Journalist Chris Floyd of Empire Burlesque points us to Andrew Greeley‘s astonishing commentary in today’s Chicago Sun-Times, “Expect terrorists to bring war to us.”
I’ve been puzzled why we’ve had no suicide bombings in the U.S. Greeley now foresees that happening, thanks to Iraq:
It is not unreasonable to expect that other young men will soon be destroying themselves in this country as they blow up Americans in shopping malls and restaurants and hospitals and churches. The chickens of the criminal war in Iraq will come home to roost. No matter that the majority of Americans disapprove of the war. It is too late for that now.
Is he right? Or are his and my worries unfounded? Greeley points to the already migrating pattern of terrorist attacks:
Greeley, a “Renaissance priest,” teaches sociology and writes a weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times.
John F. Harris in his book Survivor describes in detail President Clinton’s agonizing reluctance to engage in military action overseas. There were so many contingencies, so many things that might go wrong. The current administration has never worried about such problems. Convinced of our indomitable might, ignorant of the lessons of history, unconcerned about what might go wrong, it plunged blithely into the Bid Muddy. The rationalizations of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s involvement in the World Trade Center attack were false.
Now the president, dismissing the revelations about the weapons of mass destruction (the vice president apparently still believes them) is content to say that he still thinks the United States has done “the right thing.” However, the majority of Americans and even some Republicans want the United States out of Iraq. The military says it will take four years to train an effective Iraqi army. The Big Muddy gets deeper.
Priest and sociologist that he is, Greeley ends by asking:
If we have widespread terrorism on US soil, we are in for a long and unpleasant ride. Since the current ruling class’ main strategy for containing terrorism is to A) encourage it, and B) shred the Constitution as the first line of defense, we had better hope Greeley is wrong.
Yes. It’s why I’ve often wondered why the politicians’ past predictions and promptings of suicide bombers — starting right after 9/11 — haven’t occurred.
Suicide bombings would suit the Bush administration to a T.
Why haven’t the jihadists done as prompted?
Can’t such things be helped along?
I think the reason we haven’t seen widespread domestic terrorism is simply that it’s hard to do. The middle eastern societies where terrorism is prominent are places where owning assault rifles and RPG launchers is normal and access to explosives is easy.
Mind you, it’s not that hard to get your hands on such things here, but I’m speaking from the perspective of a native white guy with full citizenship. By paying a few fees and filing the appropriate paperwork, I could obtain dynamite without too much trouble. I worked construction when I was younger; I know the steps. Not getting caught afterwards is another matter, but that wouldn’t be a concern for me if I was a suicide bomber.
If, on the other hand, I was a Saudi or Jordanian national in the US on a visa, with little knowledge of the necessary bureaucracies and a limited knowledge of English, just asking around about getting the necessary licenses would almost certainly result in a few phone calls being made to the authorities. Actually laying hands on a stick of dynamite? Forget it. It’s hard enough for decent, law-abiding Saudis to even get on an airplane these days.
Most large-scale attacks would require a good deal of money and a high degree of visibility. Poisoning a reservoir would require a huge amount of toxins whose distribution is closely watched. Explosives are tightly controlled. (Timothy McVeigh notwithstanding, ANFO is actually pretty hard to mix.) Military weapons are not that hard to obtain, but the people smuggling them off-base are typically not friendly to Arab terrorists.
There are really only a few “easy” terrorist attack options open in US to the average would-be mass murderer. Walking into a school or a mall or a crowded street event with guns would be pathetically easy. Detonating a gas station would be so easy that it frankly surprises me it doesn’t happen accidentally more often. None of these things are likely to result in more than a few dozen deaths. Suicide bombers are, after all, willing to pay the ultimate price for their cause, but most of them probably want a bigger bang for their buck than a handful of third-graders.
Ironically, it may be Osama bin Laden that we have to thank. The 9/11 attacks set the bar so high that terrorists motivated by the desire for posthumous fame have their work cut out for them.
Wow.
I voted ‘Other’ so I will try to explain.
If nothing else, the state of current events is making me question my natural psychological responses to just about everything.
I don’t think Bush will be impeached or tried for war crimes, because it seems like a scenario that is ‘too good to be true’.
I don’t think that we’ll suffer from suicide bombings here, because it seems like a scenario that is ‘too terrible to be true’.
Can I have it both ways? Do I really think my grasp on reality is so tight that only things I consider ‘mundane enough to be true’ will happen? No, I don’t think so. If that were the case then 9/11 never would have happened.
