frankly it still shocks me to this day that these loonies have not simply instituted small scale attacks like Mumbai and Lahore for years.
weapons accessibility here in the states is rather easy illegallyy once you are here, even to the point of automatic weapons.
There can only be two reasons...
1. these folks only want to try for the "major" spectacle attack, like September 11th.
or
2. Our intelligence and security has done such a good job that it has made it so tough.
I would like to believe that some of it is #2, which it is to a degree, but my suspicion is that these folks, crafty as they are, do not really understand the american mindset...
after 9/11, people were terrified that planes were goingt o be crashed into stadiums, buildings, everywhere...mass attacks...
now they realize that those are very difficult to plan and execute...
americans are not living in fear of those kind of attacks...they are still safe at the mall, or at stadiums etc...
what would really shatter americans nerves, is basic small scale, high casualty attacks on institutions americans rarely feel threatened at...school, sporting events, hospitals, churches, lunchtime in the city when everyone is on the street, etc...
if i was a terrorist, i would not go for these spectacular attacks...
I would attempt to slip 1 person into the USA per week, in a variety of ways, whether by cruiseship, air, ground, whatever...obviously they could know nothing before hand and everything would have to be done here.
surely they could establish ties with one of the larger more violent gangs here in the states like MS13 and get easy access to automatic weapons of various types and ammunition.
if you wait a full year (or more depending on far you can go, how many men you have at your disposal etc.) you would have 50 or so men to activate...and if you were able to slip in more than 1 a week, who knows how many you could get. let's say for arguement sake you got 100 in to the USA over a one year period
I have no trouble believing that if 19 hijackers could get in here and take flying lessons etc. no problem, that simply getting 100 in over the course of a year, would not be that difficult at all. once you're in, you would not need to take lessons or be above ground.
if these guys received any kind of proper training in afghanistan and pakistan as to how to shoot, reload, etc. etc. with a high degree of competence, like the Mumbai and Lahore attacks, i have no illusions as to how deadly they could be if they picked the right targets.
how secure are kindergartens and elementary schools? not at all
how secure are college campuses like Virginia Tech? not very
how secure are random public high schools and middle schools? not at all
how secure are high attendance fields at big *HIGH SCHOOL* football games, say in texas, where they can get 10,000 for a game at a field with some large bleachers and no security? NOt at all.
how secure are chuches? Not at all. (even those megachurches)
how secure are hospitals? Not at all.
frankly, a coordinated attack, by 25 teams of 4 guys each at places like this all at once, would be utterly shattering to the national psyche...especially if it was targetted at the young, be they college kids, high school kids, middle school kids, or elementary and nursery school kids... (think Beslan school massacre)
i have absolutely no trouble believing that these guys could get jobs as janitors, or garbagemen etc. allowing them to case and survey the schools and activities properly.
32 men tookover Beslan School in Russia, taking 1,100 people captive...and they were using them as hostages, not just going in to kill them outright. If they had gone in just to kill, everybody would have been dead, instead of just the tragically killed 384 or so...they waited *3* days.
frankly, i do not know they have not attempted this here...i would imagine a combination of logistics, decent intelligence work on our part, and lack of understanding by the terrorists of how that would be perceived.
even as awful as 9/11 was, you didn't see any bodies...everyone that was killed was pretty much vaporized...the abject horror was the spectacle of the whole thing...aside from the utter tragedy and horror of having to watch those who were forced to jump from the towers that day, the event was calamitous in its sheer audacity and impact...but there was little to no "gore"...
