Terrorism: the use of violent acts to frighten the people
in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal (Merriam-Webster)
Terrorism is also a low-cost way groups like ISIS can
attack so-called “soft targets” like restaurants, concerts and sports stadiums
where civilians cluster in often large groups with little or no security. One
wonders if, even with increased security at some such venues, attacks by well
trained and devoted attackers can be stopped. How can all such places be
protected?
So more often than not, it’s the “chatter” between groups
or individuals that attract the attention of anti-terrorist organizations,
including loco police forces.
Unfortunately, as seen by the coordinated attacks in
Paris, “chatter” can be non-existent, leaving anti-terrorist organizations
literally in the dark about potential attacks. Now they need, therefore, to try
and track weapons shipments (which means smuggling), local suspects and suspect
groups and travel data. It seems to me much of this may be trackable, but much
of it, too, seems like trying to grasp fog with your hand.
Patterns change, “networks” have isolated cells that
don’t communicate with other cells, electronic data becomes sparse and suddenly
the once obvious tracking disappears.
The simple truth is that even large terrorism attacks,
like in Paris, may kill relatively few people in the grand scheme of things,
but the attacks at regular, open venues raise the fear factor throughout the
region. Suddenly maybe you don’t want a window seat at a restaurant, or you
nervously check for back exits out of a movie theater or market, or you decide
not to go to a bar frequented by ex-pats or your army buddies for fear it’s a
target.
Terrorism is not new, but its effect may be more
widespread in today globally connected world.
Day in and day out routines start to take safety into
account. That’s something we take for granted here, but it’s something in the
minds of every Paris resident and visitor now . . . and on the minds of those
in Israel or Egypt or Kenya. We are lucky.
I’ll assume we only know a fraction of the efforts to
fight these types of attacks, but in today’s world, the difficulty lies not
only in identifying potential attackers and stopping them before they start
killing people, but also a measured public response to such attacks.
Unfortunately, that response probably doesn’t have much
impact many of the would-be terrorists. If the Paris attackers were “home
grown” group, then does it really help to bomb ISIS targets in Syria. While the
French have promised to intensify the bombing in Syria and throughout the
region, one must wonder about those other home grown cells we know nothing
about. The bombing certainly can eliminate ISIS (or Al-Qaeda) leaders and disrupt the chain of
command, but can an air campaign stop the training, planning and actions of a
determined group in Europe or elsewhere?
A friend of mine noted that these types of attacks are
“scalable” like a war or standard military battle, with continual fighting,
increased troop and supplies, bigger and bigger troop movements and escalating
amounts of equipment and resources.
All very true. But the problem we face is a well-funded
group of people focused on a wide variety of targets throughout the world. They
are not restricted to a small region or a limited list of potential targets.
They are not restricting themselves to military targets like some groups have
in the past. Instead, they oppose all that is the West, so regular people
gathered in regular people places are their fair game.
These attackers also hide among us. They don’t necessarily
have to sneak into a target area. They may already be there. They could be the
people you pass in the street every day.
So the nets are cast widely . . . over anyone we see as
different, or “foreign,” or any number of other traits we think might be to
blame for bringing terror to our doors. We’ll blame immigrants, poor people, people
who don’t worship as we do, and anyone who we feel doesn’t embrace the Western
way of life.
We have no real idea of how the professionals hunt for would-be
bombers, but we sure know how politicians feel. They throw out their best
guesses as to who they see as evil people. But let’s remember they are
politicians, who often look to place blame simply and without much insight. And
we listen. But beware the simple answers or the simple solutions. Some of the
people who will try to kill us are, as we said, here already next to us. It can
be hard to accept that, but a group of middle class people who might gather for
a cocktail party are instead gathering to discuss potential targets. Maybe they
didn’t travel to Syria or northern Africa. Maybe they never left Queens, or
Montreal, or Paris. Maybe they trained on the weekends when we thought they we
just a bunch of guys going camping. Or maybe they’re a bunch of women.
Like trying to grab fog with your hand. This weekend the
people of Paris are shocked by the viciousness of the attacks and mourn to loss
of those killed, put forth a brave “we are not afraid” face, and hope their
skilled terrorist hunters can find the next shooters, bombers, planners and
supporters before another attack. Around the world, security is increased in a
show of determination, but the fact remains that while attacks may be stopped
and plots thwarted, somewhere, sometime there will be more attacks and more
people will die.
It’s not a war “over there,” but a different war waged
anywhere in the world by warped people who think killing diners or concertgoers
furthers their cause . . . A cause of intolerance, hate and violence. That’s
scary. It may not be scalable as we’ve thought of battles in the past, but it
is spreading. It spread here with the Boston bombing, and it will spread here
again. If we’re lucky, the continued pounding from the air in Syria and other
places, combined with the ground war there, and the terrorist hunters will neuter
ISIS and other groups to the point of eliminating their foreign attacks, but we
also know that those so-called home grown attackers can pop up anywhere and
anytime.
So today we mourn with the people of Paris. Tomorrow we
may mourn with other people in other places.
That is the mad, mad world in which we live today.
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