On the Absence of Terrorist Attacks

It seems to me in the wake of two failed wars, wholesale legislative failure, Nixon-level approval ratings, an economy in cyclical recession, unprecedented depreciation of prestige and influence in the world community, and the loss of control of both Houses of Congress, that the only “success” the current administration can point to is the simple fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on United States soil since September 11. And, considering the facts, I have to wonder how this is possible.

It seems to me that a single attack by a single individual on a single target on United States soil—even something along the lines of one man with a gun shooting a handful of people at a shopping mall—would strike a powerful blow for an Islamist terrorist organization, far more so than the destruction of any number of tanks or helicopters or oil refineries in Iraq. It would be an invaluable recruiting tool, to show that even after the increased security measures, even with America “at war” and on her guard, terrorists can strike anywhere and any time at will. It seems to me that this would be the first priority of any terrorist group, and the time, attention, and material devoted to it would far outstrip those dedicated to fighting American troops abroad or stirring up sectarian civil wars, as simple geography dictates that those two operations could be conducted with a lower-intensity, longer-term approach.

And clearly the leaders of al-Qaeda at least are aware of this. Clearly they learned that attacks on embassies or military units matter very little to America as a whole, and that only attacks against civilians and economic infrastructure can really make an impact. The Madrid and London bombings indicate that this is still part of their overall strategy, that they still possess to some degree the capacity, and that they are capable of conducting such operations concurrent with their activities elsewhere.

So why haven’t there been other attacks on the United States? There are several possible explanations.

The first is that the administration has simply just been perfectly successful in detecting and preventing terrorist attacks. Perhaps the increased security measures have genuinely helped. Perhaps the new Department of Homeland Security has created a formidable anti-terrorist network. Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dead, either of kidney failure in Pakistan, or in a cave in Tora Bora or of any of the innumerable ways a globally hunted terrorist leader can die. Perhaps al-Qaeda’s structure and operations are greatly disrupted, their leadership killed or in hiding, and America is simply “winning the war on terror.”

This seems spectacularly unlikely, though. The Department of Homeland Security is astonishingly ineffective and corrupt—the Government Accountability Office has estimated that the DHS had wasted some $2 billion within the first year of its existence, mostly due to the unsupervised use of government issued credit cards. By August 2006, after British authorities discovered the liquid explosive plot, it was discovered that the DHS has used none of its funding for research and development on new airport screening methods. To this day, some 90-odd percent of the seven million cargo containers coming through American ports annually go unscreened. We have thousands of miles of borders which simply cannot be guarded, and due to budget shortfalls, local law enforcement has been cut back all over the country. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission have not been implemented. We all saw how effectively the DHS responded to Hurricane Katrina.

There is simply no way America’s borders are any more secure today than they were on September 10, 2001.

Moreover, the Department of Defense has estimated that that in 2001, al-Qaeda numbered some 198 members. Today it’s estimated at over 18,000. And that’s just al-Qaeda, not any of the other several dozen Islamist terrorist organizations in the world. It is inconceivable that a ninety-fold increase in the number of one’s enemies correlates to one becoming in any way safer.

Likewise, there is little evidence that al-Qaeda’s global operations have been disrupted. The Madrid and London bombings indicate that they still possess a wide reach and have members who are native of many countries. The $30 million per year that al-Qaeda requires to carry out its activities seems to continue to flow unchecked. Osama bin Laden has not, to anyone’s knowledge, been captured or killed. If the numbers of new recruits are in any way accurate, then it stands to reason that rather than being disrupted, al-Qaeda’s operation capacity has expanded by a factor of almost one hundred times.

Furthermore, I personally find it very difficult to believe that an administration which has proved itself incompetent in literally every other aspect should somehow have achieved a perfect track record in this one. The same administration which has mismanaged two wars, the economy, the government, the education system, and essentially everything down to the fact that only six of the one thousands employees of the Baghdad embassy speak Arabic, or the fact that the name chosen for the new Iraqi army means “fuck” in Arabic. There is simply no way that the same administration which sent the money for reconstruction in bricks of hundred dollar bills loaded by forklifts onto freight aircraft and entrusted it to a 23-year old and his frat brothers could have somehow detected and thwarted absolutely every terrorist attack attempted against the United States in the past six years. This argument is akin to asking us to believe that our government are a massive collection of spectacularly lucky idiot savants.

