Posted on 04/04/2002 8:44:13 PM PST by knak
Concern is mounting among U.S. officials and military experts that the suicide bombings increasingly being used by Palestinians against Israel could spread to other parts of the world, including the United States.
"We're very concerned about the violence in the Middle East having ramifications elsewhere, including in this country, and it's something we're certainly watchful about," said Susan Neely, chief spokeswoman for Tom Ridge's Office of Homeland Security.
Unlike large-scale terrorist operations, suicide bombings are almost impossible to prevent by security measures, she said. As a result, the "new level of intensity" of suicide bombings in recent weeks has spurred U.S. officials to shore up precautions by tracking potential terrorists and studying intelligence reports from around the country and beyond.
"One of the things you try to do is get a tip-off that somebody is going to do something before it happens, and you thwart that attack," Neely said.
Suicide attacks already hit the United States with the plane crashes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Now, military authorities are watching for smaller-scale attacks of the sort that are happening in Israel.
"Right now, our concern is to make sure we have a variety of mechanisms, both within the Department of Defense and other agencies, to hopefully prevent that from happening," said the Pentagon's Lt. Col. Rivers Johnson.
Ivo Daalder, a former official with the departments of Defense and State, says the planning is warranted.
"I think the United States, by being closely identified with Israel, may well turn out to be the next target, by blowing up Americans here at home or in the region," he said.
The worries among those involved with defense and security issues stem from three factors:
- Suicide bombings are easy and inexpensive to carry out, require little planning and are difficult to prevent.
- The use of this tactic has increased so rapidly in the past few weeks.
- In many ways, the campaign is succeeding.
"It's a very real concern, because we have more enemies than anyone else, and we have interests all over the world," said James Lindsay, director of the terrorism project at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
"I think the last few weeks in the Middle East suggest that we're actually losing ground in our battle against terrorism. What we've seen in the Palestinian conflict is that terrorism is becoming a mass movement."
Most alarming, Lindsay said: "They're winning. They feel the Israelis are on their heels."
Not only are the suicide bombers killing large numbers of Israelis, they're also inflicting fear on the population, creating doubts about the future and disrupting the normal pattern of life. They've also provoked a military response from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that has scuttled an Arab peace proposal that many of them oppose and have made their grievances the lead topic around much of the world.
Daalder said: "There is now widespread support not just in the Arab street but also in Arab governments about this as an approach to get Israel's attention. This has become an acceptable mode of behavior among Palestinian youth. In fact, it's one that's being actively encouraged now."
Ra'ana Gissin, a senior adviser to Sharon, said other countries are at risk.
"We are facing a new type of terrorism," he said. "If Israel is not successful in stopping it, it will spread around the world."
Some analysts downplayed the notion that suicide bombings stand apart from other types of terrorist attacks, pointing out that a terrorist could just as easily kill 15 or 20 or more people by walking into a hotel lobby with a machine gun and spraying bullets in all directions.
"My own impression is that this particular tactic of blowing yourself up isn't likely to spread," said Michael Scardaville, homeland security expert at the Heritage Foundation, another Washington think tank. "It takes a certain type of fanatical person to go ahead and do that."
Terrorists could easily "park a truck bomb outside a building, go get a cup of coffee across the street and watch it blow up," he said.
The real danger, said John Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is not that suicide bombings will spread to this country but rather that with the impact the attacks in Israel are having, terrorists will be emboldened, whatever their tactics.
But Brookings' Lindsay said that suicide bombings hold a particular attraction for those who deploy this method.
"In the West Bank, you could have a bomb in a satchel and throw it into a hotel lobby and run away, but they're not doing it, because the action has some social, cultural, religious and personal value," Lindsay said.
Suicide bombings also inflict a specific kind of anxiety and fear on the targeted nation, Daalder said, in part because there is no possible defense, as opposed to the chance, for instance, of an armed guard shooting a gunman.
"Yes, it could take a different form," he said. "You could drive cars over people or shoot people. But that's less dramatic than walking around and being a human bomb. It's the psychology of terror that is invoked by this."
Arafat is basically a hostage at this point. Definitely the most useful role he's ever had in the "peace process."
