I teach in an inner city high school. Folks have no idea the depth of the anger and the simmering, lasting hatred that exists in the black community. It is literally held in check by the power of the Holy Spirit. Fortunately the Body of Christ is a powerful force in the lives of most adult black folks. Perhaps my perception is skewed by the fact that the school in which I teach is mostly Haitian and that group tends to be even more religious.
Returning to your point. I think you're spot on, for the scenario which you've posed. A few well placed agitators and the cooperation (unwitting) of a nervous police force....The only thing is that the agitators can not be Middle Eastern or islamic. That would be so obvious that it would fizzle.
OTOH, I also think that your scenario is too ummmmm sophisticated for the enemy we face. It's too tame given the profile of the terrorist as they have presented themselves. Their history (not just recent, but back to the Crusades) is straight up brutal violence. 911 was anything but subtle. It was not designed to be a long term event, either.
Even what is happening in Iraq, although it is a destabilizing effort, is not using the general populace for anything but shielding and maybe a cheering section. Those are still fighters waging an insurgents war. Fighters who came across the Iraq border it shares with other nations. Wait a second, JM? Might there be a parallel here?
Thousands of fighters burrowed into our countryside, concentrated in the desert southwest but conceivably waiting for another main force attack similar to 911? Then they start insurgent operations right here, thus linking into SCR1's scenario? Judicial meanz? What do you think?
Remember that this would yet be only another facet of what we are facing. Combined with Iraq and Afghanistan depoyments I can understand the dire warnings. Picture massive violent riots in major cities at one time. What if we decide to take on Iran and North Korea soon?
Could an 'insurgency' be created in America that would destabilize this country? Certainly we are polarized enough for something bad to happen. I think there are several groups in this country that are waiting for an excuse to go postal.
The best example is the March Al Sadr uprising in Baghdad, where large street protests began peacefully and then turned into an organized guerilla warfare front. Najaf was similar.
The protests basically allowed the guerillas to cross the area of vulnerability and gain strategic positions so they could emplace weapons and consolidate territory gains.
They were later bombed into the stone age, but the tactics they used were solid.
Combine these tactics with thousands of people who have been to prison and converted to Islam , deep hatred of America, and some knowledge of tactics, and it could be the beginning of a logistics and intelligence network. Add a few ME infiltrators who are dedicated to insurrection, and we would have a problem.
WOW and we think we have problems...
Saturday, September 18, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
Chechen rationalizes attacks; Putin criticizes West
By David Holley
Los Angeles Times
Warlord Shamil Basayev vows to keep fighting.
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin and the most radical of Chechnya's separatist rebel leaders issued threats yesterday that appeared to signal a deepening of their struggle.
Chechen guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev issued a statement in which he took responsibility for a series of recent attacks, coldly listed how much they cost, and tried to justify the most recent one — a bloody school takeover in the southern Russian town of Beslan — by comparing it to the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II.
"We will fight as we know how and in accordance with our rules. We have no big choice. They offered war to us, and we will fight it until victory," Basayev declared. The fiercely worded statement was posted on a rebel-linked Web site and appeared to be genuine, although there was no way to verify it.
Putin, reiterating warnings by lower officials, implied that pre-emptive attacks on terrorist bases abroad might be launched soon.
"We in Russia are engaged in serious preparations at the moment to act against terrorists in a preventive manner," he told an international meeting of mayors. "These steps will proceed in strict compliance with the law, constitutional standards and the principles of international law. ... The frontline of this war thrust upon us may run through each street and each house. There is no rear or neutral zone in this war."
Putin also accused the West of "double standards in the attitude toward terrorism," an apparent reference to Western calls for Russia to find a political solution in Chechnya, as well as the granting of asylum by the United States and Britain to figures from the more moderate wing of the Chechen separatists.
"There continue to be attempts to divide terrorists into 'ours' and 'others,' into 'moderates' and 'radicals,' " he said. "By no means should one assume that by indulging terrorists we will gain something, that they will leave us alone. A patronizing and indulgent attitude to the murderers amounts to complicity in terror."
Chechens exercised self-rule in their Caucasus republic after defeating Russian troops in a 1994-96 war. Russian forces returned in 1999 after a series of apartment bombings blamed on Chechen separatists.
Basayev also lashed out at international criticism. "Today, when the whole world 'with outrage' demands that we stop, we find this ridiculous and ask: 'What have you done for us that we obey you?' " he wrote. "We ask George Bush: 'Was the nuclear bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a barbaric and brutal act, and how many children were killed there?' "
In perhaps the most chilling and caustic part of Basayev's statement, he took responsibility for other recent attacks. Basayev described the Aug. 24 suicide bombings of two airliners, killing all 90 on board, and another suicide bombing a week later that killed 10 bystanders near a Moscow subway station, as a protest against the Aug. 29 election of Kremlin-backed Alu Alkhanov as Chechen president: "That was us casting our votes ... for the Kremlin's wimp No. 1 from Chechnya, Alkhanov."
Basayev described the school takeover in Beslan as the "North-West operation," drawing a parallel to the October 2002 siege of a Moscow theater at which the musical "North-East" was being performed. That standoff, also seen as linked to Basayev, ended with 129 hostages' deaths.
"The plane blasts cost me $4,000 ... and the North-West operation 8,000 euros [$9,700]," Basayev said. "The weapons, vehicle and explosives which were used — all spoils of war. We only had to pay for food and equipment."
While acknowledging that two of the militants who seized the Beslan school were Arab mercenaries, Basayev dismissed Russian assertions that his activities are financed by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
"I am not acquainted with bin Laden," Basayev said. "I have never received money from him but I would never refuse such money. This year I received from abroad only $18,000."
He added sarcastically, "My main financial source is the Russian budget."
Basayev also sought to cast the school attack as rightful vengeance for alleged Russian atrocities in Chechnya.
"We regret what happened in Beslan. It's simply that the war, which Putin declared on us five years ago, which has destroyed more than 40,000 Chechen children and crippled more than 5,000 of them, has gone back to where it started from," he wrote.
Casualty figures in Chechnya vary widely, though many estimates say about 80,000 civilians — 40 percent of them children — died in the first Chechen war. Countless more have been killed since the conflict exploded again in 1999.
Vladimir Kolesnikov, a deputy prosecutor in the Russian prosecutor general's office, reacted angrily, telling the Russian news agency Interfax: "When are we going to respect ourselves and stop publishing any rubbish by those scoundrels and subhumans? I am ashamed and disgusted to comment on their evil deeds and asinine tall tales."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002039154_russia18.html