A careful study of Osama bin Laden’s videos, letters and Internet statements makes clear that Al Qaeda’s goal is more than to terrorize Americans or to drive us out of the Middle East. Bin Laden believes that Al Qaeda can bring about the economic collapse of the United States — and to achieve this goal, he has adopted a strategy of targeting America’s financial centers and economic infrastructure.
[…]
But the terrorists don’t have to be right to be emboldened. Clearly the daily news reports of our economic turmoil feed into Bin Laden’s deep-seated belief that America is teetering on the economic brink — and that with one big push, we can be forced into collapse. The financial crisis can only be serving to convince Al Qaeda that the time to strike America is now.
[…]
The lack of another catastrophic attack on the United States, combined with the massive defeat terrorists have suffered in Iraq, sends a message to the Muslim world that Al Qaeda is losing its war with America. The terrorists need to pull off something spectacular to prove that they are still a force and a threat. Al Qaeda’s growing desperation to strike America, and our perceived growing vulnerability, are a dangerous combination.
Who knows? They will attack when they can finds holes in our armor. They haven’t found any worth exploiting since 9/11. Only time will tell if we develop more holes for them to exploit.
FTA: “The lack of another catastrophic attack on the United States, combined with the massive defeat terrorists have suffered in Iraq, sends a message to the Muslim world that Al Qaeda is losing its war with America.”
Who is this author? Doesn’t he know that George Bush is the worst president ever and we are losing on all fronts of the war?
# 2 Robart said, “Doesn’t he know that George Bush is the worst president ever and we are losing on all fronts of the war?”
Except for the front that is inside our country. We’ll see if the Omama admin can at least keep that front safe…
It’s worth noting that the AQ squad seems to hit every seven or eight years, in order to minimize their exposure and maximize their impact. The ‘success’ of the Bush administration is probably more a result of timing rather than anything that they did; the attack was simply not on schedule.
Besides, why perturb the system further when the 9/11 attacks were so perfectly successful in getting us to cast ourselves onto the spears of Iraq and Afghanistan, which have gored so many empires before us? We’ve been dutifully doing everything they want for years, why mess with a success?
# 4 Li said, “It’s worth noting that the AQ squad seems to hit every seven or eight years,”
Umm. No. AQ attacks occur around the world on a weekly basis. They hit where and when they can. Nice try though. As long as Omama keeps up the anti terror policies it’ll work. If he unwisely changes them it might create an opening… I certainly hope he not stupid enough to listen to some of those on the far left like Pelosi…
There he is, a little to the left and below the center. Let’s go get ’em!
Armor?
With an open boarder with Mexico? With tens of thousands of kilos of illegal drugs entering the country every year? Really, armor you say?
# 7 father time said, “Armor?”
Enough to have stopped subsequent attacks. Reality sucks. If Omama makes changes to the successful defense and AQ scores a major hit on US soil, his Presidency is over. Period.
Paddy, did you read what I said? We have an open boarder with the south, an tens of thousands of kilos of drugs are smuggled into the country every year from all over the world (including opium from Pakistan or Afganistan). And you claim we have been protected? Are you unable to connect thoughts? Spelling errors not intential.
# 9 father time said, “did you read what I said? We have an open boarder with the south, an tens of thousands of kilos of drugs are smuggled into the country every year from all over the world ”
You seem not to know the difference between drugs and terrorists with bombs. Do you know how many ME terrorists have ended their trip as corpses in Mexico? You didn’t know that drug cartels get concessions from the CIA to kill these guys?
You sound like a naive liberal…
As I understand it, there has been an ongoing debate within Al Qaeda on whether to attack the US or not.
Al Qaeda didn’t anticipate the trouble they got into after 911, (and yes, they have been hurt badly), and they have to consider that leaving the US alone may be a better policy.
After all, put yourselves in Bin Laden’s place and as yourself this question. Is Al Qaeda better and stronger now, or before 911?
Sometimes it’s better to NOT kick the junk yard dog!
Whether Bush kept us safe as the result of AQ timing attacks every few years or whether the Patriot Act (the loss of your rights act) and him taking the fight to their region of the world remains to be seen.
Obomba has at least kept his word on one thing, he said he would go into Pakistan and he did it his first week killing women and children. I know that with everything he has lied about in the last four weeks it was easy to overlook but it’s the one thing he hasn’t liked about.
Worst economy since the Carter administration.
# 12 Mr Diesel said, “Whether Bush kept us safe as the result of AQ timing attacks every few years or whether the Patriot Act (the loss of your rights act) and him taking the fight to their region of the world remains to be seen.”
Actually, we weren’t attacked again. So there is nothing more to be seen as Bush is gone. What “remains to be seen” is if Obama can maintain that record…
#13
Good point
Regardless what I sound like, you are a partisan hack who can’t reason. Not everything comes from Mexico, it is one of many openings in the armor that apparently feels like a warm bussom to you, but leaves me feeling cold like all political attention grabbing big talk that yields money spent with dubious results.
If we were secure, then illegal drugs also would not enter the country.
