Anyone who knows me will likely tell you that should you ever hear me say anything good about the most recent Bush administration that you may want to get your ass to a church because there is a decent chance that its a sign of the end of days. However, some recent thinking I have been doing about Al Qaeda has led me to believe that the Bush Administration might have actually done something that prevented further attacks inside the United States for the seven years following 9/11 despite the general overall level incompetence shown by the White House in those years.
While the vast majority of the Bush administration's security policies produced nothing more than a frightened U.S. population convinced that Saddam Hussein had actually been behind 9/11 and that Democrats hated the troops and were going to get us all killed, their scare tactics might have actually cut Al Qaeda off at the knees.
Now what I mean by all this is that with the Bush administration constantly talking about the imminent threat posed by nuclear terrorism, anthrax and dirty bombs etc. that the bar for what would be considered impressive feats of terrorism have simply been set beyond Al Qaeda's tactical reach. While the Bush administration insisted that Al Qaeda was close to obtaining weapons of mass destruction for its own political purposes, the rest of the world (including the Muslim world) began to buy into the myth of Al Qaeda's power. At this point, should Al-Qaeda perpetrate any attack against the US that was considered less shocking than 9/11, the rest of the world will view them as the relatively weak organization that they are.
Here are some facts for you. According to the Al-Qaeda defector Dr. Fadl, Bin Laden tried to purchase some highly enriched Uranium from a Sudanese General in 1993 for $1.5 million. Turns out the canister he bought was actually filled with a substance known as Red Mercury or "Cinnabar," a compound that physically resembles uranium oxide but is chemically quite different. This is the closest that Al Qaeda has been to a nuclear weapon and that was back when bin laden had relative freedom of movement.
As far as anthrax goes, no Muslim terrorist organization has ever approached the level of sophistication needed to produce anthrax. As it turns out, the anthrax attacks that killed five people back in 2001 were actually the result of an army biologist named Bruce E. Ivins who blew a gasket and decided to use American government produced anthrax against his fellow citizens.
Finally, not even Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that sought to speed up armageddon by carrying out a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway could properly pull of a successful mass chemical attack (12 people died). Aum Shinrikyo had over a billion dollars as well as high-tech labs and technicians at its disposal, far more capability than any other terrorist group has ever had and even they failed to produce much more than temporary panic.
Turns out carrying out attacks of mass destruction are hard and by setting expectations so high for Al Qaeda, we forced them to make the strategic choice of trying to carry out less spectacular attacks that over time would destroy the myth of their power or instead rest on their laurels and allow self-starter terrorists to draw inspiration from them. (They have gone with the latter)
My overall point here is that for the most part, terrorism is a nuisance not the likely apocalyptic reality that Dick Cheney would like you to believe. Occasionally, these groups can accomplish something big like 9/11, however, terrorist acts of mass destruction are the exception and not the rule. So take heed, my fellow disciples of reason, and realize that there may be some value to propping up the myth of Al Qaeda in the media, but when it comes to the list of things that keeps you up at night, don't let this be one of them.