So I guess I voted ‘Other’ because I don’t want it to happen, but can’t discount the possibility. And that sends shivers down my spine.
Beautifully described thoughts and feelings, Ejmw.
I so hope it is not true because we’ll pay more in loss of freedoms even than in blood.
This was my thought Susan, after reading the diary.
If we consider long lines at airports and video surveillance and P.Act, they will be nothing in comparison to what might evolve. (Either by law or willingly given up d/t fear.)
I remember having conversations in the immediate days post 9/11 with friends who had lived with the threat of terror – Ireland etc. Many expressed sentiments along the lines that North Americans were naive about realities of terrorism and lucky to have been so.
To have it become a certainty, more than a one-time tragedy?
As emjw pointed out, to go down that road mentally, is a fearful undertaking in itself.
That reminds me of a conversation with my mother not too long after 9/11. I was talking about the various conspiracy theories that were (already) floating around. And when I mentioned a name, she looked at me in horror and said, “Oh no, no one could do such a terrible thing”.
And then we both realized that someone had done such a terrible thing. And what made us think that this person wasn’t (couldn’t be) involved?
And the only reason is that it wouldn’t be mundane enough.
NYC on that fateful day just 50 blocks from the Twin Towers…I believe it is just a matter of time. I have been ultra aware whenever I am in crowds or shopping malls of all of my surroundings and the people near me. It is a terrible way to live, but we have been lucky. I believe it is not if they will, but when and where. The Why, sadly is obvious.
extremely vulnerable. Lots of gasses piped through the walls, very flammable liquids everywhere, and little to no security. We are in for it for sure. It’s just a matter of time and Bush policies have only accelerated that timeline and removed any brakes that may have once been there.
I’ll have to say… “I don’t know”. I do think there will be more terrorist attacks, but am not sure if they will come in the form of suicide bombing and stuff. I suppose it will depend on who is carrying them out, and why. (Seeing as how all that is still unclear on the last one, am not sure what good that’s going to do).
I think, though, that if there were going to be suicide bombings and “little” attacks all over the place, that there would have been some by now. Again, depending on who and why, and what relation, if any, they have to the 9/11 attacks, I would think that what they will next go for is something even bigger. More “spectacular”, because of a desire to project a sort of power rather than the individual bombings which apparently arise more out of a helplessness against a more powerful, technically and materially, adversary.
Of course, this is me speaking out of all my know-nothingness.
I think this is perhaps the most important sentence he writes:
It does far more than show the lack of foresight by the neocons.
It does far more than show how the suicide bombers seek out new hot spots.
It implicates the neocons in the suicide bombings.
And that makes Greeley’s last paragraph — asking who or how much we are responsible — all the more important.
See, if we have suicide bombings in the U.S., the neocons will blame those who hate freedom. But the blame, almost in its entirety, will lie at their feet.
How then, if these terrorist attacks occur, do we help the American people blame the real guilty parties?
Which is why I tend to get a little annoyed when people question the need to aid first responders in outlying cities and regions. Yes, some of the expenditures are questionable and pure pork. But as someone who lives close to an international border, along a major highway route leading down to New York City… a dirty or nuclear bomb explodes by accident along the NYS Thruway — Manhattanites, that bullet will have probably been meant for YOU. The rest of us will just have been the poor schlubs in the way.
So why not quit arguing about symbolically rebuilding the fucking stupid World Trade Center, and fund my first responders, thank you very much.
I honestly don’t understand why terrorists have not hit upon the idea that five random explosions in five random small cities would be far more terror-striking than one big showy attempt against the Gateway Arch or the Washington Monument… but then again, both perpetrators of this nonsense (Bush or Al Qaeda) don’t seem particularly bright or efficient. But that won’t last forever, unfortunately.
I feel we are entering a more dangerous time because Bush is on the ropes. There is a balance of terror that desperately wants to stay in business. Al Qaeda cannot recruit new members if the U.S. is perceived as turning toward sanity in its foreign policy, and Bush’s downfall might open the door to that. They want to keep us insane. They depend on it for their continued survival. Never forget that Al Qaeda and Bush feed off each other (why do you think Osama Bin Laden has not been pursued?) They profess to hate each other, but need each other to survive.
