Essay: The Next Terrorist Attack on America

Al Qaeda, on the run during the Bush years, is enjoying a resurgence as the Taliban pushes back into Afghanistan. Bin Laden will be eager to demonstrate that the election of an appeasement-minded US President will make no difference to the global jihad’s goal of establishing a worldwide caliphate, with all people brought into the Dar al-Islam under Shari’a Law. Everyone must become a Muslim, a Dhimmi paying the Jizra tax to the caliphate and subservient to Muslims in rights, or a corpse.

Twenty-four well-trained, fanatical young men, Jihadists from Muslim countries, set out for Mexico, where their appearance allows them to blend in. They meet pre-arranged contacts among the ruthless Mexican drug cartels, which have been well-paid in advance in funds from the oil-producing Muslim countries, rich off American dollars as Americans cannot drill for oil here, or substitute nuclear power, due to political restraints.

The cartels, who will do anything for money, have agreed to smuggle them into the United States. It is, in fact, easier than smuggling in the automatic weapons, hand grenades and C-4 explosive that is already waiting for them, at considerable cost.

The men are smuggled in, by different cartels using different routes, in teams of four. Twenty get through to marry up with the weapons and explosives. The four who are apprehended, in rare bad luck for the smugglers, have cover stories ready. They have fake IDs, are unarmed and not carrying drugs. Their cover stories are that they are fleeing Islamic extremism to build a new life of freedom in the United States. In a rare show of fortitude by the government, they are deported to the countries on their false ID, despite the protest of CAIR and various professional leftist America-bashers.

The five successful teams are delivered to their weapon catches and to cars already provided for them. They disperse across the country, driving carefully and obeying all speed laws. Police do not stop them, fearful of being accused of “profiling.”

Once in place, they check in by E-mail with a pre-arranged code “1453” to a cut-out contact, who relays it to Bin Laden, through a secure network. An American security agent intercepts the e-mail due to the foreign destination, but 1453, the year Constantinople fell to an earlier Muslim aggression means nothing to him. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople)

There they wait, keeping a lower profile than the 9/11 attackers, thinking Americans will be more alert now. They have nothing to fear on that score.

Finally the message “Mehmed” comes back to their new Yahoo e-mail accounts. Again, it has meaning only to them. At a planned time, all five teams move against their pre-selected targets.

Team one, trained to drive 18-wheelers, moves first, at 4:00 am, seizing two gasoline trucks with sleeping, unarmed drivers at a truck stop near a large, west-coast city. They kill the drivers, but keep the bodies in the trucks, which they drive to a large bridge leading into the city. At 7:30 am Pacific Time, they drive onto the bridge half a bridge length apart, stop the trucks as though broken down, and set explosive timers for ten minutes. They then begin shooting drivers and passengers on either end of the bridge, creating panic. The first police car arrives just as the fuel tankers explode. People caught between the two conflagrations begin diving into the river, to their deaths. The bridge will be unusable for a year, but thankfully does not collapse as the terrorists hoped.

At the same time, Team Two seizes a rural elementary school in a Midwestern county without a SWAT team. After killing three adults and a boy caught in the fire, they herd the teachers and students into the gym for better control. Cell phones are seized, and phone wires cut. Explosives are planted around the gym so that they can be easily detonated to kill most of the 430 students and teachers.

All black students and teachers are released and told to “run for their lives,” in hopes of aggravating America’s racial tensions. A black teacher is given a message: All American troops in Afghanistan must immediately surrender to the Taliban to face justice for crimes against Muslims and Islam. They will shoot one child every ten minutes until they are notified by the Taliban by satellite radio of the surrender. The first child, an 8-year-old girl, is taken to the front steps and shot exactly ten minutes later.

Twenty-two children have been murdered by the time the state police SWAT team storms the building. Only 43 badly injured children and three teachers survive the explosion. Eight cops are killed as well as all four terrorists.

Team Three seizes a Jewish Community Center in Florida. They demand Israel release all “political prisoners,” and begin shooting a hostage every five minutes, aware that SWAT teams are likely to react faster in this location. They have only killed nine before the police assault. The explosion kills 143 people, plus three of the terrorists and two cops.

Team Four seizes an office building in New England. Team Five seizes a Casino, a fine symbol of western decadence with gambling, alcohol and indecently covered women, all haraam under Shari’a law.

By the end of the day, 2,122 Americans in five locations are dead, as are 18 of the terrorists. The two in custody are wounded. Vigilantes are attacking innocent Muslims in the streets, but also Hindus and Sikhs, unable to distinguish between them. There are an additional 60 or so murders of innocent people by angry mobs. A run on gun shops develops, and most are sold bare by day’s end. Blacks riot in two cities when white gun shop owners refuse to sell to them, burning the shops and surrounding areas, prompting more panic.

Al Jazeera play a tape from Bin Laden announcing that “the first wave” has attacked “the Great Satan,” and that more waves will follow. The stock market goes into free fall, and closes. Experts predict a loss of 5,000 points on the Dow when it re-opens. China and other foreign countries announce they will no longer buy US bonds “until we see if the US will collapse.” This produces a financial panic that makes 2008 look like a mild set back. Businesses and organizations cancel all meetings and 95% of orders of products, creating an instant deep recession on top of the country’s economic troubles.

