Saturday, July 10, 2004
Waiting for the Next Shoe
Homeland Security tells us that there will be a major al-Qaida event soon. We have heard all this before, and yet one cannot help but believe that Bin Ladin and his associates will make a supreme effort to bring such an event off. There has been too great a hiatus — without something soon, we will find it hard to take them seriously any more.
Clearly, given their resources, and the small number of people they are evidently able to get into the United States, such an event, or series of coordinated events, will be difficult to successfully carry out. In spite of everyone's criticism of our intelligence services and Homeland security, they are probably more effective, more often, than we give them credit for. Since the opportunities of the opponent are so many and the gates to our country so many, this effectiveness is unlikely to be effective enough.
The main failure, the failure that is more likely than any other to contribute to another "Bin Ladin", will have been our failure to apprehend Bin Ladin and his major lieutenants, presumably living along the Afghan-Pakistani border. There is no doubt in my mind that the availability of the training and planning ground of Afghanistan was a major reason for the success of 9/11. Our invasion of Afghanistan greatly degraded this resource, but sadly it did not destroy it. Others have rightly pointed out that the worst effect of the Iraq War was that it diverted us from making a more effective effort in Afghanistan to complete the job. The border area is large and difficult to traverse, a large proportion of its people hate us, yet it is hard to believe that 100,000 American troops deployed the length of the border over the last two years could not have greatly increased our chances of eliminating this terror. I understand the difficulty of working with the Pakistanis, led by a general who could easily lose his life in a further anti-American reaction. But again, let us set our priorities where they belong, keep our focus, and do our best.
It is time now for all of us, the government, and the leaders of both parties to think through how we will respond to the next event, if it comes, and how our leaders will speak to the American people in its aftermath. The following very short list of what will have changed should be a start on thinking through this problem.
(1) Unlike 9/11, the event will not be unexpected.
(2) Unlike 9/11, we will be able to treat this event, or series of closely coordinated events, as an isolated episode, with little fear of subsequent or continuing attacks (such as we feared after 9/11).
(3) Past experience will allow us to focus more narrowly than in 9/11 on the recovery area in the immediate vicinity of the attacks and on the likely sources (including individuals) involved in them.
(4) Surmising that the attacks will again be against a major, internationally known target, we will then be able to focus more clearly on this kind of target, avoiding the shotgun approach of Homeland Security up to now.
Homeland Security tells us that there will be a major al-Qaida event soon. We have heard all this before, and yet one cannot help but believe that Bin Ladin and his associates will make a supreme effort to bring such an event off. There has been too great a hiatus — without something soon, we will find it hard to take them seriously any more.
Clearly, given their resources, and the small number of people they are evidently able to get into the United States, such an event, or series of coordinated events, will be difficult to successfully carry out. In spite of everyone's criticism of our intelligence services and Homeland security, they are probably more effective, more often, than we give them credit for. Since the opportunities of the opponent are so many and the gates to our country so many, this effectiveness is unlikely to be effective enough.
The main failure, the failure that is more likely than any other to contribute to another "Bin Ladin", will have been our failure to apprehend Bin Ladin and his major lieutenants, presumably living along the Afghan-Pakistani border. There is no doubt in my mind that the availability of the training and planning ground of Afghanistan was a major reason for the success of 9/11. Our invasion of Afghanistan greatly degraded this resource, but sadly it did not destroy it. Others have rightly pointed out that the worst effect of the Iraq War was that it diverted us from making a more effective effort in Afghanistan to complete the job. The border area is large and difficult to traverse, a large proportion of its people hate us, yet it is hard to believe that 100,000 American troops deployed the length of the border over the last two years could not have greatly increased our chances of eliminating this terror. I understand the difficulty of working with the Pakistanis, led by a general who could easily lose his life in a further anti-American reaction. But again, let us set our priorities where they belong, keep our focus, and do our best.
It is time now for all of us, the government, and the leaders of both parties to think through how we will respond to the next event, if it comes, and how our leaders will speak to the American people in its aftermath. The following very short list of what will have changed should be a start on thinking through this problem.
(1) Unlike 9/11, the event will not be unexpected.
(2) Unlike 9/11, we will be able to treat this event, or series of closely coordinated events, as an isolated episode, with little fear of subsequent or continuing attacks (such as we feared after 9/11).
(3) Past experience will allow us to focus more narrowly than in 9/11 on the recovery area in the immediate vicinity of the attacks and on the likely sources (including individuals) involved in them.
(4) Surmising that the attacks will again be against a major, internationally known target, we will then be able to focus more clearly on this kind of target, avoiding the shotgun approach of Homeland Security up to now.
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