When Bush becomes weak enough, terror will strike again. It will have to, in order to maintain itself.
my post from another diary:
-But consider this, during my time in the WV National Guard, it occurred to me how vulnerable we really are. Take the Ohio-WV border, do you know how many chem companies there are there? And all the chem products are carried by rail. Now, do you remember that hideous accident in India with the Dow chemical plant? Imagine that, 100,000 or so deaths. Now add to it a simultaneous sabotage of one of the railroad bridges going across the Ohio river, tons of chemicals poisoning the Ohio river and flowing downstream.
Now that is massive damage and a sort or poor man’s WMD, but also think of the terror in the heart of average Joe American on Mainstreet USA “they can hit us here too!” That’s BushCo’s base we’re talking about.
That is a scenario that is truly terrifying. Now, if some old, beat-up ex-Special Forces guy can notice and see those weaknesses, I am sure some young, intelligent, US educated terrorists already has.-
We definately DO need first responders and this dipshit has sent most of them to Iraq, there are so many who also serve in the Guard and Reserves because the dual training is beneficial to the local communities and individual careers. Pulling my hair out!
Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism advisor for Bush and Clinton, thinks there will be further attacks in the US. He lays out an apolyptic future history in the January 2005 Atlantic Monthly (subscription rqd.) Its a depressing article – in addition to suicide bombings and weapons of mass destruction, he predicts a national ID card, and the mass internment of Muslim-Americans.
I also heartily recommend his book, Against All Enemies.
On 9/7 I attended a meeting of the County Emergency Managers here in NM. The FBI SAC gave a talk. In that talk he said there would be terrorists attacks in the US, nobody will know when it will happen, and it is impossible, in a free society, to stop them.
IF, by no means certain, the difficulties are overcome and organizational and logistic infrastructure is established monthly suicide bombers in the US merely becomes a matter of cranking the machine. Recruit in the Middle East, transport to the US, strap on the bomb, and bloowie, hard but not impossible.
IF that happened I expect a backlash against the Muslim population in the US: lynchings, shootings, assaults, counter-bombing of mosques … the whole ball of wax.
The soldiers in Iraq would go crazy and the chances of deployment and use of neutron bombs against “terrorist training camps and strongholds” would dramatically increase.
Could it happen? Sure. Will it happen? Dunno, depends on how dumb the various Arab terrorist networks are.
Are you ready for defending your fellow citizens (Muslims) against this, if it should come?
We have to ask ourselves this, or else I suppose we are at risk of turning out no better than Germans of an earlier time.
I’ve thought long and hard about your question and, really, the only answer is: I hope so.
It’s easy to go blah-blah-blah before the fact and not so easy to follow-up when the midden hits the fan.
That was a good question but what about the “how” would we protect people. Look at the torturing that is going on now but I am at a loss as to how to stop it.
That’s a damn good question. In answer to NYCO’s question above, yes, I am ready to do whatever I can to protect my fellow citizens, Muslim or otherwise. Exactly what I can do, however, is a question in search of an answer.
One of the images of Nazi Germany that has stuck with me longer than any other is a photograph depicting Jews being rounded up and loaded into trucks by a handful of SS officers in a middle-class suburban neighborhood. This wasn’t a ghetto; it didn’t look any different than a contemporary American neighborhood. It was broad daylight, around noon, when the picture was taken. The Jews are dressed like ordinary suburbanites. The only thing out of place is that they are carrying suitcases and getting into trucks while SS troops with submachineguns look on.
Whenever I think of that picture, I wonder why no gentiles came out of their houses to protest?
But think about it. Imagine this was today. Soldiers with machine guns are taking some of your neighbors away. Political dissidents have been taken away to Dachau for some time now. (Dachau before the war was, unlike the Auschwitz death camp, a pretty good match with Gitmo. The systematic killing came later.) No one else is coming out of their houses to say anything.
What do you do? Run out to the SS officer by the truck and make an impassioned plea for the sake of your Jewish neighbors in hopes that the entire squad will say, “Well shucks, ma’am. You’re right. This whole Hitler stuff is nonsense. Let’s all go get a beer.”? Grab your gun and attempt to use force? Write a letter to your congressman? Blog about it? And while you might be willing to sacrifice yourself, you want to know that it won’t be in vain — and of course, you suspect it might well be.
My previously condescending view of the prewar German public has been softened somewhat by living through the WoT. By the time they started the mass arrests, it was too late for anything but a widespread popular uprising. Fear of state power, of course, kept that from happening. Once these things get rolling, it is very hard for any internal force to stop them.