Since black hostages were spared at the school and two other locations, white racists are claiming militant blacks colluded with the terrorists, and that the terrorists spared blacks because our black President was born a Muslim

The President goes on TV and borrowing from Bill Clinton, promises to “bring those responsible to justice.” He also announces that he has authorized the CIA, other agencies and the military to use “all measures they believe appropriate” to develop information about the perpetrators and to prevent future attacks. There is no dissent from politicians of either party, but 143 CIA agents resign, realizing a future administration might prosecute them for following the President’s orders. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs announces that “under no conditions” will he order troops to use any coercive techniques to gather information on terrorists, because they might be punished in the future for doing so. The heads of the other services back him, and all are relieved by the President, only to discover that no general or admiral will take the job. There is a wave of resignations and retirements of military officers, creating further panic in a public aware that the country is descending into chaos and depression, and a collapse of morale in the services.

When a bi-partisan group of legislators, responding to public demand, announce impeachment hearings, riots break out in the largest cities, with thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damages. Marshal Law is declared in a dozen cities when gang rule has replaced the local governments. The military is sent in to quell the disturbances.

And thus the Republic descends into the abyss.

Can it happen? Why not?

Could it be this bad? Now that the Obama Administration has tacitly accepted a nuclear-armed Iran, it could, in fact, be much, much worse.

Can we do anything about it? We had our chance on November 4, 2008.

Am I a nut making such predictions? Well, in August, 1998, three years before the 9/11 attacks, I published the column below in the NJ Courier Post. A local Congressman told me he distributed it to the House Anti-Terror Caucus—not that it did any good. You be the judge of how good I am at predictions.

American’s War on Terror will be Long, Slow and Cruel
Robert A. Hall
August 28, 1998
Courier Post, Camden County, NJ

Early in World War Two, a bitter joke went around Britain. Two Scottish soldiers, rescued from Dunkerque, are in a pub. “It’s going tae be a lang, lang war,” one Jock sighs.

“Aye,” says his mate, “especially if England capitulates and Scotland has to fight on alone.”

Our war against terrorism is going to be a “lang, lang war,” especially if our allies capitulate and America has to fight on alone.

The war is not new. It has escalated for years, as terrorists targeted Americans around the globe to serve their purposes. It grew out of the American defeat in Vietnam and the French defeat in Algeria. The third world learned that western powers with modern armies and advanced technology could be defeated, not on the battlefield, but by a long, slow, intensely cruel bloodletting that would break the political will of the people, without which a democracy cannot prevail.

That we are envied and hated in the world is no surprise. It has ever been the fate of rich republics. All terror needs is the conviction there is no atrocity that cannot be committed for the cause, no innocent blood, no act that is evil if it strikes at the enemy.

A man with a wild look in his eye, a pipeline to his god, and a weapon in his hand has ever been a danger. But the weapons now are explosives powerful enough to destroy buildings, snuffing out hundreds of lives.

Soon they will be gasses that can slaughter thousands, diseases that can kill millions. Perhaps even atomic bombs. And men like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein will use them without compunction.

They believe they can humble America by breaking our will to resist. It doesn’t matter if it’s Vietnam, or the Clinton scandal or the troubles with Iraq, Americans always want to “get it over with.” Can we prevail in a struggle that may last decades? Can we cope with the frustration, the horror, the cost? Or will we surrender when the terror has stretched out long enough, as our enemies believe?

They may be right. Saddam has apparently backed Clinton and the UN down, faster than even I predicted, by playing brinkmanship perfectly. He’s now free to develop diseases that can wipe out entire cities. Coming soon to a location near you.

How will we prevail when the alternative is to be killed and do nothing or be killed and strike back, escalating the killing? How can we defend ourselves? What must we do to survive?

First, we need a new president. Clinton reacted strongly and appropriately to the embassy bombings. I do not believe he took action to divert attention from his scandals. But that people think so points up the importance of the much-maligned “character issue.” Could the embassy bombings have been timed to take advantage of his perceived weakness under self-inflicted wounds? We cannot have a president who creates that opportunity for our enemies.

If we are to rally in this war, we need a president—probably a series of presidents—who have served in the military, who understand the nature of war, and who have the moral authority to lead us in desperate times. Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, who earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and Republican Senator John McCain, a heroic POW in Hanoi, come to mind, but there are other Americans we can respect instead of snicker at.

Second, we must be willing to go after the leaders, to repeal the executive order against assassination. Somehow, the “Blame America” crowd convinced us it’s okay to drop bombs on his followers, but to put a bullet between bin Laden’s running lights would be immoral. What rubbish.

Third, we must be prepared to go after terrorists in countries we are not at war with, as Clinton has just done. TV news called the attack “unprecedented,” but it’s not. Nixon ordered the bombing of North Vietnamese soldiers in Cambodia to protect American troops, though we were not at war with Cambodia. Many believed this was immoral, that it was better to let American soldiers die than to kill their enemies when they were hiding over a line in the jungle.

Everyone who would rather have your family murdered than kill enemies hiding in a neutral country, raise your hand. Thank you.

Fourth, we must be willing to accept what’s called “collateral damage.” That is, innocent civilians will be killed, including children, when we go after terrorists. That’s the nasty price of war, created by those who attack us. And it will be on the evening news, with moralists condemning America.

Fifth, we must beef up the military, especially on equipment and special training for small groups of Marines and Army Rangers who can fight sharp, dirty actions against terrorists. Bombs and cruise missiles will not do all the bloody work. And we will have casualties, both military and civilian.

Sixth, we must increase our intelligence capabilities. The CIA must have the human assets—spies and assassins—to combat this plague for us. It will be war in the shadows, nasty and brutal.

Lastly, we must let it be known that any country who launches an attack with weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological or nuclear, or any country who harbors a group who launches such an attack, can expect us to use nuclear weapons to destroy them.

And we must mean it.