Posted on 11/29/2004 9:56:28 AM PST by Snapple
An al-Qaida attack on the US with non-conventional weapons is virtually "inevitable..."All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike – something more horrible than anything we've seen before – is all but inevitable," [Bodansky] said.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Terror expert: Qaida WMD attack on US likely soon
Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 29, 2004
An al-Qaida attack on the US with non-conventional weapons is virtually "inevitable," and the organization is likely "tying up the knots" for such an attack, Yossef Bodansky, former director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
"All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike – something more horrible than anything we've seen before – is all but inevitable," he said.
Bodansky, here for the second annual Jerusalem Summit, an international gathering of conservative thinkers, added that "the primary option" for the next al-Qaida attack on US soil would be one that would use weapons of mass destruction.
"I do not have a crystal ball, but this is what all the available evidence tells us, we will have a bang," Bodansky said.
He said that al-Qaida has not carried out a second major attack on the US until now for internal psychological and ideological reasons, but after the reelection of President George W. Bush, it has gotten "the green light" to do so from leading Islamic religious luminaries, as well as from "the elites of the Arab world."
According to Bodansky's reading of Osama bin Laden's mind-set, after the elaborate attacks of 9/11 there was no need for the "bin Ladens of the world" to carry out a second major attack in the US, both because the target audience of the attacks – the Arab and Islamic world – had gotten the message that America could be penetrated, and because a second attack would necessarily have to be more grandiose.
Following the attacks and the US-led war on terror, a debate started within the operational arm of the organization over the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, Bodansky said.
If, in pre-9/11 days, the theme used by bin Laden was that perpetual confrontation and jihad against the US was the only way to protect Islam, the argument now used is the ability to punish American society, Bodansky said.
"Just as the West was challenging the quintessence of Islam by means of the globalization era, there was a parallel need by Islamic extremists to strike at – and hurt – the core of American society, this time with weapons of mass destruction," Bodansky said.
A subsequent theological debate emerged within the organization, and its supporters in the Arab world, he said, over whether the mass killing of innocents is permissible.
While bin Laden and his associates argued that by virtue of their participation in US democracy, US citizens were enabling their rulers to fight, other Islamic luminaries contended that this does not permit such massive attacks, Bodansky said. The reelection of Bush in November, he said, was viewed by bin Laden and his cohorts as a decisive answer to this deliberation, with Americans now "choosing" to be the enemies of Islam. In bin Laden's mind-set, he said, the stage was set for a non-conventional attack.
Bodansky said that while there may still be some vestiges of debate and doubt within Islamic circles, he believes that planing for such an attack is finished. "They got the kosher stamp from the Islamic world to use nuclear weapons," he said.
Moreover, Bodansky said that America is losing the war against terrorism, noting the number of recruits bin Laden is able to count on, as his call to arms gains widespread support throughout the Muslim world.
In the pre-9/11 world, Bodansky said, jihadists could count on 250,000 individuals trained and willing to die, and 2.5 million–5 million people willing to help them in one way or another. He cited intelligence estimates from this summer that suggest that as many as 500,000-750,000 people are willing and trained to die, 10 million are willing to actively support them, short of killing, while another 50 million are willing to support such a movement financially.
Is the alert system still operating? Orange, yellow, where are we?
Bodansky is, unfortunately in this case, reliable and solid.
Turn on FOX NEWS. It is always there. Washington and DC are a notch higher.
He and Mansoor Ijaz are cut from the same cloth: hyperbole.
Haven't seen Ijaz on FOX lately. Is he still there?
btw, I always thought MI's role was DIS-information.
these kind of warnings and little or nothing is done on the border. i saw asa hutchinson on tv talking about new drones that fly over the border to film people crossing. oh good, take pictures of them. did they wave back to the camera.
what kind of idiots do we have running this security. put the army on the border and tell anyone coming across to march right back where they came from.
they actually catch people and have them sign a promise they will show up for deportation hearing.
is anyone here so dumb that they would make a policy like this? asa hutchinson has to be the biggesst idiot in government
Shouldn't he be checking with other "terror experts" such as John Kerry, Al Gore, and Richard Clarke?
Think about this the next time you're tempted to criticize the patriot act.
Yellow.
We're vulnerable - always have been. All open societies are.
I'm no doomsday thinker, but all they need is a time and place. Once they decide to go with it, we can't really stop them.
"... leading Islamic religious luminaries, as well as from the elites of the Arab world..."
We need to identify these subhumans and send them to hell, where they belong.
I thought Osama promised to hit a "red" state.
It's a fight for the survival of western civilization, but let's hope it's not too late before everyone knows the truth.
This guy is maybe slightly more credible than the Weekly World News. Maybe.
Here's what he wrote in November 2000.
Taken together, these trends lead to a grim conclusion: International terrorism, led by the Islamists, is on the rise. The intensity of operations in the West -- Europe and the US -- will increase, to include not only spectacular strikes (particularly in the US and against US targets) but also "grassroots intifadahs" among the Muslims of Western Europe.
Sounds right.
See 19
I haven't seen him either. Ijaz blew it with his numerous predictions of "imminent" finds of WMDs, then sank further into the conspiracy dregs when he insisted that bin Laden was "sighted" in Iran.
Ijaz and Bodansky on FOXNEWS, and Bill Artis (?) on MSNBC have been so consistently wrong about everything I'm surprised anybody takes anything they say seriously.