That’s why Jose Padilla is such a big deal to me. Padilla’s value to the government has squat to do with his intelligence value or any threat he poses. He’s a propaganda tool. Jose Padilla’s instantly recognizable picture might as well be a sign that says, “Don’t fuck with us. You’ll disappear, and not even the Supreme Court will get you back from where we’ll take you.”
We are dealing with a government that sends people to Uzbekistan to be boiled alive, after all. This government has left 14-year-olds hanging from hooks in the ceilings of Gitmo.
So what will we do?
Have you noticed that this administration has done absolutely nothing in securing the US. I sometimes wonder if they are hoping for another terrorist attack on our soil for political purposes. SusanHu, Booman, Frederick Clarkson and others have been doing a terrific job in informing us but we have to take action. We have to inform our family, neighbors, friends, co-workers of the parallels btwn Nazi Germany and the US today. Bernard Weiner of the Crisis Papers visited our DA group in Munich several months ago. He talked about this in great length.
One minor thing that I must note here. Please remember that we do not have a free press so if you ever can, donate money to your favorite blogs. They are doing more and better work than the Corporate Press and should be able to make a living out of it. For example, I buy books from Buzz Flash to help keep them going.
Back to my point. We need to act now before it gets violent. I know the torturing and “disappearing” of people have already began but it can escalate very rapidly. We should work on an orchestrated campaign to have a massive letter writing campaign to our elected officials telling them that we do not approve of concentration camps and point out the parallels to the Jewish Holocaust. I don’t think many people realize that they are behaving and thinking like the Nazi’s did. People have this frame of thinking that they the Nazi’s were “evil monsters” and they are not anything like them. They fail to realize the horror that Nazi’s were ordinary people who performed horrendous acts against mankind.
Excellent point, and this is (only part of) the reason I’m so furious at the RWCM attack on Dick Durbin for speaking the plain truth.
Let me mention at the outset that I’m Jewish, and I have close friends who are the children of Holocaust survivors. I’ve been very sensitive all my life to people who “play the Nazi card” to get a political reaction, whether from the left or from the right.
But especially since the presidential campaign, the parallels have become more and more evident to me. I think the mistake people make is that when they hear the word “Nazi” they think of what we were fighting in the forties. If you’re not European, it’s easy to forget that Hitler was legitimately elected and didn’t invade Poland until 1939. It was in the years before that the German population slowly inured itself to the “banality of evil” that was taking place every day, all around them, openly and in the most commonplace, unhysterical, unspectacular ways.
I’d say that we’re living in about 1934.
Oh, and the terrorist attack I can’t believe hasn’t happened yet? I live in NYC and I ride the the subway 10-15 times every week.
That means that 90 young Arabs… ?
Greeley is speculating here, and he doesn’t explain why he thinks that. Perhaps he is influenced by the fact that mostly Saudis attacked the USA on 9/11.
Here is an excellent article by Dan Froomkin where he asks these questions
Q. To the extent that there are Iraqis among them – and Iraqis have not been suicide bombers in the past – what has made them turn to such a desperate measure?
Q. To the extent that there are foreigners among them, is it true, as President Bush maintains, that they would have posed threats to the United States if they were not lured to Iraq instead?
Q. To the extent that foreign terrorists are being lured to Iraq to blow themselves up, how do the Iraqis feel about being the bait?
Q. Is the supply of potential suicide bombers finite or essentially without end? In either case, what measures can be used against them?
Q. Is the evolution of de facto suicide-bomber assembly line eventually going to present a threat to the United States?
He gets answers from seven different people. I tend to agree with this one:
She quotes Saad Obeidi, a retired Iraqi major general and security expert, as suggesting two possible sources of suicide bombers. Some are foreigners, responding to what Obeidi called Bush’s invitation to Islamic extremists to bring their fight against America to Iraq. But others are native Iraqi insurgents, who have come to recognize that such attacks are their most effective weapon against the superior numbers and arms of the coalition forces.
Forgot the link.
Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University
Nieman Watchdog: Questions the press should ask
The Washington Post article claiming that the suicide
bombers in Iraq are mostly Saudis, bases that opinion on
information from Militant Islamic websites not from evidence on the ground.
it should have been “maybe”. Greeley makes a strong case, but the other view might be to ask what would be gained by suicide or other frequent terrorist attacks in the US? The terrorist forces here — the GOP, essentially — and the ones out there have the same goal: perpetual power for themselves. Right now the situation is just about perfect for that goal. Too much escalation would plunge the US and maybe the world into uncontrollable chaos. Emperor Wannabes and radical Christian and Muslim clerics don’t like things going uncontrollable. Control is their thing.