Terrorism is not to be condoned by either side . The life or injury of a Palestinian child by the gunfire of rampaging Sharonitas F16's, helicopters and tanks, is no less than that of an Israeli child killed or injured by a suicide bomb.
Sharon from the start of his administration said he would not make a settlement with the Palestinians--and he has held true to that statemnt and that is the biggest problem to a peace settlement, Sharon and his hardliners. And that is the gospel truth. He has made no valid steps toward peace..His cabinet minister Zeeni advocated the "voluntary expulsion"of all Palestinians and a frightening percentage of Israeli Jews seem to support that.There has been a poll taken and I don't remember the exact percentage, but i recal it was "huge"..that folks is advocating ethnic cleansing which the red cross has already termed as a war crime.
Rebellion against occupation is nothing new, we did it here in the US- maybe we were just dealing with a slightly more benevolent occupier in England.
Sending Colin Powell to try to make peace is an least a belated start instead of Pres. Bush just slinging cow chips at Arafat who has had his phone lines cut, the batteries go dead in his cell phone, and water and lights cut off.
Bush told us to sit down, control ourselves, knock off the hate speech and give honor to women of cover... puke. Then after making sure WE did not go vigilante on their asses here in the states, against the musli organizations and mosques who provided these creeps with cover for their dirty deeds, we went on a bombing campaign, NOT against the foreign supporters of these pukes... but against a set of bases they had set up in a "puppet regime" outside of their own national boundaries... This was done so they would not bear the brunt of their supporting hateful acts against america... and we have dumped TONS of high end ordnance on mountain caves, without an accurate body count, and NO one that I know in Saudy Arabia, the origin of the money and the actual bombers, has yet to be arrested and tried and hanged or beheaded for their collaboration.
Their state run newspaper however has run thousands upon thousands of words in articles explaining why Americans deserved what we got... and that they are hoping and investing their resources, material and political, to try and see that MORE of it rains death on us and our allies.
Still, no saudis are beheaded, arrested or tried for collaboration in murder. Here in the USA, I have only heard ONE musli, declare the evil of this event... ONE guy on the "savage nation", who I doubt is even a real musli.
The rest of them, give suport to the ongoing arguments about the evil america (where they live and work and worship freely) and issue their talking points against Israel and the USA, like drones to any who will listen.
America would not send them packing for using nail bombs here. We did not send them to their deaths for supporting the airline bombs... after all, what's a few nails between "friends?"
We are americans. We don't stand up and kill the killers. We reward them with concessions, peacetalks, land and appeasement. The fundamental element missing in our understanding of the muslim equation is... we think we can buy them off... and we cannot. THEY WANT US DEAD. Period.
Negotiating with them is the STUPIDIST thing ANY human being could do. WE are idiots to try and do so. NO state is large enough to contain the hate of their God. Their ONE GOD WHO HAS NO SON...
There can and will never be any peace with them. Never.
I dont remember us going to British cities and killing innocent men, women and children.
All of these events are because of Arafat and nobody else. Sharon and the Israelis didnt wake up a few days ago and say to themselves, "Hey, lets go invade the west bank and make life hell for those people for the fun of it!". They did it to stop the suicide bombers....and it has worked so far.
zero
suicide bombers
Shhh! You're not supposed to mention that.
It reminds me of the socialist writers who for years have argued against aggressive urban policing, saying either that it 1. wouldn't stop crime, or 2. locking up young hoodlums in prison would result in their becoming even angrier, more hardened criminals. Similarly, just last night, I heard on the news (CBS, I believe) that the Israeli offensive has resulted in the "Palestinian" populace hardening its heart even more against the Jews. I'd like Dan Rather to explain how a people trying to bring about genocide, can FURTHER harden its heart.
Brown and yellow, perhaps?
The borders are still pretty much wide open.
The non-citizen muslims and mosques are still here.
And the American people have been given no plans for civil defense or survival if and when we are attacked, NONE!
So, what are our enemies amongst us waiting for? The door is still wide open.
Bush is about to change the score. He doesn't think Israel is being fair to the terrorists.
You succinctly nailed the problem in a few short paragraphs.
I'm impressed.
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