I shudder to think what even 1 demented lunatic with a machine gun could do in a high school or college, where most have used a shotgun or handguns in the past...
put 4 lunatics with orders to kill everyone, with ammunition and machine guns, into a large K-6 school...the results would be beyond horror.
the absolutely horrific results of 25 such coordinated attacks, let alone one, would absolutely pale in comparison to anything we have ever dealt with...pearl harbor, 9/11, etc. in terms of actual horror.
i am Jewish, so naturally, some of you may be familiar with the story of Passover...fable/myth what have you, but when the angel of death came and killed the first born child of every Egpytian, how fucking bonkers would the egyptians have gone?
can you imagine, 25 teams finding their way to 25 suburban nursery/kindergarten-sixth grade? (probably preferable since there are going to be far less SWAT teams and special Units to bring in quickly, thus allowing for the terrorists to escape via car, or if not escape, at least to keep moving through the town, or to a strip mall, thus being able to kill more.) you are probably talking 1200 kids per school, plus teachers, administrators etc...you are talking about 30,000 kids, under the age of 11...
i shudder to think of it...
also, imagine if they went into the 10 biggest most respected and top notch hospitals in our nation, (think the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, UCLA Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, Mass General) in larger groups of 10 each...even worse, for even greater impact, they could do this at the 10 best independent CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS in the nation.
think about what is contained there...
10 guys go in, with backpacks full of ammo and each brings a 6 gallon container of gasoline, (8.35 pounds per gallon) about 50 pounds is nothing to carry in a backpack for a healthy male...they kill everyone on the ground floor, and start fires in the elevators and on the ground floor with some of the gas...they proceed via the stairwells to the 2nd floor, begin shooting at everyone, and killing and setting fire to every possible room, and flammable material with the gas...by that time the fire alarms will be going off, people will have heard the shooting, and there would be total panic...everyone (that was able and not bedridden) would be in the hallways or heading to the stairwells already, where the gunmen are waiting,after killing everyone in the halls or coming towards them on the stairs, 4 gunmen hold each stairwell, to secure it, make sure nobody comes up or down without getting killed, two gunmen sweep the floor, one on each side, going into all rooms, killing anyone hiding in there, setting fires after they have gone through. they proceed to the next floor, and up and up and up and up and up and up going through every floor...whoever they haven't killed, the fires and smoke get...considering how much flammable material is in a hospital, (oxygen tanks, chemicals, liquids, linens, papers, anasthetics, things like that) the. place would be in flames soon enough...they would get to the top floor and the roof, from there, they could shoot at people on the streets, who will naturally come to look as well as police forces. eventually, the flames will consume them, and they will be martyrs...for the cost of ten psycopaths lives, they will have:
-destroyed billions in crucial property and technology
-killed thousands, among them, babies and new mothers in the maternity ward, patients young and old...administrators,workers, janitors, then orederlies, and nurses....*AND* the some of the best medical researchers surgeons, technicians and doctors in the world...*not to mention*, all their research facilities, projects etc...
-destroying the best teaching hospitals, with them, many of the best young med students and professionals for the future...wiping out a huge crop of incredibly difficult to replace generational future doctors and researchers etc.
-devastated an already totally overstretched health care system, not to mention adding over crowding, understaffing and a massive hole in the critical health care of major cities.
-destroyed a huge amount of intellectual capability in a critical field of american technology.
-lead to huge increases in health insurance
-lead to massive insurance company payouts from a system already struggling under the weight of a possible AIG collapse.
-delay health care reform, if not completely destroy it, by putting the costs so far into the stratosphere, that our already skyrocketing debt will simply not be able to assume.
-lead to a huge decrease in emergency room capacity in the effected cities.
frankly, i think they could do it with even less then 10 men per hospital, 6 is very plausible as well...2 to hold each stairwell, (1 to hold each stair well if the hospital has four stairwells) while 2 do the sweep on each floor...
obviously, the less men needed per operation, the more hospitals could be hit, and thusly, the intensity of the above listed disasters multiplied even worse...if they did 6 man teams, they could hit the 16 best hospitals and the 17th hospital they would hit with 4 guys, who i am sure would have no problem.
how hard is it for them to get US News and World Report "America's Best Hospitals" list? it took me 6 seconds on google.
I constantly wonder why this has not happened yet, as studying counter-terrorism is a habit of mine, thanks to my friends and relatives who previously served in Israel.
when you factor in the residual effects of these attacks on the american psyche, economy, health system and future would be far worse than that of 9/11 (IMO)
color me very pessimistic, but frankly, these guys do not seem that smart if they can't figure this out...that would be what i would do.
