Posted on 05/28/2004 9:03:44 PM PDT by FairOpinion
It is likely that an attack would be intended to kill thousands, though an attack remains conjecture at this point, based on intelligence gathered by our agencies and other nations.
Headlines tell us of government predictions that al Qaeda may intend to mount an attack on the US this summer. Soldiers in Iraq recently found an explosive in Iraq filled with Sarin, a deadly chemical capable of killing many people. The widely expressed doubt that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction should end.
In a recent Washington Times column by John McCaslin, he cited a poll by the National Association of Chiefs of Police, “Because of the ‘current political polarization’ in America today, the United States will suffer another ‘large scale’ terrorist attack within the next year."
McCaslin reported the poll revealed, “that 95 percent of the nation's police commanders and security directors expect a ‘catastrophic’ terrorist incident within the continental United States. "If Americans believe we're not being targeted for terror in the near future, they are fooling themselves," says NACP Vice President Jim Kouri, who predicts the killers, among other dastardly missions, will be attempting to influence this November's presidential election. It worked for them in Spain.”
It is the opinion of many counter-terrorism experts that al Qaeda will attack America again and many believe it will come before the elections in November. Their thinking is that the success it had in Spain can be repeated here and their aim is to elect Senator John F. Kerry. The objective will be to demoralize the resolve of Americans to support the occupation of Iraq until it can establish a democratic form of government.
It is likely that an attack would be intended to kill thousands, though an attack remains conjecture at this point, based on intelligence gathered by our agencies and other nations.
Here are some targets al Qaeda might have in mind.
If Al Qaeda wants to kill a lot of people to ratchet up our level of terror, New York remains a prime target and there are recent reports of empty suitcases showing up in its subways and other locations as a possible test run on the delivery of a WMD.
What other city would be a likely target? One answer is Los Angeles and, in particular, Hollywood. Radical Muslims regard the films and television shows coming out of Hollywood as a direct attack on their sense of moral superiority. A dirty bomb or bioterror in Los Angeles would have the desired effect. Remember, too, that a terrorist was caught in the run-up to Y2K when he crossed the border from Canada with a car full of explosives. His target, we were told, was the LA Airport.
Recently, Jordanians thwarted a plot to attack the US embassy and other targets there with poison gas. The estimated casualties are estimated to have been as many as 20,000. A similar target in the US would reap a similar result. Again, the belief that Iraq did not have WMDs should be put to rest. The belief that it was not cooperating with al Qaeda should have been dispelled by now. Supporters of the deposed Saddam Hussein are continuing their insurgency against our troops and would surely want to strike at the American homeland.
If I were Osama bin Laden, a trained engineer, what might be another likely target in America? One answer is oil refineries. There hasn’t been a new refinery built in the US since the 1970s and the ones we have are strained to capacity. When even one is closed down for routine maintenance, the price of gas spikes. Imagine if two, maybe three, were destroyed? The highways would empty out, followed by the office buildings and just about every other enterprise that depends on workers who drive to work. That includes schools, hospitals; just about everything, everywhere. America would have to declare martial law.
Another likely target would be the disruption of the aging electrical grid that distributes this vital source of energy around the nation. Remember when the grid failed a year or so ago? It shut down the entire East Coast from Ohio to New York. Destroy key components of the grid and people will be cooking dinner over an open fire in the backyard.
The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9-11 had a destination about which we can only speculate. But let’s say it was the Capitol Building and a direct hit could take out a major number of Senators and Representatives? Our Constitution does not make provision for the killing of enough members of Congress to render it unable to function. Congress, however, is debating legislation that would allow for emergency elections in the event that should occur.
While America remains a target, so are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, England and just about every other nation around the world. We are dealing with people willing to kill anybody for their crazed notion of protecting a failed way of life, a belief that Islam must dominate the world and be practiced in a fashion Osama bin Laden dictates.
It should never be forgotten that bin Laden has already issued a fatwa, an Islamic edict, calling for the deaths of all Americans.
As our level of anxiety rises, al Qaeda has already achieved one of its objectives. The question, if an attack occurs, is whether Americans will deepen their resolve to destroy its enemies or seek to withdraw from the fight?
Alan Caruba is the author of Warning Signs, published by Merril Press. His weekly commentaries are posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center.
H2O
Bingo!
Spare mags, hell! I've just about figured out how to conceal two automatics w/ reloads... for Florida!
