Non-Attack Nonsense ("Biding their Time"). Every day we are attacked by nonsensical assertions from — or is it only "via"? — media. Probably the most ridiculous I have heard in months is the suggestion that al-Qaeda was ready to attack the New York City subway system (which I ride, 4 nites a week), but canceled the operation because the organizers thought it wouldn't be spectacular enuf. Ridiculous.
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Some network actually said that a subway attack could kill as many people as the WTC attack, almost 3,000, but al-Qaeda didn't want merely to repeat a prior death toll but increase it, so called off the attack. What kind of idiot believes such a thing?
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We are endlessly regaled with stories of suicide bombers in Israel who manage to kill pretty much nobody but themselves, because they weren't positioned right when they set off the bombs they were wearing. Even in the 'best' of cases, a suicide bomber can expect to kill at most 50 or 60 people. But al-Qaeda has not, to my knowledge, issued a public statement to people who agree with its goals, not to kill themselves unless they are absolutely certain to kill tens as many, or hundreds or thousands as many, people as they would kill by killing themselves in a suicide attack.
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Let me be plain. If I were a terrorist, I would want to kill as many of my enemy as I could, be it one or two in a given incident, 1,000 or 3,000 in a single explosion, or 100,000 or 16 million in a triumphal act. Think about it. If you were willing to die for a cause, wouldn't you also be eager to kill as many people, or as few, among the enemy as you could 'take out'?
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The suggestion that al-Qaeda had us in its crosshairs but called off the attack is not to be believed.
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I don't know why the Bush Administration is telling us Al-Qaeda called off an attack on the New York City subway system. I do know, however, that such an assertion is ridiculous.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,504.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:13 PM