Posted on 12/21/2008 9:25:52 PM PST by neverdem
A FEW days before the presidential election, the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, told a group of intelligence officials that the new administration could well be tested by a terrorist attack on the homeland in its first year in office. “The World Trade Center was attacked in the first year of President Clinton, and the second attack was in the first year of President Bush,” he said.
President-elect Barack Obama made a similar observation when he told “60 Minutes” that it was important to get a national security team in place “because transition periods are potentially times of vulnerability to a terrorist attack.” During the campaign, Joe Biden warned that “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”
Should we be worried? In fact, the probability of a Qaeda attack on the United States is vanishingly small, for the same reasons that for the past seven years the terrorist group has not been able to carry out one.
President Bush and his supporters have often ascribed the absence of a Qaeda attack on the United States to the Iraq war, which supposedly acted as “flypaper” for jihadist terrorists, so instead of fighting them in Boston, America has fought them in Baghdad. Other commentators have said that Al Qaeda is simply biding its time to equal or top 9/11.
The real reasons are more prosaic. First, the American Muslim community has rejected the Qaeda ideological virus. American Muslims have instead overwhelmingly signed up for...
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The incoming Obama administration has much to deal with, between managing two wars and the implosion of the financial system and car industry. But the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the United States in its early stages by Al Qaeda is close to zero.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That's a pretty bold claim this soon after Mumbai/Bombay.
The author is neglecting the greater likelihood of a “test” taking the form of some kind of aggressive act overseas. Not necessarily a direct attack on America but rather on American interests.
There hasn’t been an attack because we’ve thwarted them, not that there haven’t been attempts.
We don’t know what didn’t happen, that could have happened if our defenses had been less than they were.
Until American Muslims reject or reform Islam (neither likely) they have enough of the ideological virus that says infidels must be converted, subjugated or killed.
Al Qaeda is just one of many threats. Mumbai wasn't a Qaeda operation.
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Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it!
www.AnySoldier.com
There are also so many different terrorist organizations that already exist throughout the world as well as new terrorist organizations that are seriously being created at any given point in the future as well as at any given place in the future. Focusing on just one present terrorist organization while also ignoring all other present and future terrorist organizations doesn’t help to successfully end the ongoing WOT.
Liberal apologia for the lack of terrorist success in attacking America since 9-11 ....
Bergen’s logic: American muslims are too busy chasing the American dream... and there haven’t been any real or significant sleeper cells uncovered in the US ... yada yada
Remember his name- his ticket to the talking head circuit should be cancelled when history reveals his idiocy
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