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Can anything twart "Large Terror Attacks"? Is there really a socioeconomical measure that can twart a determined attacker?

bigdubs 11y ago
A phrase, "Show me a 10ft tall fence and I'll show you an 11ft tall ladder." comes to mind. There will always be a cat and mouse game, it seems the trick is to not play the game in the first place.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  No, the trick is to play the game, not perfectly, but well enough that the other side decides not to play. If you don't play and they do...
  - bigdubs 11y ago
    Why give them a reason to play? "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth makes us all blind and toothless." also then comes to mind.
    - vectorjohn 11y ago
      I don't know the right answer as to how to defend against terrorism, etc. But this argument makes no sense. "They" (whoever they are) don't need a reason to play, they already have one. Choosing "not to play" is just allowing whoever they are to do whatever they want.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      Currently they think they have a reason to play. If we stop playing, they aren't going to for some length of time, perhaps measured in generations. Given that "playing" means "attacking us trying to kill as many people as possible", I do not want to be in the situation where they are playing offense and we aren't playing defense.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      If the West stops playing, it's not like Turkey, China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia will stop too. And there's no reason to believe the war would become less bloody with even more refugees.
- ihsw 11y ago
  Playing cat and mouse is different from ladder and wall. To breach a wall, you have to construct a single ladder. To protect against a ladder, you have to raise all of your walls. This escalation is in fact the basis of al Qaeda's anti-Western military strategy -- to engage in assymmetric warfare[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare
efuquen 11y ago
If that's so then why has there not been aa "Large Terror Attack" in the US since 9/11? Pulling off another such successful attack has been a stated major goal of Al Queda and not ISIS. Clearly something is preventing it and making it more difficult then doing it in Europe, which have suffered several attacks, with what happened in Paris being the most severe.
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  Half of the reason has been the incompetence of the terrorists. There have been a number of failed attacks in the US in the last few years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist_plots_in_the_United_States_post-9/11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist...
  - astrodust 11y ago
    Terrorists are by and large muppets, they operate on inadequate budgets, they plan badly, they execute inconsistently. The only reason they succeed is becomes on infrequent occasions law enforcement is even more incompetent. The 9/11 attacks had many, many red flag warnings before they went down that were largely ignored. What's so unusual about people training to fly planes, but not take off or land, right? The same patterns will be found here in hindsight. Deep, pervasive surveillance will only flood already saturated information channels. What they need is less information of a higher quality, not more noise in the system.
- Consultant32452 11y ago
  It's important to recognize that they also wanted to attack the US for at least a decade PRIOR to 9/11. So what was preventing them from doing it then?

bigdubs 11y ago

A phrase, "Show me a 10ft tall fence and I'll show you an 11ft tall ladder." comes to mind. There will always be a cat and mouse game, it seems the trick is to not play the game in the first place.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
No, the trick is to play the game, not perfectly, but well enough that the other side decides not to play. If you don't play and they do...
- bigdubs 11y ago
  Why give them a reason to play? "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth makes us all blind and toothless." also then comes to mind.
  - vectorjohn 11y ago
    I don't know the right answer as to how to defend against terrorism, etc. But this argument makes no sense. "They" (whoever they are) don't need a reason to play, they already have one. Choosing "not to play" is just allowing whoever they are to do whatever they want.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Currently they think they have a reason to play. If we stop playing, they aren't going to for some length of time, perhaps measured in generations. Given that "playing" means "attacking us trying to kill as many people as possible", I do not want to be in the situation where they are playing offense and we aren't playing defense.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    If the West stops playing, it's not like Turkey, China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia will stop too. And there's no reason to believe the war would become less bloody with even more refugees.
ihsw 11y ago
Playing cat and mouse is different from ladder and wall. To breach a wall, you have to construct a single ladder. To protect against a ladder, you have to raise all of your walls. This escalation is in fact the basis of al Qaeda's anti-Western military strategy -- to engage in assymmetric warfare[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare

efuquen 11y ago

If that's so then why has there not been aa "Large Terror Attack" in the US since 9/11? Pulling off another such successful attack has been a stated major goal of Al Queda and not ISIS. Clearly something is preventing it and making it more difficult then doing it in Europe, which have suffered several attacks, with what happened in Paris being the most severe.

onewaystreet 11y ago
Half of the reason has been the incompetence of the terrorists. There have been a number of failed attacks in the US in the last few years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist_plots_in_the_United_States_post-9/11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrorist...
- astrodust 11y ago
  Terrorists are by and large muppets, they operate on inadequate budgets, they plan badly, they execute inconsistently. The only reason they succeed is becomes on infrequent occasions law enforcement is even more incompetent. The 9/11 attacks had many, many red flag warnings before they went down that were largely ignored. What's so unusual about people training to fly planes, but not take off or land, right? The same patterns will be found here in hindsight. Deep, pervasive surveillance will only flood already saturated information channels. What they need is less information of a higher quality, not more noise in the system.
Consultant32452 11y ago
It's important to recognize that they also wanted to attack the US for at least a decade PRIOR to 9/11. So what was preventing them from doing it then?