There is another explanation, once favored by many on the bad-tempered left, which posits that the Bush government was involved in, or at least knew about September 11 and at the very least allowed it to happen. This line of reasoning then suggests that there exists some sort of agreement between al-Qaeda and the Bush administration, since there are numerous ties between the two groups both in terms of business with the bin Laden family and via the Saudi Royal Family, and in regards to the American support for the Afghan jihad against the Soviets. This agreement would recognize that the current state of affairs is advantageous to both parties, since it gives each a convenient enemy and a perpetual raison d'être.

The logical conclusion is that there will therefore be no further terrorist attacks until it is necessary for both sides, namely when it appears the current administration will fall from power.

I will admit there was a time when this made a certain degree of sense. They are very easy dots to connect, and while it appeals to that old Holmes dictum of “when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”, it falls apart under the weight of actual events. The 2004 election would have been an excellent time to produce a terrorist attack, for instance.

Well, (the proponents of this theory argue) perhaps the administration already knew they would win that election. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary. Perhaps it would have been too obvious and would have happened at too divisive a moment.

But if that were the case, why not some time in the intervening two years or before last November’s electoral defeat? If neither of those are good occasions, when exactly is?

Well, (they invariably say) maybe it’ll be before the 2008 election. He’ll blame it on Iran, declare martial law, suspend elections, institute a draft, invade Iran, and usher in an age of police state and Fourth Reich.

At this point, I simply can’t give the administration that much credit. If they genuinely were carrying out a vast, massive, meticulously planned and orchestrated conspiracy, why not put forth the half-inch of effort at any of the things they do which would make their success so much easier? Why not, for instance, put someone capable in charge of rebuilding Iraq in 2003 to get the water running and electricity on and stifle insurgency before it began? Why not send troops with proper training and equipment? Why not do any of a legion of things which would have saved them years of criticism and dissent?

This argument just seems to me like a frantic desire to assign a monolithic, hopeless quality to what is admittedly a dangerous and incompetent government. It seems to feed on the persecution complexes and sense of hopeless ineffectiveness within so many of us. But I just don’t think it holds weight.

The third explanation considers that eight years passed between September 11 and the previous Islamist terrorist attack on the United States, and posits that the leaders of al-Qaeda are simply biding their time, for reasons of their own. This is an alarming prospect, not the least because of the interesting habit of attacks taking place in the first year of a presidential administration. This explanation also lends itself to the alarming idea that the next attack is intended to be far more destructive than any previous attacks and thus takes longer to prepare.

I have no argument against this, aside from the fact that I have no idea what al-Qaeda’s leadership is waiting for, or why they wouldn’t bother sending one or two individuals with fairly low-scale plans simply for the propaganda and morale effects to both sides. Perhaps they genuinely are more focused on stirring up civil war in Iraq. Perhaps they have found attacks on European allies easier to carry off and more effective in the short run. Whatever the case, this idea is dependent on the simple fact that al-Qaeda is calling the shots and that they attack where and when they wish and our six years of quiet on the homefront is just a lucky prelude to a greater storm.

I have no idea of the explanation, but it seems to me it’s something the people of the United States should be demanding to know. Our government is incompetent and corrupt, yes, but the threat of terrorism cannot be denied, and if they have genuinely managed to prevent further attacks, I am willing to give credit for that. If they have not, we should be demanding to know why not and what has therefore prevented further attacks. This is, in my view, perhaps the most worrisome characteristic of what seems to be a national habit of fighting a "War on Terror" which consists of doing virtually everything except actually bothering about terrorism.

Edit: I just watched a History Channel documentary on the Russian mob, and part of it was about a guy who organized a deal where a Columbian drug lord bought a Soviet submarine, and when this guy called his contact at the Russian government to ask about price, he was asked, "Do you want it with missiles or without?"

Another part of it was about a pair of DEA agents who started out buying drugs from a couple Russian mob guys, then moved up to machine guns (like thousands at a time), then fifty shoulder-mounted missiles, then were asked if they'd like to buy a small nuclear weapon. With these kind of things happening, how are there not massive terrorist attacks all the time? With that kind of supply available, and the obvious existence of motivated people, there's got to be an explanation for their failure.