Green on Blue: causes and responses (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Attacks that did not require a safe haven in Afghanistan
1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
1995 Oklahoma City Bombing
2002 Bali Bombins
2004 Madrid Train Bombings
2004 Beslan school hostage crisis
2005 London bombings
2006 Mumbai train bombings
Thousands of terrorist attacks in Iraq, now Syria.
Contrary to the Ambassador's claims, Al Qaeda in Yemen have been developing some cutting edge tactics and techniques for conducting terrorist attacks against airlines.

Future attacks will not require a safe haven since Al Qaeda is now largely decentralized and its core becoming less relevant. Terrorists historically have often found safe haven in major western cities by practicing good operational tradecraft and operations security measures. Safe haven for an insurgency and terrorists are two different animals. An intelligent mass murderer could develop a 9/11 like plot in his home and with funding facilitate the development of a cell to conduct the attack. Many will fail, just like the 9/11 should have in hindsight, but due to human error and dumb luck some will succeed. Training for the attacks could have taken place in U.S., much like the actual 9/11 hijackers did with flight school, martial arts training, etc. (flight simulators, recon airport secuirty, etc.). No doubt having Afghanistan was nice, but it isn't necessary to facilitate a major terrorist attack, and now operating from Afghanistan if more likely to result in compromise than success. We would be foolish to assume that any one piece of dirt is critical, and excessive focus on that piece of dirt will blind us to threats emerging from other parts of the world. We created a narrative that we can't escape from.
Future so called safe havens will definitely include parts of the many of the new Arab Spring countries, Yemen, Iraq, Mali, Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Somalia, etc. They will include the world of cyber which result in radicalized individuals in our own cities.

The Ambassador has a wealth of experience on point in a lot of rough areas, but like all he is subject to personal biases and clings to the narrative that he was part and parcel in creating.