Terrorist Triage
"I want people to understand what the real threat is and what's a bunch of bull," Sheehan told me when I tracked him down a few days ago in one of those Middle Eastern hotel lobbies where you sip orange juice and lemonade at cocktail time. (He asked me not to say where, precisely, since the government he's now advising on policing and terrorism puts a high premium on discretion.)
Before September 11, said Sheehan, the United States was "asleep at the switch" while Al Qaeda was barreling down the track. "If you don't pay attention to these guys," said Sheehan, "they will kill you in big numbers." So bin Laden's minions hit U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, they hit the Cole in 2000, and they hit New York and Washington in 2001—three major attacks on American targets in the space of 37 months. Since then, not one. And not for want of trying on their part.
What changed? The difference is purely and simply that intelligence agencies, law enforcement and the military have focused their attention on the threat, crushed the operational cells they could find—which were in fact the key ones plotting and executing major attacks—and put enormous pressure on all the rest.
"I reject the notion that Al Qaeda is waiting for 'the big one' or holding back an attack," Sheehan writes. "A terrorist cell capable of attacking doesn't sit and wait for some more opportune moment. It's not their style, nor is it in the best interest of their operational security. Delaying an attack gives law enforcement more time to detect a plot or penetrate the organization."
Terrorism is not about standing armies, mass movements, riots in the streets or even palace coups. It's about tiny groups that want to make a big bang. So you keep tracking cells and potential cells, and when you find them you destroy them. After Spanish police cornered leading members of the group that attacked trains in Madrid in 2004, they blew themselves up. The threat in Spain declined dramatically.
Indonesia is another case Sheehan and I talked about. Several high-profile associates of bin Laden were nailed there in the two years after 9/11, then sent off to secret CIA prisons for interrogation. The suspects are now at Guantánamo. But suicide bombings continued until police using forensic evidence—pieces of car bombs and pieces of the suicide bombers—tracked down Dr. Azahari bin Husin, "the Demolition Man," and the little group around him. In a November 2005 shootout the cops killed Dr. Azahari and crushed his cell. After that such attacks in Indonesia stopped.
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Member Comments
Posted By: cadercader @ 05/15/2008 4:59:18 PM
Comment: Comment: The sixty-years' -celebration.
What is there to celebrate ??
the 6 wars ??
the 4 million refugees ??
the 3 million occupied ??
the 1,5 million abducted-hostages ??
the 254 km of an Apartheid- Wall ??
the 562 humiliation- check-points ??
the 20.000 Political-prisoners ??
468.831 new settlers on an occupied land ??
the disappearance of Palestine ??
the denial of any human-rights ,
any national-rights
any historical-rights ,
any political-rights to the Palestinians ??
the import of 4 million impostors
into a stolen land, that was never theirs ??
60 years of misery ,
of deprivation and or ethnic-cleansing ??
what are they celebrating ??
the event of a one United Nation Resolution
which was not anyhow binding , which allowed them to stay
or
the refusal of about 40 other resolutions
which were indeed binding ,
but asking them to leave ??
what are they celebrating ??
the massacres of
Deir Yasssin ,
Sabra and Chatilla ,
Jennin and Gaza ??
Who else but criminals celebrate a crime ??
60 Years of a constantly revolving crime ,
is no reason to a celebration
but rather a reason to be ashamed
and to repent .
60 Years ago ,
we were farmers , teachers, workers ,
shop-keepers, carpenters , drivers and poets....... ..
now they made 'Terrorists ' out of us.
But at least , we the 'terrorist' are fighting against a crime
while those blue-eyed-Zionists are ,themselves , the crime ,
that 60 years old Crime !
Posted By: Calamad @ 05/09/2008 8:34:50 AM
Comment: Al- Qaeda is indeeed a booming business here in Turkey,although its activities run counter to the state,s policies and interests.But then there has been thr British connection which is both extensive and verifiable:but who is there to listen and after that have the imagination to see and believe?
Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 05/08/2008 3:39:38 PM
Comment: But they are nations. And both were infinately more destructive to the world than is Iraq. Indeed,WWII remains the worlds most devasating conflict,of which the American military was given an amazingly,and successful,free rein by their governments to engage in nation-building. Thus there is precedent for this condition for the use of solider-diplomats/politcians. You forget that terrorism relies upon an umbrella of apparatuses that add to their successes,that must be confronted by agencies much more cohesive than police forces alone. Thus it is not simply a matter of neatly excising a singular terrorist leader[as MOSSAD can instantly tell you],but a warren of terrorist training facilities,camps,cell and network safehouses,international funding sources,and the effects of what occurs,as in Lebanon right now,when terrorist organizations move to absorb entire nations.
Even the casual reader of my above list can instantly pick out areas most in tune with ''police/intelligence'' work,even at a gumshoe level,and where armies must decide contests.[Then too,it does not help in the efforts of such intel and ''good police work'',when such efforts are splashed all over the front pages of the New York Times,as they were in 2006 in totally blowing the SWIFT banking program which was critical in tracing where terrorist funding originated,and where it ended up.Terrorists read the Times too].Make no mistake. Armies will not crack cell locations in individual European and American cities,and cops,will be helpless in dealing with terrorist organizations large enough to organize themselves,like HEZBOLLAH and ISLAMIC JIHAD,and TALIBAN ,into army level brigades and battalions complete with anti-air,armour and heavy weapons assets. If Basra was so ''pathetic'',then why is it is Iraqi hands?[including the entirety of its critical ports and oil loading systems]. How could the Iraqi Army do in two weeks what the British Army could not do in four years? [and where did this poor showing fit in the the smashing defeat of the Labour liberals by the conservatives last week in Britain]? Why has JAM jammed itself into its last redoubt in all of Iraq,that of Sadr City, where it is being destroyed as we speak? What good would your ''cops''be stacked up against the likes of these?
You would have had a point thirty years ago,when we were only talking Euro BAADER-MEINHOFS,RED BRIGADES,and American SLAers. No longer. The petro-dollar rich Middle East has the power to craft terrorist organizations into standing armies that would rival those of several democracies. In such an environment tandem,effective strategies involving both uses of power ,law enforcement and military,must be crafted to confront these. If ''only military solutions''will not work,you can depend upon it that ''only law enforcement''[as Clinton found to his dismay],or only ''political''solutions [as Carter is finding to his],will not work either.