The Barney Fifes Think the Terrorists Are As Dumb As They Are

As I wrote here, the NYPD is trying to get the authority to disrupt cell phone communications whenever they feel like it. That shows a serious hole in the thinking of the NYPD, which is that the terrorists are (a) common criminals; and (b) as stupid as a common criminal.

That is a serious mistake; nay, nearly criminally negligent.

First off, the continental United States is as difficult a target for al Qaeda as is North Waziristan for the U.S. There is not another high-value target for al Qaeda that is as far away or as difficult to operate in as the U.S. for them. Finding operatives who could enter and move within the U.S. without attracting attention is far more difficult now. Putting together a strike team of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Chechens who are all fluent in accent-free American-style English is not an easy task.

Second, mounting a Mumbai-style attack would be logistically difficult. Regardless of what the gun-control fans might proclaim, fully-automatic weapons are not that easy to obtain. They would have to be smuggled in, which gives more chances for detection. A sea-based attack, while possible, involves an ocean crossing at its shortest and, if the attack is mounted from Pakistan, they have to sail more than half-way around the world without attracting the notice of any authorities.

Third, and far more importantly, al Qaeda, when it does try to hit the U.S., seems to always try for new methods. They do not repeat an attack methodology. To my knowledge, they have not tried a truck bomb in the U.S. since they hit the World Trade Center in 1993. They have not tried to use an airplane as a weapon since 2001. They have not repeated the shoe-bomb method since that failed.

That does not mean that it is entirely worthless to develop plans to couner a Mumbai-style attack. There are a lot of copycat terrorists out there; you need only look at the Oklahoma City bombing (carried out by white native-born Christian Americans, lest you have forgotten). Neo-Nazi/white supremacist groups would be likely to be interested in a commando-style attack, though fortunately, most of those groups are better at running their mouths and posting hate-filled screeds on their websites than actually doing anything.

If or when al Qaeda strikes again in the U.S., they will have identified a security weakness and developed an attack method that is not one that the security types will be ready for. They will, in all probability, not use cell phones to coordinate an attack in progress and they will not attack with groups of trained commandos.

If the threat is from al Qaeda, focusing on how to stop a Mumbai-style raid will be largely a waste of resources.