DesertFox
09-09-2007, 08:54 AM
Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
9 Sep 07
IF THERE WAS one thing we all knew after Sept. 11, 2001, it was that another massacre was coming. The next terrorist attack on US soil, it was asserted time and again, was not a matter of if, but of when.
Americans weren't the only ones who expected Al Qaeda to commit another slaughter. Al Qaeda did, too. Earlier this year, terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed that in addition to 9/11, he had been planning to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Empire State Building, and to blow up US embassies and nuclear power plants.
None of those attacks occurred. In the six years since 9/11, Islamist terrorism has led to scenes of horrific carnage in, among other places, Madrid, London, Bali, Istanbul, Israel, and Russia. Yet there has been no catastrophic attack on the American homeland - something no one would have predicted in 2001. What explains such good fortune?
There is no definitive answer to that question. But surely the place to begin is with the belated recognition that we were at war.
More (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/09/war_on_terror_is_working?mode=PF)
The Boston Globe
9 Sep 07
IF THERE WAS one thing we all knew after Sept. 11, 2001, it was that another massacre was coming. The next terrorist attack on US soil, it was asserted time and again, was not a matter of if, but of when.
Americans weren't the only ones who expected Al Qaeda to commit another slaughter. Al Qaeda did, too. Earlier this year, terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed that in addition to 9/11, he had been planning to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Empire State Building, and to blow up US embassies and nuclear power plants.
None of those attacks occurred. In the six years since 9/11, Islamist terrorism has led to scenes of horrific carnage in, among other places, Madrid, London, Bali, Istanbul, Israel, and Russia. Yet there has been no catastrophic attack on the American homeland - something no one would have predicted in 2001. What explains such good fortune?
There is no definitive answer to that question. But surely the place to begin is with the belated recognition that we were at war.
More (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/09/war_on_terror_is_working?mode=PF)