking, impossible for any extremist group. Who has enough resources to do it? Maybe a villain from an old James Bond flick. Not to mention that even just deploying a nuke takes some very highly trained, educated specialists. They don't exactly grow on trees. A "dirty bomb" might sound scary but in effect it is far less destructive than even a small, tactical nuke though it might cause a lot of panic. But even a relatively simple device like that still takes a lot more brain and resources than the average extremist can muster.

From the terrorist point of view, why bother with such complex technology with so much risk involved when you can get almost guaranteed results with a simpler improvised or conventional attack? Blow up a major public building and many people will die. A single motivated, somewhat trained guy with an AK, a few hand grenades and some ammo (which all together costs a few hundred $ on the black market and is available anywhere in the world) can easily kill dozens of civilians in a busy street before being overwhelmed by the police. Take a few such individuals, organize them and you can do Mumbai as often as you like.

Maybe preparing for something big such as a nuclear attack is good for the media and panic mongers but I for one would rather try to be realistic about it. YMMV.

Gees, we're walking off the deep end here folks.

I mean, what's really changed? What you are talking about are thugs and hoodlums, forget their motivation for a moment and just consider that they are people preying on other people. This is a threat that's constantly been with us, and a part of the nature of our society. The media hype aside, we were no more secure 30 years ago than we are today, and there was a heckuva lot of NBC floating around then that anyone with half a brain and a bag of loot could've (and some did) get their hands on. None of what they have now to use is that new, pharm grade Anthrax and smallpox remain at the top of the list for bio, VX, Sarin, Ricin remain at the top for Chem. They were all just as effective and just as available 30 years ago, and we had just as many crazies back then, so the only thing I see that's different is the crazies today get more air time.

Chuck Norris made a movie a ways back called Invasion USA. I liked the way that one ended.

From what I read about the Mumbai attack, the armed police were unwilling to shoot back until way late in the game. So much for gun control...

Maybe we ought to just hire Blackwater stooges to be our private army and hunt down all these terrorists and pirates and gangsters. Oh wait, that'd pretty much have them fighting themselves.

I agree a nuclear detonation is the least likely type of terrorist attack, by far. But I would not be too surprised to see something along the lines of the Tokyo subway bio-attack some day. In terms of what the terrorists are actually capable of pulling off, a Mumbai type of attack is most likely.

But their ambition exceeds their current ability, so I think they will keep trying for bigger things, and they may get lucky again some day. While working at the WTC just after 9/11, I remember thinking that the terrorists got an A+ for persistence, since this was their second attack on the WTC, and wondering what they'd try next.


Jeff

Hey Jeff, I thought the Tokyo subway was a chem attack, either Sarin or Ricin IIRC.

To the best of my recollection, there's not been a widespread bio attack in recent history. I remember there being a couple Anthrax threats a while back, but seemed like really isolated incidents through the mail.

Chem attack seems the easiest to me to deploy. It is too easy to make homemade substances that can poison people in an enclosed environment.

Still, this isn't really any different than what it has been for a long time now, just more publicity.

You're right. It was chemical, not biological. My mistake. I agree things aren't that different from what we've seen before, which is why I think the terrorists would like to change things up. Compare WTC attack #1, which evoked little more than a collective national yawn, with WTC attack #2, which was a real paradigm shift. Whether they can do that again remains an open question.

Jeff

This individual lived a couple of blocks from me and was considered the prime suspect in the mailings.

Ivins

Pete

Yes, to which I reiterate that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to such matters, but that is because we keep hiring the same type of incompetents to try and run the show. Meanwhile, the propaganda machine keeps spewing out melodrama encouraging the morons to keep making the effort to foment change through force.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Lol, too funny (although I stop laughing when I remember the Federal govt. has used Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq and in Louisiana).

Regarding my personal preparedness, I've had to work hard to not get caught up in some of the alarming (alarmist?) messages in recent years. Lots of infotainment, manipulation, rumors and propaganda to filter. Good to step away, get a broader perspective as suggested.

I would imagine an intelligent terrorist seriously contemplating a biological or chemical attack would probably target the water or food supply system.

Poisoning the water supply for a major city could cause real mayhem. Though pretty much anything poisonous enough in large quantities would work (like dumping a few buckets of mercury), imagine using something really toxic that is odorless, colorless and possibly does not affect the victims instantly but only after some time. Meaning that a lot more people will get affected during the incubation period. This is one of the few biological/chemical scenarios that really scares me. More so if you realize how poorly guarded the water supply is in many places.

Option #2 might be less effective, but still pretty bad. Poisoning any kind of food, especially something that comes prepacked, might come fairly close on the Richter scale. Just think of the melamine panic in China not that long ago. Urban dwellers are highly vulnerable to that kind of threat in the Western world.