Well .. patting down granny may not seem necessary .. but that may be what the terrorists are counting on.
As far as "PC" goes, I'm talking more about doing what needs to be done .. and not paying so much attention to what the world has to say about it. My feeling has always been .. if you don't pay for it .. you don't have anything to say about the action. And .. by "pay" I mean in monetary terms or with troops. For my money, France has nothing to say about what we do in Iraq.
"Oh good grief. Another one with nothing on his mind except the borders.
I see you are new here. I hope you have more to say than to add your concerns about the borders to EVERY SINGLE THREAD like the others do.
The border controls are not good enough, but do we really have to hear about them on every thread?"
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DITTO.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to say exactly that.
No. Sometimes procedures must be kept quiet in order to be effective.
By the way, it is really hard to take people seriously when they use words like "Duh!" and "gubbamint" in their posts.
It's silly and childish.
The FBI is warning that terrorists might try to poison food or water supplies, and senior bureau officials said al-Qaeda was determined to attack Americans at home even though the organisation appears to have a relatively small US presence.
The FBI's latest weekly bulletin to state and local law enforcement agencies cautions terrorists might use two naturally occurring toxins – nicotine and solanine – to poison US food or water supplies.
Nicotine is found in tobacco plants and solanine in potatoes that are old or have been exposed to sunlight for a long time.
The bulletin, obtained by The Associated Press, says that terrorist manuals and documents recovered at al-Qaeda sites in Afghanistan contain references to use of both substances as poisons.
The FBI said there are no known uses of either toxin by al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremist groups, and there is no intelligence indicating such an attack is imminent.
But the bulletin noted a man in Michigan pleaded guilty in May to lacing 112kg of ground beef with an insecticide containing nicotine, sickening 92 people, in an attempt to get a supermarket co-worker in trouble.
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I don't have a date on the article, but I think it's fairly recent, although I don't think it's current.
But I think the threat is still there.
Then I'd make sure that plenty of clues (cell phones in unexploded bombs, just like in Madrid) led straight to some of these terrorists who simply walked in over the open Mexican border.
Kerry and the 'rat loving media would have a field day with this theme, 24-7, right up to the election:
"This horrible act of terrorism happened because George W. Bush sent our military to Iraq, and left the border wide open! It's Bush's fault, it's his incompetence! He should have sealed the border after 9-11, instead he sent the Army to Iraq!"
Those ads and new stories will run around the clock, and millions of swing voters will believe them. Those ads will work. They will beat Bush about the head with that message.
(Never mind that Kerry or Gore would be worse for border security, that's irrelevant. The 'rats are natural born liars.)
You are correct, especially on door #2
I believe they have already been setting forest fires for years.
Lots of prison converts and many fires have been near large urban areas too.
I carry a 1911A1 w/ 2 spare 10 round wilson rogers extended mags in a IWB rig from Ted Blocker and a small S&W 317 TiLite .22 caliber snub revolver in an ankle rig that has a small pouch my parachute rigger modified for me to carry a small box of 50 spare cci stingers I modified with a Paco Kelly tool.
My backup may not be big but it is many....:o)
Stay safe !!
the next al queda attack will probably come from cells that are in america now that snuck across the mexican american border there have been storys on freerepublic of border patrol agents finding korans written entirely in arabic on the borders over the last year and a half or so but i wouldnt hold your breathe waitong for good ole georgeto seal the borders tighter then a drum it wouldnt be pc after all and its far more important for a repub prez to be pc at the exp[ence of tens of thousands of american lives then to risk alianating a block of potential voters that have no intention of ever voting for you or your party before hell freezes over / rant
I think last year's SoCal fires were only 5-10 percent of the potential of a mass forest arson attack. Such mega fires would totally overwhelm our ability to fight them, and they would rage unchecked for weeks, wiping out entire towns, and hte entire Western electrical grid.
Actually, the racists are the ones who are coming over the border illegally.
One of the many good things that President Bush has done has been to use XO's to kill environmental rules that required lots of paperwork (e.g. environmental impact statements) before building new logging roads as firebreaks. Lots of new logging roads have since been built in the last 12 months because of the easing of those rules...and they will reduce the scope of forest fires into much smaller areas/ranges.
It makes perfect sense if you are a globalist that believes nation states to be obsolete, while open border one worldism is just the ticket. The government is full of this element, starting at the top. It's not like they make a secret of it.
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