Tamayo wrote:
With respect the explosions in the London underground today,
some American government flack wrote:
The terrorist threat level has been upgraded from yellow to orange, targeted only to transportation.
Now, that would seem awfully foolish to me. No, if I were a terrorist and I hated the United States (and I'm not, and I don't -- far from it) I'd go for one of two targets: the Senate or the Hoover Dam.
A very large fraction of the governing of the country happens in the Senate, or is done by elected members of that institution. If I could kill most of the senators, the country would be thrown into chaos. By contrast, if I killed the President or even destroyed the White House in entirety, there's a Vice-President and a Speaker of the House and a bunch of other people in various places who could take over for him.
The harder target, but ultimately the best of all, is the Hoover Dam. I'd need a nuke, probably. If I could break that dam, I'd drown literally millions of people and cut off electricity to tens of millions more. It wouldn't need to be a
big nuke, though: if it could fit in a pickup bed, and if I could somehow put it down near the base of the dam, that sucker would be toast.
So -- all you people travelling around the United States today, don't worry too much. Unless you live in Washington, DC or in the states of Arizona or Nevada.
You're taking this the wrong way. I admit that the things I'm going to write are assumptions, but I think that they are more fact-oriented than some of your hidden assumptions.
First, let us start by asking what is the goal of the terrorist, or basically, what is 'terror' in this context. Well, a terrorist is a person/group that uses fear of the population as the primary means to get a political end (please excuse the rough translation). Note: a government can use terror on it's citizen and then it's called 'tyrany'.
The targets you suggest are strategic targets, but would they cause fear? Blowing up the White House would destroy one of the U.S.'s prominent symbols and cause mass panic, while blowing up the senate... Well, the senate isn't media covered as nearly as the president.
The destruction of the Hoover Dam would cripple the U.S., but the act won't cause half the amoount of fear as
threatening to blow it up.
Untill now I disscussed regional terror, which is basically what we have here in Israel. This case is different since you're talking about international terror. The difference is - as I see it - that the international terror's target is not the one he wish to influance. International terrorist gain political (or teo-political) 'points' in their region for causing fear in
other regions.
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I have more to say but my head hurts too much for my English to be even remotly grammatical... So I'll continue later.