Originally posted by Eli
Not only that.
The goal is not to kill, but to terrorize. Until now people knew that not getting close to landmarks like the White House, the Empire State Building, etc will keep them safe.
But what if residential complexes start blowing up? Then almost everyone will be in danger.
Not only that.
The goal is not to kill, but to terrorize. Until now people knew that not getting close to landmarks like the White House, the Empire State Building, etc will keep them safe.
But what if residential complexes start blowing up? Then almost everyone will be in danger.
but i think that only works if they blow up a lot of residential complexes (note to eli - not all that many americans outside of largest metro areas live in even midrise complexes - in most areas "apartments" are in 2 or 3 story "garden apartment" complexes) And its apparently fairly difficult and costly for Al qaeeda to set up and maintain a cell in CONUS (continental US) In contrast to say Saudi or Morocco, and even more in contrst with the israeli situation, where Hamasniks can walk across the border. So theres a logic to focusing on high value, high visibility targets. If it was easy to do large numbers of smaller scale attacks AQ should have done those in the months following 9/11 - that would have been the time to overwhelm and demoralize us.
It may be that they didnt think it necessary then, and so didnt prepare for it - they predicted correctly that 9/11 alone would bring us to afghan, but they incorrectly predicted the shape of the Afghan war. Now they are attempting to rebuild and implement plan B - so it might included what you have mentioned, but OTOH it should be much harder to infiltrate and maintain cells in CONUS now than in late 2001. We have better border control now than then, and one assumes the FBI has heavily infiltrated the muslim communities where AQ types might look for cover. And the physical barriers are much greater - jersey walls around so many targets - here in DC not just the obvious govt buildings, but EVERY govt building, and all the museums as well. Granted they might get away with some midrise apartment complexes for a while, but i think the cost benefit wont look all that good for them.
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