The question is, can control be maintained through another 2 plus years of the idiot criminals who run our country and a few others? If we continue swirling down to toilet, I’d look more to more Tim McVeighs than Al Qaida agents doing the terror. Which would be both entirely unstoppable and way more threatening.
Luckily Bush’s handlers have to know that such developments would bring a large likelihood of their own downfall.
BTW, I never much liked Greeley, so it’s a happy surprise that he’s the first of the bigtime columnists to tell it exactly like it is with no mincing of words. He was never what anybody would call a flaming liberal. I’m surprised the SunTimes printed it. Maybe this will be the start of a move toward reality based reporting among the rest of the “journalists”.
We’ve only had 2 successful attacks on 2-3 buildings domestically, and 1 or maybe 2 stopped before they could strike, over a decade. Meanwhile almost everything remains as vulnerable as ever. So there’s absolutely no logical conclusion except that there hasn’t been anything resembling a war coming at us–so far.
But we’ve probably enraged enough of the Muslim world over the past few years to get a genuine terror war coming at us in the forseeable future.
Notice how talk of terror has gone ballistic lately as the President’s approval has sunk. If we can’t find any real terrorists I’m certain we’ll find plenty of virtual ones to talk about enough to keep our side of the “war” going indefinitely.
There is a simple reason why there hasn’t been anything on the scale of 9/11 yet:
Al Qaeda got lucky. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams on 9/11. I seriously doubt they expected the buildings would collapse.
And I don’t think they were prepared to follow up something so spectular. How DO you follow that up?
I think they really had no further plans beyond this, for the time being. I don’t think they thought it through.
I do believe that al Qaeda is alot smarter than we are giving them credit for. Any group that can get people to blow themselves and others up got something on the brain and it ain’t water. I also think they are a very patient bunch and that Bush played right into their hands by invading/occupying Iraq. They don’t have to worry about getting in and out of the country here. We came right to them, on their home turf. ANd they are picking us off one soldier at a time.
Having said all that, I did vote yes, they will attack here again. Bush has stirred up so much hate and anti Americanism it is just a matter of time imho. It is scarey but I won’t cave into it.
I have had the awesome opportunity to take a class by Greeley, and have him as a guest speaker several times in many of my classes at the Univ. of Arizona. It’s weird to hear him quoted here. I bet I could get him to guest-blog in the future…I have some connections.
Regarding the article: it scares the crap out of me to think of suicide bombers here in the U.S. but it wouldn’t surprise me. I remember after 9/11 a lot of mentions of “the awakening of a slumbering giant” regarding the U.S. military. Thanks to Bush and his stupidity, we took our focus off Bin Laden, invaded Iraq and, I fear, awoke and energized an even bigger giant–Islamic militancy.
How wonderful. We’d be incredibly honored. Explore this, please.
Why this framing of Muslims as the ideal suicide attacker? Maybe a young Syrian that doesn’t smile and, why not, was seen thumbing through the Almanac at the local newsstand.
What about our poor Vets that could turn into a Tim McVeigh or a Washington Sniper? This administration isn’t giving them a fair shake when they come back home. Where’s the GI Bill to handle them? I only see cut backs for them. Or are we in for permanent war?
Then let’s hear it for Black Ops. And I’m talking from a European prospective. We’ve had nearly sixty years of low intensity terrorism that peaked, for example, in the seventies and eighties here in Italy. (Not to mention France with the OAS &c or Ireland with the IRA &c.)
In Italy hundreds of people were blown to pieces. Milan, Brescia, Italicus, Bologna. Yet many of these massacres are still covered by State Secrecy, especially when extremist right wing groups were involved.
By the early seventies the European governments put together an unofficial high level group referred to as the Berne Group. It dealt primarily with terrorism in Europe. No surprise they didn’t invite the Americans.
A terrorist attack today in Italy? Bin Laden would have to get down on his hands and knees and swear on the Koran that he did it. Most of us wouldn’t buy it.
Terrorist bombings in the United States would play straight into Bush’s and Cheney’s plans.
They could quash all domestic dissent and have an excuse for a virtual police state–not to mention an excuse to draft the additional troops they need for their imperial ambitions.
Now, ask yourself–what do the terrorists want? Do they want to perpetuate the neocon rule in the US? And if they do, why do they want that?
Answer that question and you will find yourself greatly enlightened as to who these terrorists are, and what they REALLY want.