Fearmongering, that’s all this is. Sounds to me like somebody somewhere wants to make sure the crisis doesn’t hurt the defense budget.
6 years of the war on terror should have greatly reduced Al Qaeda’s capacity to organize attacks. If not it’s obvious that this problem doesn’t require a military solution.
# 15 father time said, “If we were secure, then illegal drugs also would not enter the country.”
LOL! You ARE a naive lib.
Bin Laden invested $10,000 on plane tickets and Bush took it from there. Not too bad for a $10K investment….
> Trillion dollar elective war on Iraq
> 4,245 dead soldiers
> 35,000 maimed and burden cost to society
> Untold billions on opportunity cost
For Bin Laden, the Bush/Cheney fiasco could not have been a better set of circumstances.
Osama bin Laden doesn’t need to do a thing, we are destroying ourselves from within. The collapse of our economic system was self-inflicted by greed. We’re like a bunch of rats, when they don’t have enough food they start eating each other.
I think that you are naive to think that ‘security’ is even possible in this world. And I think that is Father Time’s point; hell, we can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, how are we supposed to stop an exploding man? The best thing to do would be to continue to use -best practices- to help stop or interrupt attacks. We could have easily stopped the 9/11 attacks using the practices in place under Clinton, but Cheney had to aggrandize power unto himself in regard to fighter escort orders, and the resulting lag in response (along with confusion regarding the NORAD exercises going on that day) allowed the attack to largely succeed.
Oh, and the whole “Not attacked again under Bush” thing is a lie. What about the Anthrax attacks (though that seems to have been more of an internal plot), or the sniper attacks, or the very successful use of our irrational belligerency against us? AQ had an endless series of successes under Bush, from successful attacks, to successfully dragging the bulk of the US military into two quagmires, to expanding their range into Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. And, of course, most of the leadership is still operational. Well, besides that ubiquitous “#2” who we killed, what, 15 times?
Blowing up Washington DC with a nuke may be hard to do but getting across the border from Mexico on foot seems to work 9 out of ten times.
A couple of guys packing in semiautomatic weapons can then steal transport and go just about anywhere, break into a school and have a lot of fun killing western Godless demons spawn until somebody shows up who is both armed and can hit the broad side of semi and thus can reasonably be expected to take them down.
At best it’s going to take 15 or more minutes for the our good guys to show up during which time our version of the bad guys should be able to unload a few hundred rounds with no more trouble than drowning boxes of baby chicks.
After which point in time everybody in this country is going to freak out and demand an army be stationed at every school with security that would to credit to your typical high security prison.
Most schools either have what amounts to no security against somebody with a brain who came prepared or an old guy with a hand gun they just about know how to fire who either is going to run or die real fast.
Just sharing my personal nightmare.
Of course 19 may have point. “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Most of what I see coming out of Washington suggests the people in charge have been promoted to positions that are well above their level of competence.
If anyone actually thinks the people who voted for that last spending bill had more than a very vague idea of what they voted for they are nuts.
“Most of what I see coming out of Washington suggests the people in charge have been promoted to positions that are well above their level of competence.”
Well said, Deowll.
Actually, I think an AQ attack will be a repeat of Dec 07, 1941.
Imperial Japan thought that a good hit against the US would break us and allow them to rule unhindered over Asia and the western Pacific. At the time we were weakened by a severe depression and an outdated military.
I find that the our enemies harm themselves more when they underestimate us, or fail to recognize our ability to reinvent ourselves.
An AQ attack would be their death sentence, not ours.
Indeed, they could hit us with 10,000 9/11’s, and we would still suffer far fewer casualties per-capita then Russia did during WWII.
The thought that another attack would be the end of everything is a unique delusion that our leaders have embraced. It says more about their cowardice and dislike of our constitutional system than it says about the character of the American people.
# 20 Li said, “We could have easily stopped the 9/11 attacks using the practices in place under Clinton,”
Obviously not. The guys came in under Clinton’s watch & the practices hadn’t yet changed when they struck on 9/11.
Other than being totally wrong, good point.
# 21 deowll
If you knew more about the 1st sentence that you typed, you wouldn’t sleep at night, ever again.
Well, besides that ubiquitous “#2″ who we killed, what, 15 times?
That #2 is like the Oldest Person on Earth…they keep dying. What’s the deal with that, anyway?
How come we don’t see the threat level so much these days? That’s all I care about…when it gets to orange I’ll start paying attention again.
The worst terrorist attack in U.S. history took place while George W. Bush was president. He didn’t have a clue it was coming. Not much of a protector.
#25 Two words, Paddy-0; “Millennium plot.” Google it. I don’t care if we have a thousand extra nutters in the country, it will only raise the nutter/sane ratio very slightly, what I care about is whether they accomplish their objectives. Clinton’s record on this matter was far better than Bush’s.
# 28 Canucklehead said, “The worst terrorist attack in U.S. history took place while George W. Bush was president.”
Exactly. He wasn’t quick enough to realize that the Clinton policies left us open to attack. Just as Obama isn’t smart enough to realize that huge deficit spending of the Bush years caused financial woes…