I’m going to Wichita. A Seven nation army couldn’t hold me back
Conservatives love to prattle on about how, other than the most devastating attack on US soil since the war of 1812, President Bush kept us safe from terrorism. It occurred to me today that in addition the the incompetence of Bush*, it also points to the incompetence of Al-Quada…
Imagine, for a bit, that instead of 12 guys sent to hijack 4 airplanes in a devastating attack that lasted only long enough for unarmed civilians to intervene– imagine that the evil doers had done something… else.
What if Al-Quada had instead ordered their men to do as much damage as they could without getting caught? They could easily have sent 100 guys to plant bombs along highways 80, 90, 70, 40, etc. They could have blown up dozens of shopping malls across the nation, or one Starbucks in each of the 30 biggest cities in the country. They could have made Americans terrified of going shopping, of driving of.. leaving their houses.
Such a low-grade campaign would have had left Americans wondering which murders and which deaths were caused by terrorists, and which were the “normal” sorts of mayhem which accompanies living in the United States. If Al Quada didn’t claim responsibility for the attacks, the American Left would blame the Right (“Haven’t they, after all, been bombing abortion clinics and federal buildings for years?”) and the Right would blame the Left (“They’re unable to get over the Florida decision.”) You might even see independent terror campaigns taking advantage of the chaos.
Think of Checkpoints at every major intersection– after all, haven’t they been attacking roads? Police roaming New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Columbus, and dozens of other cities– police need to be able to quickly respond to threats. Rather than seeing America united to fight a common enemy, we might have verged on Civil War.
Fortunately, Al Quada prefers grand gestures to effective ones. Unforgivably, President Bush thought along the same lines. And so while we’re still around, so is Al Quada…
The caveat “other than the most devastating attack on US soil since the war of 1812″ covers a _lot_ of dead Americans…
