Suicide bombers could strike in U.S.

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.

"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."

"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."

So you are advocating vigilanteism?

That is an afront to the constitution, by the way. I'm no supporter of palestinian wackos as everyone here knows, but vigilanteism is the PROBLEM with their culture; why become like them? The whole Middle east is fouled by their primitive vigilante culture, mob-rule/gangleader politics, and tribal factionalism.

This country is about the rule of LAW, not the rule of mobs and men. If you think the politicians are too lax in that arena, or the judges not doing their jobs, or legal organizations are too corrupt, there are ways to deal with those. The blame lies with the folks that were elected and the lack of responsibility of Americans who have handed ever more of their power over to government. Retrieve your kids from government schools and teach them about real patriotism and what it is to be honorable.

If you catch a bomber on a plane, and do something that is one thing, and a good thing if you do. Kill the guy if there is no way to mistake him for the wrong person, and it is a case of obvious self defense. But if a bombing occurs, and you just go out on the town to get even or to destroy a mosque, then you become a terrorist yourself, absolutely no different from the terrorists you hate. You WILL be convicted like the moron in Texas who killed a man who was of Indian extraction, because he THOUGHT he looked middle eastern. And I would vote for the death penalty against that idiot 'fake patriot' in a heartbeat, and against anyone who killed some muslim while out playing vigilante.

But targetting a mosque for what one guy does is no different from bigotted Arabs over in France burning down synagogues. We have a constitution to prevent such nonsense. Many of us are Christian and while we are justified in self defense, we are forbiddent to exact vengeance. Vengeance beliongs to God and he authorizes government to act as an avenger- not undeputized citizens. If citizens are not satisfied with the government response, then the voting booth is where you deal with it, or the courts. Until all legal methods have been exhausted and all alternatives explored, there is no excuse for people to take the law into their own hands.

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