The Next Terrorist Attack on America

The Next Terrorist Attack on America

Robert A. Hall

Excerpted from Chapter four of my book, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. This is what I have long feared—pray to God that I am wrong. ~Bob

Nothing seems surer to me than that the violent wing of the Jihadists will eventually launch another major attack on the United States. Below is one possible scenario, neither the worst, nor that hard to carry out.

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 with funds from the oil-producing Muslim countries, grown rich with American dollars since Americans cannot drill for oil here, or substitute nuclear power, due to political restraints.

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

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 a bit of rare bad luck for the smugglers given our unsecure borders, have cover stories ready. They have fake IDs, are unarmed and not carrying drugs. They claim 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 IDs, despite the protests of CAIR and various professional leftist America-bashers.

The five successful teams are delivered to their pre-smuggled weapon catches and to cars already provided for them. They disperse across the country, driving carefully and obeying all speed laws. Police would be unlikely to stop them in any case, fearful of being accused of “profiling.”

Once in place, one by one they check in by e-mail with a pre-arranged code, “1453” to a cut-out contact, who relays it to bin Laden’s replacement 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 Jihad, means nothing to him.⁴⁶

There they wait, keeping a lower profile than the 9/11 attackers, worried that 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 six months, 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 cross 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 to death 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 (forbidden) 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 and have been provided with ACLU lawyers to protect their “Constitutional rights.” 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 many are sold out 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 al Qaeda 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 3,000 points on the Dow when it re-opens. China and other foreign countries announce they will no longer buy U.S. bonds, “Until we see if the U.S. will collapse.” This produces a financial panic that makes 2008 look like a mild setback. 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. The cost far exceeds the estimated $2 trillion cost of the 9/11 attacks.⁴⁷ The cost to the Jihadists is 20 martyrs and perhaps $10 million. Tops.

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, depression, and a collapse of morale in the armed services.

When a bi-partisan group of legislators, responding to public demand, announces impeachment hearings, riots break out in the largest cities, with thousands of deaths and billions of dollars more in damages. Martial Law is declared in a dozen cities where 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 Iran⁴⁸, it could, in fact, be much, much worse.

I may, of course, just be a paranoid alarmist. In fact, some folks said so when I published a column, mentioned in the Introduction, entitled, “American’s War on Terror will be Long, Slow and Cruel,” in the Courier Post. In that essay, I wrote, “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.” That column was published on August 28, 1998, three years before the 9/11 attacks. For all the good it did.

If the scenario above isn’t scary enough, imagine this. Suppose the Jihadists solve the admittedly difficult problems of creating (or buying) and transporting nuclear weapons, and there are atomic detonations in New York and Los Angeles, those being good targets with lots of uninspected cargo coming in. Upwards of five million Americans are dead. Many more are sick and dying. The economy is virtually gone and we face starvation and poverty for everyone. On the plus side, we didn’t water board anyone to try to prevent it, so our leadership feels really good about themselves.

Given that the Jihadists are non-state actors, we don’t know what country to strike back at with our nukes, if we had the courage to do so, and no assurance that by doing so we are not incinerating millions more innocents. Did they get them from Iran? North Korea? Pakistan? Russia via criminal gangs? Or elsewhere? The Jihadist demands are simple. Withdraw all American forces to the homeland, disband the American military and institute Shari’a law. Or more American cities will die.

What now, Mr. President? (Assuming of course that Washington wasn’t one of the targets and we have a president.)