This crotch bomber episode makes me wonder why Al Qaeda has such a fixation on airplanes. Okay, to give them their due, they did pull off quite a coup on 9/11 using planes as guided missiles. Sure got everybody's attention. But if they want to tie us in knots there are surely better, easier ways to do it.
The Mumbai attacks, for instance. Talk about terrorizing a population. Most people don't fly or don't fly often. Every person lives a life that includes going to work, driving, walking, eating out--all the trivialities of our daily existence. How terrorizing is it when you feel you can't do any of those things?
I understand Al Qaeda's desire to get the biggest bang for their buck, no pun intended, but I wonder if they're really more interested in PR and their image in the jihadi world than they are in truly terrorizing this country.
If I were in charge of Al Qaeda, here's what I'd be doing: attacking soft targets like malls, schools, factories, etc. You know they have sleeper cells here, as do Hamas and Hizballah. I'd activate my sleepers and send them out in small teams of one or two men to attack soft targets with automatic weapons, grenades and C-4. And I'd do it serially rather than simultaneously.
On Monday I'd hit a mall in Bangor, Maine; Tuesday a school in Salem, Oregon, etc. I'd keep the attacks up for at least a week. Then I'd sit back and laugh at the panic.
Can you imagine what this country would be like after a week of attacks on civilian targets from one end of the country to the other? I'm not sure chaos would be too strong a word.
In terms of terrorizing a population it would be an exquisite tactic. But AQ won't do it because it doesn't make a big enough splash for them in the jihadi world. We're probably lucky because they're so full of themselves and so eager to burnish their image in the wacko world.
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