Folks over at the al-Sahwa blog have posed the question (Emerging Threats: Active Shooter Scenario) of how to cope with the threat of active shooters who seek to pull a Mumbai here in the US.
My comment is here (I still don't understand why it hasn't happened, given how easy it would be).
A few points
Schmedlap,
A good catch this "peering into the abyss" link:http://al-sahwa.blogspot.com/2010/02...e-shooter.html
We have briefly looked at a Mumbai incident in the UK and the former US CT czar Richard Clarke wrote a long article in January 2005 on what could happen - with multiple target themes in the USA. See:http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...rs-later/3659/
We have been lucky that AQ to date has devoted such attention in attempts to attack a hardened target - passenger aircraft in the air; a point discussed elsewhere on SWC, IIRC on the Detroit attack thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9331
Not to overlook the Zazi plot with an attack on another hardened target NYC.
The hard reality for CT response planning is that we live in a target rich environment, where guarding a static target can be criticised as uneconomic and deflect the attacker to easier targets (known as 'Prepare' in the UK CT strategy). Hence the resources allocated to first responders and follow-on services.
A point that is easily overlooked in the Mumbai attack is that the attackers kept mobile; moving on foot and at one point in a hijacked police Jeep to other targets.
I am mindful that such scenarios can easily increase fear - after all one of the key aims of terrorism - and maybe this has precluded the state / government raising the issues with the public.
What about the attack on traffic entering the CIA HQ at Langley, many years ago in 1983 and the lone attacker was eventually arrested. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_sh...A_Headquarters
What about the non-AQ enemies following these options? "Home grown" terrorists. IIRC there have been sporadic gun attacks on abortion clinics, Federal buildings and the like.
Scary - Yes
Tell the public now of the possibility - Unwise
Prepare for the possibility - Yes within other contingencies
Last edited by davidbfpo; 02-28-2010 at 11:00 PM.
davidbfpo
David,
In my opinion, the silver lining on this issue is that I think terrorist strikes in this country are not intended to really instill fear among Americans. I really think they are intended to provoke us. I think it would be far more frightening if terrorists started hitting "soft targets" such as shopping malls, gridlocked interstates (such as in the hypo I cited), or a high school sporting events. Instead, they want to attack symbols of American financial, economic, military, or cultural significance in order to draw us into a fight on their turf.
Could it be that the "flypaper theory" is actually playing out (albeit not for the reasons often cited)? Rather than us being proactive and "fighting them over there so that we don't fight them here," the terrorist motivation might be precisely to fight us over there because they don't want to fight us here. Hitting soft targets might just result in greater inward-looking domestic security measures. But hitting major symbolic targets, for some reason, seems to stir us to anger more easily. If their intent is to "fight us over there" then they seem to have chosen their targets wisely and maybe this means that we don't have to fear attacks on soft targets.
Perhaps. I also think a scenario as outlined above (multiple sustained attacks over time) would cause this country to lose its mind. Take a look at what Malvo caused in NOVA.Originally Posted by Schmedlap
I used to think this movie was over the top, but honestly I think we would turn to a solution like the one in "The Seige" faster than we would like to admit. Especially with the partisan talk show climate out there.
I doubt the country would.
However, I have no doubt the media would -- and would do their level best to drive the country to emulate them.
Folks I know who lived in DC and Northern Virginia at the time of the Great Sniper Hunt were mostly dismissive of the idea of major panic though they acknowledged at the time the media hype was heading things that way. One friend living in Chevy Chase called it the 'Charlie Moose show.'
The movie "The Siege" is often discussed in Israel, as to what US reaction would be if their population was to experience the same frequency and magnitude of either suicide bombings seen in 2002, or rocket attacks.
For example, in 2002, had the US lost the same % of it's population to suicide attacks, the number would be in excess of 6,000 dead.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I think you've also got to consider how big our country is. Let's say there are 50 suicide attacks within the span of a month (one in each state). The odds of me knowing any of the victims or feeling threatened is much lower than if I'm in Jerusalem and some guy blows himself up in Tel Aviv. The distance between those two locales is shorter than many people commute to work in the US.
Am I completely out of touch? The movie sounds absurd to me, as does the notion of "the partisan talk show climate" adding to the possibility of it. I'll even throw in the partisan TV shows and internet sites and I still think it's absurd. This only struck a chord with me because I read the recent blog posts of Bernard Finel who seems to think that one party is good, one party is evil, and Sarah Palin is going to be President. I am amazed to see how much this fear-mongering from both sides of the political spectrum is gaining traction. How many of the people who fear Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have actually listened to their shows while stuck in traffic? It's a mix of flawed history, nonsensical and outlandish attacks against their political enemies that only appeal to a small slice of the population, jokes, and random callers who are even more poorly informed and poorly educated than the hosts. There are no demands to overthrow the government, wage violence, or spread hate. It's a bunch of harmless nonsense, just like the crap on cable TV and the partisan internet sites. It appeals to the fringes, yet many seem to be convinced that it is going to take over the country. I don't get it.
As a Pakistani-American, I have more than a passing interest in this subject, and I do think that the movie scenario ("the siege") is overblown. I have no doubt that if there is a mass-casualty terrorist attack there will be a backlash and so on, but I dont think the country will slip into martial law or any other nonsense like that.
I think the concept "Mumbai style attack" needs to be defined better for this discussion. The Mumbai attack was NOT some small group of demented Indian Muslims who decided it was their duty to avenge XYZ offenses by going postal on a massive scale. It was a well planned terrorist operation, meticulously put together by a professional terrorist organization (possibly with the support of a certain state agency). The equivalent of that in the US would imply that there is an identifiable foreign-based terrorist group carrying out the attack. In such a situation, how long would it take for anger to be focused on said foreign organization and its sponsors/hosts/friends and away from some sort of mindless arrival of jackboots in the White house?
Personally, I dont see such an attack as very likely because I think organizations capable of such planning and execution are known entities and calculate their moves carefully and will not chose to do something like this at this time.
A "spontaneous jihadi operation" in which some morons in Virginia get together, decide they need to avenge the blood of their brothers in Marja or whatever and go to I-95 and start killing people is a very different matter. Its not out of the question (my guess is that a small but non-zero number of such morons does exist) but its even less likely than Lashkar E Tayyaba deciding to raise their jihad to thermonuclear levels. And there is a very good chance that said morons will give themselves away (possibly to FBI flypaper operations) before they ever buy their guns and drive up to the interstate. And its likely that if they DO get to the interstate, they will not do as much damage as Schmedlap's scary scenario because they are morons, not trained terrorists.
But if it does happen, what would the response be?
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