Interesting post Amazing. I see you have given this some careful thought and are trying to be reasonable however while I agree with a lot of what you said, I have a different viewpoint on some things.
First, you are right about the media’s love of sensationalism. They have actually played right into the hands of the terrorists with both the air travel issues and the bio-terrorism. Still, sensationalist or not, they occasionally provide useful information as in times of war the governments only provide disinformation. Thus, you have to really filter through a lot of stories to find useful information.
Having some interest in the subject of technological terrorism, I tend to think that at this point we don’t know if all our nuclear plants can withstand a direct hit from a large airliner. I watched that test on TV a week or so ago (I think it was 60 Minutes) about the jet fighter crash test, and I don’t think it is impossible that a large airliner could cause catastrophic damage. Some experts agree with me.
Regardless, I don’t think that we really have to worry about this happening because the element of surprise has been taken away from terrorists for hijacking planes. Yes, there are occasional security breaches but there is too much attention right now on airport security for the terrorists to make any risk free moves in that direction. Perhaps in time, when the attention to security again wanes, it might be worth it for them to try.
However, the real vulnerability from terrorism is still here but it will most likely come from different angles than you presented. Also, the ability to carry out these new types of attacks will likely be dependent upon both getting safe transport into the USA and being able to smuggle dangerous weaponry into the country.
For example, Stinger surface to air missiles are already known to be in the hands of several “rouge” nations including Afghanistan. If they managed to get a dozen or so into this country, our airliners are sitting ducks. There goes the airline industry down the tubes when that happens and the only real protection then will be to have a large security zone around airports (impossible for most city airports) and air travel will suffer incredibly. Note, that the planes can of course be flying an still be vulnerable to SAMS, note what happened over in the Ukraine a few weeks ago when an accidental launch of a SAM brought down a distant airliner.
I fully expect them to try to bring these weapons into the USA, perhaps they are already here and are waiting for the right time to maximize their psychological impact.
The second line of attack I expect to see is from a new type of weapon called NN-EMP. This is an explosive powered electronic device a small as a briefcase that can destroy anything with electronics in it for a city block. These weapons already exist and are very easy to make and incredibly cheap. Typically, these won’t kill people unless they have vital electronics inside their body (like a pacemaker) but they can do enormous damage to computers, by wiping out memory and actually destroying the computers as well. Potential targets include Wall Street, and other financial centers, also nuclear power plants, none of which are shielded and jet planes that are either taking off or landing at airports. They have a short range and unless mounted on a missile, cannot hit high altitude targets.
Further attacks that are even more deadly and well within the capabilities of terrorists include creating enormous destruction by blowing up natural gas tankers at ports in cities possibly kill thousands of people, and attacking oil refineries in the USA. The later will not really have that much of a death toll, but it would send gasoline prices soaring.
The entire electrical grid of the USA is extremely vulnerable to long term disruption by selecting the right targets with an ordinary high powered rifle, and potentially could knock out large sections of electrical power for months in some parts of the country. Of course the Alaska pipeline was shown to be very vulnerable a few weeks ago when a drunk shot it with a rifle, causing nearly a 250,000-gallon oil spill. I could keep going on but I think you get the picture. We are at war, and even though this enemy looks primitive and rides horses they are not stupid, as they already demonstrated on September 11th, crazy yes, stupid no.
I think if American’s think this war is going to go away in a few months and everything is going to be just fine and dandy, that is simply magical thinking. You are right though about panic and over reacting by the public. It doesn’t help a bit and worsens a bad situation already.
Finally, a thought about us winning the war: We might be able to pretend we won this war but this is also magical thinking. Terrorism will not stop now it will only escalate. The only way to guarantee that it would never start again is by killing every one of those radical extremists who now hate the USA with a passion and are willing to die for their beliefs. Some military experts are doubting that we will even be able to knock of Ben Ladin, regardless, if we did get him, there are many more willing to take his place. I think that the simplistic solution that we are using is going to backfire and only create more enemies for us. Still, that is the course we have taken and we are going to find out before long if it was the right thing to do or not.
Skipper
