The arrest of six people on charges of plotting to blow up the US Army at Fort Dix strengthens my position as a "low intensity" guy. I hope that the Bush administration gets the message that the most imminent terrorist threats we face won't come from the "Nagasaki" school play book.
A quick explanation:
The "Nagasaki" theory of terrorism is based on Osama Bin Laden's instructions that each attack needs to be bigger than the last one and that the important scoreboard is body count. The name is based on chatter in which a high ranking Al-Qaida commander suggested that the next attack on US soil be not only bigger than 9-11 but will also cause more death than the atomic bombs that ended World War II. In short it is terrorism perpetrated -- and taken very seriously -- by "Big Bangers"
In contrast, the "low intensity conflict" view steals a term from the British army who fought such guerrilla battles in India, Palestine and Ireland. In the words of Michael Collins and Martin McGuiness (who ironically joined the British government this week) the "job of a terrorist is to terrorize." A hit and run, blowing up a rail road line, shooting an agent at home in his bed (or even better in bed with his lover), can be more damaging than the Big Bang. The disruption of way of life, the impact on commerce can be far more destabilizing than the occasional Nagasaki blast, goes the theory.
Clearly the 9-11 attacks engineered by Bin Laden were extraordinary terrorist maneuvers which exposed the west's vulnerability and undoubtedly added to increased militarization of fanatic Islam.
The Washington brain trust -- Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (when he's not working on memory aids) and the top hierarchy of the Pentagon -- are the folks I call "Big Bangers." The Nagasaki has an innate appeal to the "Big Bangers" because the preferred response to such a threat requires centralized control. Only a central command and control structure can engineer appropriate response to fleets of commercial jets being used as suicide bombs, to prevent mountains of poison tossed to the window and wiping out a Texas city or to stop cargo ships from slipping Nagasaki-sized atomic weapons across the Pacific to destroy the Port of Los Angeles.
I have heard with my own ears top military intelligence officials claim that the US is relatively safe from al-Qaida threat at the moment because all the best terrorist minds are currently focused on Afghanistan and Iran. Once those conflicts are resolved we need to brace ourselves for the Big Bang.
Besides the foolishness of that suggestion on its face, we must remember that a similar single-minded scenario was what launched unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The low intensity school, made up by most non-military intelligence folks who are working on the ground as opposed to a library, says that the greatest threat will come from small groups like the Fort Dix Six.
New intelligence chatter indicates that the leadership of Al-Qaida is starting to understand Michael Collins and the Irgun: Terrorism is about disruption not explosion. The latest chatter talks about economic consequences of attack rather than body count. There is no question that the World Trade Center was an enormous devastating blow to our economy, but many people in the field believe that similar economic consequences could be brought about with a series of suicide dirty bombs in the New York subways, a high speed inflatable boat bomb sinking a cargo ship in the waters around Long Beach, California, or a once-off surface to air missile fired near O'Hare Airport.
"Terrorist attacks are not always on a grand scale," said US Attorney Christopher J. Christie when announcing the arrest of the Fort Dix Six.
I just hope someone in Washington can hear the low intensity warnings amidst the shouting of the Big Bangers.