Sunday, August 19, 2007

Terrorist Ideas

Local columnist Michael Smerconish has written an interesting column on Freakonomics author Steven Levitt, who on his blog asked readers for suggestions on what terrorists might or would do in terms of attacks here in the homeland: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070819_If_I_were_a_terrorist__I_would______.html.

It got me thinking about where I live. We already had the Fort Dix Six, who lived a hop, skip and jump away from my house, so it's not like this is such a far-fetched scenario. Does it make me a traitor for contemplating these things, as one reader of Levitt's blog accused him of being? I don't know, but for better or worse, here are my nightmare scenarios. All of them are decidedly "low tech", which is assuredly not al Qaeda's modus operandi, but they would not take much planning, and would certainly accomplish their goal of sowing terror:

1) Two miles or so from my house is one of the larger high schools in the region, Cherry Hill East. Its students are overwhelmingly middle class, upper middle class or better. They are also largely Jewish. How hard would it be for, say, 3-5 Jihadists to arm themselves with submachine guns and grenades, all of which are pretty easily available and to walk down the hallways and "do what they do". Alternatively, how hard would it be to park a rental truck near one end of the school and take it out with a well-placed Oklahoma City-style bomb?

2) There are numerous major malls within an hour of here, including King of Prussia, which is among the largest in the country. Different location, same scenario. It would be virtually impossible to stop any seriously-motivated terrorists from killing scores, if not hundreds of people, in attacks as I've described above.

3) The largest Jewish Community Center in southern New Jersey is 2 1/2 miles away from here. You need to show ID to get into the building, but there is no armed security enforcing that. The doors to the early childhood care center, where one of my kids goes, are locked at all times, but how much would that slow down someone who meant harm to the kids?

I have to be honest. Anytime I am in one of these locations, these thoughts do pass through my mind, albeit fleetingly. It's a sad and frightening world where this is even a consideration.....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

BHG, I was in Germany on 9/11 and about 10 days later when we were finally able to fly home, I kept running such scenarios through my head.

I honestly think that someone who doesn't do so, is likely one of those who think the war on Terror is a Bumper-Sticker War.

Avi said...

The solution is not to accept the Bunker Mentality like Israel and put security in front of every public building and constant frisking and checking. If only the US would simply stop importing Muslims, there would be no need to fear.

WomanHonorThyself said...

you have good reason to be concerned BHG..too bad our govt allows the immigration that they do to make us sitting ducks!

Serket said...

This reminds of the FBI's plan to have a stock market of terrorism. The places that I am most concerned about are the Statue of Liberty and military bases. I have read Freakonomics and it is an interesting book.

"There is no easy way to fight the low-grade ones. The fact that they aren't occurring now either means the terrorists aren't interested in doing them, or the terrorists are essentially nonexistent.

I wonder sometimes why these low-key attacks haven't been going on here. I imagine it is his second point, that basically there aren't enough terrorists here. I like to hope that our integrated, secular and rich society is also a positive factor against it.