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http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archiv...zullo062404.htm

The Next 9-11: Goals and Methodology

June 24, 2004

by Tom Marzullo

Since Homeland Security now appears to have come around to accepting the long-predicted assessment of a post-election Islamist strike on US soil, now is an appropriate time to coldly consider the situation and some terrorist options.
As we should already understand that these Islamists rarely bluff as demonstrated by their predicted serial snuff films that are coming ever more regularly, their recurrent promises of another domestic attack in the Arabic media should taken seriously.

But what exactly have they been saying?

The attacks are to be more spectacular than the ones of September 11th and are to hurt us economically.

That this last component is a critical strategic element is clearly shown in the predicted Islamist campaign in Saudi Arabia that seeks to drive oil prices drastically upwards in the short term with some hope of installing an even more terrorist-friendly regime.

A long planning cycle is also the norm for these kinds of operations… it was five years for the last round of domestic attacks according to the political circus masquerading as a post-mortem assessment. The efforts in Saudi have been underway for almost that long, with the past year’s blatant increase in arms smuggling sounding the alarm bells for many analysts, including this writer.

As that initial assessment of the coming domestic strike indicated, the preparations have long been underway in North and South America as well. For instance, Iran’s surrogate – Hezbollah - has made significant inroads in South America and organizations associated with al-Qaeda have been coordinating with FARC in Columbia to use infiltration/drug smuggling routes, while training camps in Canada are almost done with their current preparations along that virtually non-existent border.

So now that we understand that the planning and preparation phase is nearly complete, what they hope to accomplish is the next item up for consideration.

As Lenin, the heroic sage of the Left once said: “The purpose of terror is to terrorize.” Given the consistent Islamist noises about how the next strike will be bigger and better, what would create a heightened level of general terror? Wholesale civilian casualties… the more, the better.

Since synergy of purposes are a hallmark of astute planning (and something every leader hopes to accomplish), it has been shown that economic impact is a major Islamist goal, how would these best be combined given the projected timing?

One blinding obvious answer is to strike shopping malls. Malls present jelly-soft security that is exceedingly difficult to upgrade, with oodles of casualty potential that would produce a huge psychological impact and an economically potent target as it affects the entire consumption, distribution and production chain.

Since massive casualties can be projected as one of the top choices for a tactical goal, how would that be achieved?

You should understand that most purely conventional attacks are heavily manpower dependent. Therefore, something must be added to the method that would increase the overall effectiveness of an attack, besides multiplying the number of locations targeted.

There is ample evidence that some use of a toxic material would place high on the Islamist’s list of weapons. Whether it would be the organic toxin ricin, an industrial poison such as Osmium, or a nerve and/or blister agent such as Saddam’s Iraq once had in quantity and that is now unaccounted for.

Any of these would create large numbers of casualties, especially heavy among young children, as well as making the area of such an attack unusable for a very lengthy period.

Timing is a critical consideration, as the Islamists would want to pick a time that presented the maximum exposure… so you should ask yourself what is the busiest shopping period after the November elections?

But all this is simply informed conjecture… and timing depends heavily upon the outcome of the election. If Bush wins reelection, the strikes must come soon afterwards to demonstrate the power of the Islamists to do more than simply talk. If Kerry wins, then the timing is most advantageously shifted to the period around inauguration so as to maximize the disruption always present during a transitional period. The determination of our political geography will shape this long promised Islamist campaign.

One thing I’d like you all to keep in mind… in the aftermath of such an attack, the next inevitable Left-driven media campaign seeking to entreat us into ‘moving on’ must be treated with the utter disdain and contempt it truly merits."

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"Masculine republics give way to feminine democracies, and feminine democracies give way to tyranny." -- Aristotle

"History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it." -- Walter Bagehot, "Physics and Politics", 1872