War on terror 2011

POSTED BY: CrevanReaver
UPDATED: Monday, May 9, 2005 00:53
VIEWED: 4058
PAGE 1 of 1

CREVANREAVER

Sunday, January 30, 2005 4:52 PM

Interesting predictions, interesting read!

A leading expert on counter-terrorism imagines the future history of the war on terror - 10 years after terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism tzar and author of Against All Enemies, paints a frightening picture of a country still at war in 2011.

2001-2004: THE RESPONSE

Having ignored al-Qaeda until September 11, 2001, President George Bush responded to the attack in three ways. First, he ordered an end to the terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan. For the next five years a token US military force assisted the Kabul government in its attempts to rule the warlords and suppress the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Second, he moved to strengthen US domestic law enforcement with the first Patriot Act (a law that civil libertarians would find benign from today's perspective) and the Department of Homeland Security, which in those early years of the war on terror was largely ineffectual. Third, Bush ordered the ill-fated invasion and occupation of Iraq, which effectively turned his Administration into an active recruiting office for al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups around the world.

The move against Afghanistan did set al-Qaeda and the jihadi movement back. Although regional affiliates were able to stage spectacular attacks in Riyadh, Istanbul, Bali, Madrid, Baghdad, and elsewhere, and although there were twice as many attacks worldwide in the three years after 9/11 as there had been in the five years before that day, no al-Qaeda-related attacks took place in the US in the years immediately following 9/11.

The several years without an attack on US soil lulled some Americans into thinking that the war on terror was taking place only overseas. Few corporations increased security spending. Americans increasingly questioned Bush's security policies, the Patriot Act, and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge's ridiculed colour codes. In the 2004 presidential election Bush won a second term in part by dismissing such issues as whether the mishandling of the Iraq War had made us less secure, whether we had paid enough attention to al-Qaeda, and whether we were adequately addressing our vulnerabilities at home.

Then the second wave of al-Qaeda attacks hit America. Since then we have spiralled downward in terms of economic strength, national security, and civil liberties. No one could stand here today, in 2011, and say that America has won the war on terror. To understand how we failed, and exactly what has been lost along the way, I want to look at the past seven years in some detail.

2005: RETURN TO THE HOMELAND BATTLE

The US Government had predicted that future attacks, if they came, would likely be on financial institutions, noting that Osama bin Laden had issued instructions to destroy the US economy. Thus when the casinos were attacked, it was a surprise. It shouldn't have been; we knew that Las Vegas had been under surveillance by al-Qaeda since at least 2001. Despite that knowledge, casino owners had done little to increase security, not wanting to slow people down on their way into the city's pleasure palaces. Theme park owners were also locked into a pre-9/11, "it can't happen here" mindset, and consequently were caught off guard, as New Yorkers and Washingtonians had been in 2001. The first post-9/11 attacks on US soil came not from airplanes but from backpacks and Winnebagos. They were aimed at places where we used to have fun, what we then called "vacation destinations". These places were particularly hard to defend.

Peter and Margaret Rataczak, of Wichita, Kansas, were the first to die on June 29, 2005, in a new wave of suicide attacks launched against the United States in retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden that spring, and for the continuing presence of US troops in Iraq. These attacks were every bit as well planned as those of 9/11 and, in typical al-Qaeda fashion, used low-technology means to achieve maximum public impact.

What we know about the attacks' planning and execution comes in large p

ANARKO

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 9:05 PM

With regards to Richard Clarke, I think Ann Coulter said it perfectly when defining him - "a career chair-warmer who is upset a black woman took his job...this guy has a problem with black women, especially black women taking his job."

http://www.anncoulter.org

http://www.hannity.com

IMEARLY

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 9:43 PM

What a beautiful work of highly temporal fiction.

Ten years is nothing, history will portray the events of the present as a necessary turn of events which enabled Iraq to regain its democracy.

We are currently living in the greatest time in human history.

And all we do about it is bitch.

Go sign my Guest Book,
http://www.geocities.com/thisbrownhouse
Then download Serenity,
http://homepage.mac.com/rocketplane/FileSharing8.html

ANTHONYT

Thursday, May 5, 2005 3:17 AM

"On this day neither the 160 security cameras surveying the mall nor the 150 safety officers guarding it were able to detect, deter or defend against the terrorists. Four men, disguised as private mall security officers and armed with TEC-9 submachine guns, street-sweeper 12-gauge shotguns and dynamite, entered the mall at two points and began executing shoppers at will.

It had not been hard for the terrorists to buy all their guns legally, in six different states across the Midwest.

A year earlier, Congress had failed to reauthorise the assault weapons ban. "

This bit bothers me. It's rather unnecessary. The assault weapons ban didn't ban assault weapons. It did not ban, for instance, the sale of the Tec 9. (Which incidentally is a poor quality firearm.) And it had nothing to do with submachineguns (which are by definition automatic weapons and covered under different laws entirely.)

And while the 'Street Sweeper' brand of 12 guage shotgun was on a controlled list requiring additional documentation to own and operate, it was not functionally very different from many of the legal 12 guage shotguns used for hunting, skeet shooting, or home defense.

The scenario described in the narrative could have been identically carried out with or without the Assault Weapons Ban in effect, making the mention of the ban either an indication of the author's ignorance (which I doubt) or his political leaning (which seems more likely.)

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

XENOCIDE

Friday, May 6, 2005 4:55 PM

Nah. It's just as likely due to his ignorance. Conservatives know vastly more about firearms legislation than do liberals. Liberals don't tend to own firearms so they are not really concerned with which pieces of legislation effect which guns. They simply feel safer 'knowing' that these lovely laws are keeping those nasty guns away.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.
http://www.bcpl.net/~wilsonr/farpoint.html

RUE

Sunday, May 8, 2005 5:25 AM

I was going to write about those non-existant WMDs and Hussein's non-connect with ObL, and the meetings between the Bush admin and Blair to agree to go to war and make up reasons, and of course Bolton who tried to get analysts removed for not coming to the right conclusions, and ... then I realized the thread was about the war on terror, not the war of error.

Vee haff vays to corrrrect your theenking ...

JEREELHUNTER

Monday, May 9, 2005 12:53 AM

Don't forget in 2015 when all of Europe joins the Axis of Evil and launches an all-out attack on the US! Wee! Making up stuff is fun!