One of the shibboleths of the now re-branded "War on Terror" was the phrase "cowardly suicide attack". A roadside bomb can be termed "cowardly" since it's objective is to avoid direct engagement with the enemy, but by the same token so can an artillery fire mission. Anything where you intend to put your ass on the line involves at the very least determination or delusion if not actual courage. Your garden-variety AQ shaheed falls into the "deluded" category here, and given what AQ stands for I can only hope that they all get the death that they love so much, though not they way they're hoping to.
A contributing factor to this post was a show ("Silent Warriors") that I saw part of yesterday. It involved an AK-47 attack which killed two CIA agents in traffic in Langley in 1993. The perp was a Pakistani who shot the agents, but spared the wife of one of them who was in the car. The guy was eventually run to ground in Pakistan in '97, and executed in 2002. The agents got their stars on the wall at Langley, and the widow got payback on the man who spared her life. Hmm, doesn't sound very good like that, but still technically correct.
So what, you ask? Standard disgruntled-Muslim attack, albeit before it was really fashionable, but I found that I could identify with the attacker's method, if not his motive. First, he used a gun, not a bomb, and he did it in public in daylight. He shot the men he was after, and no one else. No car bomb in the market, suicide vest on the train, he had a military target and he hit that and only that. Say whatever you want about who's side they're on (and who really knows with the CIA anyway?), but a CIA agent is as legitimate a target for upset foreigners as you can get. Ditto the suicide attack a couple of months ago in Afghanistan that killed the CIA drone crew. The bomber hit a military target, and got it because of his determination and slack security on the post.
I am not of course advocating open season on the CIA. I am merely pointing out that enemy action against military/intelligence targets is exactly that, enemy action, NOT a terror attack. 9/11, 7/7 and Madrid were terror attacks; the attack on the USS Cole and the truck bomb that hit the US Marines' barracks in Beirut in 1982 were not. Do you hunt the planners down and kill them with extreme prejudice? Most certainly, as you can't make them think that their human cruise missiles are the only ones who will pay for hurting us. In this case at least I would make sure to execute them quickly and cleanly; that's MY "due process" for our mortal enemies.
Tarring everything that's done to attack us as a "terror" attack is stupid and plays into the opposition's hands by paralyzing us. Most terror attacks are headed off by Int and law enforcement agencies, and most of the rest are so incompetently executed (I'm looking at you, Abdulmutallab) that they are almost funny. In fact they are funny, to me, when the only ones they hurt are the shitheads who think it's a good idea to kill Westerners just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Burning to death or losing your 'nads (you again, Umar) sounds about right to me, as I lack confidence in a Hereafter that will give these clowns their proper reward.
It does us no credit to spew panicky "terror" crap every time someone gets the drop on us. There must be a tit for their tat, but (the disproportionate "tat" I'd prefer aside) some professionalism is called for from the talking heads. I'd like to see stuff along the lines of "Yes, we lost some good people, but rest assured that the planners won't get away with it." Of course Dubya said that about Bin Laden nine years ago and we don't have his head in a box on the steps of the US Embassy in Pakistan yet. Oh well; the reward is still up, $US 27M I think, so if he's alive (which I personally doubt on the balance of evidence) it could still happen. Hell, the head-in-a-box scenario still works if he's dead...
3 comments:
The Abdulmutallab incident was comedic but had a fantastic return on investment. He was "contacted, recruited, and trained in just six weeks...".
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0310/Internet-aids-terrorist-recruiting-radicalization-Pentagon-says
Negligible cost of that relative to the cost of the response and inconvenience to travelers (time is money...).
The novel feature of this attack is that you don't have to die to create chaos; should improve recruitment yield. Imagine a group of, say 100 people go in to airports around the world and simultaneously do something alarming. what would the reaction to that be?
It's indicative of how reflexively terrorized we are that a badly executed *unsuccessful* attack can provoke a massive social autoimmune response doing so much more damage than the attack itself.
This begs the question "would seven weeks of training have enabled him to pull it off?". The payoff of a successful attack may actually have been less; if nobody knew exactly what happened would we still have the (near useless) naked scanners?
"would seven weeks of training have enabled him to pull it off?"
His assumed goal was to take down the plane. But a broader and much more achievable goal is to cause disruption. He certainly pulled that off quite nicely; massive expense, huge disruption of air travel, further erosion of civil liberties. Pretty good for six weeks! Maybe the seventh week of training was on how to do it without having so many jokes made about you...
Best name I hear for him was "The UndaBomber"
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