Internet-Haganah | Enemies, both foreign and domestic

07 May 2010

Enemies, both foreign and domestic

By A. Aaron Weisburd

If nothing else, I would hope that the Times Square attack of 01 May 2010 highlights the problematic nature of efforts to categorize terrorism as either foreign or domestic. In the end all terrorism is local, regardless of the terrorist, his cause, his ideology, his religion, his place of birth, where he was raised, etc. The threat is not either foreign or domestic, it is both foreign and domestic.

History's judgement is harsh
Faisal Shahzad came to the USA, got multiple degrees, survived at least one JTTF-led investigation, earned his citizenship, moved his family [back] to Pakistan, received training and/or endorsement in Pakistan, returned to the USA, purchased a firearm and ammunition, purchased an SUV, assembled a bomb, and drove the bomb into Times Square. At that moment he was on track to be one of the great terrorists of all time. And then it all went fizzle and pop. Faisal Shahzad will be remembered as the idiot bomb-maker, his presumed Pak Taliban sponsors have disowned him, and he's likely to spend the rest of his life in a Federal prison.

Member of, affiliated with, or merely inspired by?
Terrorism is not only local, it is social, and it is very personal. What you can accomplish as a terrorist is a function of who you are, who you know, and the opportunities that are available to you. The genuine lone wolf not only acts alone, he gets himself to the point of acting in isolation from others, and he receives no help from others in preparing his attack. Such people are rare - not to mention mentally unwell. You have to assume that Faisal Shahzad knows people who support terrorism, and that he did not get to the point of driving the Pathfinder to Times Square in isolation from others. On the personal level, people join, affiliate with, or are inspired by terrorist organizations and movements for a whole raft of reasons beyond, instead of, or in addition to ideology, grievance, or cause. People who think that a "real" Taliban fighter is a religiously-motivated Puritanical freak, are... mistaken.

Legitimacy
Terrorism is cold-blooded political murder, no matter how passionately a terrorist may claim to believe in his particular cause. Among the factors that enable someone to overcome the natural inhibitions to such killing, legitimacy stands out in this case. The training Faisal received from the TTP may have been inadequate (or he may have been a not-very-diligent student - his lackluster academic career suggests this is the case). But any contact he had with the TTP, and anything they said to make him feel he was authorized to take action in their name, conferred on him and his plans an aura of legitimacy: he was a real terrorist, working for a real terrorist organization - at least in his own mind, if not in fact.

Low-input terrorism
This case likely represents a significant change in tactics on the part of America's enemies, away from grandiose plots that involve many people and require years of planning and preparation, and towards opportunistic attacks that risk a minimum of personnel and resources. If so this is unfortunate, because it would mean that terrorists have gained a better understanding of their actions: a terrorist attack already has an impact on the targeted society that is entirely out of proportion to the attack itself, and as a result the quantity of attacks is probably more important than the quality of any single attack. As for tradecraft, it is likely to vary wildly both from plot to plot and within each plot - Faisal's more egregious mistakes notwithstanding, he wasn't a complete idiot. In fact, I'm quite impressed with the performance he turned in, particularly if he was left to plan and execute an attack on his own.