According to Richard Miniter, in his book THE SHADOW WAR, we and our allies (which are numerous, despite what John Kerry said during the campaign) thwart about a plot a day around the world. However, I don't think anyone expects us to be able to discover and stop every plot, so a hit in this country is always a possibility - not one that is "heightened" at this particular time. For those who believe in such, they need to be in prayer for the safety of this country.
Let 'em know we hold them ALL equally responsible.
Thanks for the post. IMHO, the islamic terrorists would hit us whoever won the election. They are fanatics of a death cult. Had Kerry won the election, the terrorists' rationale would be the same as before 9/11, that is, the U.S. is weak and can be bullied, so hit 'em again, only harder. Since Bush won, the rationale is different, but the result won't be. At least with Bush, we know the retaliation will massive. If a nuke goes off in the U.S., Iran and Saudi Arabia need to be reduced to rubble. Mecca and Medina need to be glowing pits within 12 hours.
The only problem is that people have long since been desensitized to these reports. When the shepherd boy cries wolf long enough, people stop paying attention.
Look, it's a foregone conclusion that Muslims of Arabic descent wants to attack us. This should have been apparent since the Beirut massacre under Ronald Reagan and the multiple attacks under Clinton.
So, until someone can point to a specific target or a specific date for an attack, this is all just bull**** as usual.
Right. DC and NYC. The place to look would be homeland defense. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040801.html
That was August, so maybe it has changed but I don't see a press conference about it. "This is a new approach for Homeland Security to sort of target particular cities and sectors and say this is the areas we're raising to Orange, not the entire country."
I used to stop whatever I was doing to listen to MI. Then after everything he said came to naught, I assumed whatever he said was "untruth". He may have a purpose, like I said in my other post, of disinformation. Who knows?
He was on just the other night. I don't know which program though. M
al zawarihi just realeased a tape today as well... could be the signal to go... this is going to happen. Those I know on the inside of HSD are thinking it is going to happen. Just a matter of when. Thanks for posting this!
Yeah. Even blind squirrels find acorns.
Bodansky's been riding on the coattails of that single accurate (though very general) prediction ever since, and hasn't managed to thread the needle twice.
Jeanne Dixon redux.
Thanks. Thought he'd gone "underground"!
Thanks. Thought he'd gone "underground"!
oops!
Why does anyone justify this nonsense by calling it "theological"?
So if he is off his rocker, why was he an expert for Congress for many years?
That's why I pray a LOT about our borders being protected, our ports, our nuclear and electric plants, blah, blah, blah. I pray that NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST US WOULD PROSPER. People need to pray because actually there's nothing else we can do.
These terrorist attacks and threats will NEVER end till Jesus comes back to reign from Jerusalem OVER the WHOLE world!!
......invest Now!
(Romans 10:17)
I doubt the "inevitable" part of his words ,,this sounds like tryiing to gin up panic and anxiety. Al Quaeda is being dismantled as we speak.
"Jeanne Dixon redux."
Kind of like predicting that a bus with 40 people going to some celebration in South America will go over a cliff.
Happens every six months or so ...
These luminaries and elites should be the first targets completely destroyed should an attack occur. And damn to hell anyone, or any country that stands in the way!!!
The 9/11 attacks were neither elaborate nor involved sophisticated weapons. They were simple and well co-ordinated. The only expenditure was the lives of 19 men willing to committ suicide. An everyday form of transport was used to maximum effect. No guns, bombs or other weapons were used apart from the box-cutters used to overrun the aircraft. Simplicity itself.
The MO which the terrorists use in Israel is simple, crude bombs detonated in areas where maximum damage will ensue.
The bin Ladens of this world are blood-thirsty men. He has no qualms about shedding blood on a grand scale. I have zero belief in the theory that he is waiting for the green light from Islamic scholars. This is propaganda designed to give a theological face and justification to the mayhem he has perpetrated and to cover the fact that right now, he's living in a hole in the ground and only comes out at night.
If anything happens, we should deport every Islamic student, heck, every foreign islamic should be tossed back to their countries and never allowed to darken our shores again. A watch should be kept on all mosques, all communities with a significant population of Mooselimes. But, of course, we would never do that.
Hogwash.
1) Several reports indicate that Bin Laden has been neutralized. He has no capability to give orders or lead - all he can do is run. Besides, he made a video just before the election - and it gave no preference for either candidate.
2) If terrorists had a WMD, they would have used it or threatened to use it (a) prior to the Iraq maneuvers, (b) after Iraq had been liberated, (c) to influence US elections, or (d) to prevent elections in Iraq
3) There are very little ethics within the terrorist "community". They had no problem kidnapping and killing Margaret Hassen.
4) There are over 100,000 "non-innocent" American soldiers making Iraq better for Iraqis. They are nice and close to the terrorist base of operations. If Bodansky's reasoning is correct, then these are the primary targets for WMDs.
Congress likes people who think the way they do.
Nor am I, but suffice it to say the sceptics, the peace in our time morons and the political correct mob will be pushed aside as Middle Easterners are swept from our shores and our borders will become closed.
It is evident the pols have no stomach for it and the majority of us are making believe this is no more than like traffic accidents.
Should anything remotely resembling Bodansky's claim come to pass, the last thing anyone will worry about is the smoke from a smokers ciggarette.
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