ARTICLE: IEDs Seen As Rising Threat in The U.S., By Spencer S. Hsu and Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post, October 20, 2007; Page A01ARTICLE: "An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers: Slick Videos and Blogs in English Sell Anti-American Extremism," by Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet, New York Times, 15 October 2007, p. A1.
It worries me a bit that we assume IEDs used in Iraq automatically become a tactic of choice to be used throughout America. What works in Iraq can't be extrapolated into what works in the United States.
I'm not arguing against preparation. I just don't think our tendency to chase our tail on current tactics is the way to go.
What will come to America is unlikely to be some simple extension of what goes on elsewhere.
Work on coordination linkages among agencies and fed-local, yes, but make no broad assumptions about tactics to be encountered. These are very different environments. The animal that thrives in one doesn't necessarily thrive in another one.
When you read about the jihadist websites in the West, there is this tendency to portray that one-sidedly as blowback to U.S. and Western efforts in Iraq and the Middle East (which they are), without exploring (as this second article does) that these efforts likewise create blowback here for those who engage in such propaganda distributing efforts.
An awkward sentence, let me try again.
Emigres always feel guilty over leaving the homeland and the homeland struggle. They often have difficulty fitting in the new place, but they came there for a reason, yes?
They are easily seduced by the romance of the struggle back home, and in their guilt, they typically become the most gung-ho proponents of such struggle from their relative safety.
This is not a new phenomenon. We've seen this with numerous immigrant groups/waves throughout our history. Irish-American support for the IRA is just a recent example.
So long as the resulting violence back home remains distant to Americans, we tend to tolerate this stuff.
When it involves Americans abroad, that makes it different.
The notion that it could easily translate into acceptable action over here? That gets pretty fantastic.
Obviously, there'd be significant blowback over here.
You can assume most of that would come from people outside the community, but the reality is, it would come primarily from those within that immigrant community who didn't come here to fight homeland battles and don't care to become guilty by association.
Here, we then get into the difference between the Muslims who come to America and those who come to Europe, and that's why I think casual extrapolations from Iraq re: tactics doesn't make much sense.
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Comments (4)
When I saw the original article I had but one response.
FUD Sale
Fear Uncertainty Doubt.
Posted by Jesse KRembs | October 31, 2007 8:38 AM
IEDs are already here. In recent times, Tim McVeigh gave us the VBIED and Eric Rudolph IEDs.
Posted by MountainRunner
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October 31, 2007 10:27 AM
I have studied the operations of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from their inception in 1919 to their recent transition from an active terrorist group to a political party.
Some IRA operations took place in the United States (both authorized and unauthorized) immediately after the Irish civil war that followed the War of Independence (1919-1921). These were retaliations against individuals who had caused grievous harm to the IRA or it's members during the War of Independence or the civil war or they were the acts of individuals who bore grudges over the deaths of friends or family members. Some operations were also sanctioned by the "Free State Government" (all former IRA) who hunted down "Anti Treaty" men responsible for the deaths of "Free State" commanders during the civil war.
During the IRA campaigns in Northern Ireland and England that started in 1968 and continued until the "Decommissioning" process after 2001 the IRA ruling body (Army Council) had a standing rule that no operations involving violence were to be conducted in the United States. This rule bore the ultimate sanction. Any violation carried the penalty of death. Sanctioned operations involved fund raising and on occasion the purchase of weapons. Normally the purchase of weapons was handled only by carefully selected "Active Service" members who depended heavily on American citizens to do most of the "hands on work". Most of these missions were carried out in Boston or New York. The IRA did not want to aggravate the United States Government or the American public. It did not want to upset it's financial supporters of Irish descent. In fact, one of the great ironies of our time is that the IRA was finally "defeated" not by the British Government, but by a handful of Arab terrorists who flew airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington. The IRA knew that it was finished as a terrorist group after September 11th, 2001. Many of the 3,000 Americans killed in the Twin Towers were of Irish ancestry. Speaking of irony, one of them was John O'Neil, the FBI Supervising Special Agent who had led the hunt for Osama Bin Laden before being forced out of the Bureau.
Tom is right. The people who come here do so to get away from the conflicts. Insurgent groups have had both overt and covert cells in the United States for years but their mission has been fund raising or lobbying. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to get a US congressman on your side than it does to get one angry.
Posted by Ted O'Connor | October 31, 2007 12:55 PM
I've always been more surprised there haven't been more copies of the Beltway Sniper attack.
Posted by frankwolftown | October 31, 2007 7:26 PM