No New 9/11? Here's Why

Nearly six years after 9/11, the nature of the terrorist threat against the United States continues to be elusive. The radical Islamist groups that constitute "the enemy" have been identified and laid bare in the pages of leading newspapers and magazines, complete with neat wiring diagrams that demonstrate who is connected to whom and by what. From the political right "central fronts" of the "global war on terror" are invoked coupled to warnings that street warfare in Baghdad is preferable to fighting in Peoria, while the political left argues that the central front is actually somewhere else. If the global war on terror is little more than a pious fraud equating to political shorthand for something that is apparently too difficult to describe, does that mean that terrorism doesn't exist either? Alas, no, but still, the actual connection to the American citizen leading his workaday life remains unclear. Is it time to build a backyard bomb shelter, start collecting duct tape, or begin stocking up on cans of chili con carne? Or, alternatively, is it time to take a deep breath and stop thinking about terrorism, permitting one's eyes to safely glaze over every time Fox television news features Ollie North updating the viewer on the "The War on Terror"?

There is only one thing that is certain: there has been no major terrorism incident within the United States since 9/11. Whether this is due to the vigilance being exercised by the White House in defense of the United States and its citizens or owing to something else not quite so emotionally satisfying is the basic question which every American should be asking, particularly as the vigilance part is costing the taxpayer some hundreds of billions of dollars every year. If officials in the Department of Homeland Security know whether there are actual terrorist groups operating underground inside the United States, waiting for the opportunity to unleash mayhem, they are providing little in the way of evidence. But if such groups do exist, it is by no means clear what they are waiting for and there is precious little hard fact to suggest that there is a serious or imminent threat.

Consider the following: In the nearly five years since 9/11 there has not been a single arrest of any terrorist suspect who actually had the capability or resources to carry out the savage act he might have been contemplating. In recent terrorism cases, a California cherry picker named Hamid Hayat who allegedly had once attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan but might have lied when asked about it has been convicted and faces up to thirty-nine years in prison. Other highly publicized recent cases include last month's Albanians in New Jersey who may have been motivated to act by an FBI informant in their midst; June 2006's seven Miami Haitians who were largely entrapped by the FBI long before they were capable of doing anything and were even then described as "more aspirational than operational;" the September 2002 so-called Lackawanna Seven who once visited a Taliban training camp in Afghanistan; and the March 2004 conviction of three men in Virginia, admittedly supporters of Kashmiri independence groups, who had been arrested after being detected firing paint ball guns at each other in a nearby forest. And then there is the strange case of "dirty bomber" and "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, who has been held in prison for five years, who allegedly has been tortured and might be insane, and whose terrorism credentials are so flimsy that the US government has finally admitted that it cannot make a case against him except on charges of conspiracy. Nevertheless, he continues to spend his time in prison, habeas corpus and his rights as a US citizen under the Bill of Rights be damned.

It is possible to cite numerous other cases of so-called terrorism convictions that just do not amount to anything. Indeed, while one can reasonably argue that anyone who even thinks about a terrorist act should be safely put away in prison, none of the known terrorist cases equate to a credible threat against the United States. The Department of Homeland Security has even admitted by implication that most of its terrorism cases are anything but serious. When twenty-four Pakistani men were arrested in London in August 2006 in connection with an apparent plot to bomb civilian airliners, senior Homeland Security officials were quick to commend Britain, confirming that the arrests were "the real thing" of actual terrorists, a clear implication on their part that other arrests that have taken place in the past have been something less than that.

The lack of any notable arrests of any serious terrorists in the United States suggests that the domestic terrorist danger in the form of home grown Islamic radicals has been grossly overstated and, quite possibly, does not amount to a serious threat. This is plausibly the reason that the United States has enjoyed relative security over the past five years. It should be recalled that 9/11 was carried out by visitors to the United States who by-and-large did not gravitate to the local Muslim community to cover their presence and activities, meaning that they did not trust local Muslims to be supportive. To be sure, the increased security at ports of entry and the difficulty in obtaining a visa if one is a Muslim, have certainly inhibited the ability of foreign terrorists to enter the US and carry out an attack, but the real danger to any country comes from locally grown radicals as they attract less attention, speak the language, know the culture, and can take their time to identify weak points in the security procedures. It is also more difficult to operate aggressively against them from a law enforcement point of view as to do so raises legitimate civil liberties concerns. London's transportation bombing in July 2005 and Madrid's train bombings in March 2004 were carried out by local residents, possibly aided and abetted by advice from al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The alienation of Muslims in Britain and France continues to be a subject of much attention in their media, and rightly so. Available evidence suggests that American Muslims have not been so radicalized.

All of the above is not to engage in sophistry over the question of terrorists and terrorism. Even though terrorism cannot destroy the American Republic unless we Americans help it to do so, terrorism definitely exists and even some grandstanding politicians surely speak the truth when they assert that there are large numbers of Islamic radicals out there who wish to do the United States harm. Some would delight in blowing up a city and killing half a million people, if they could. That they have not done so is not a tribute to the Patriot Act, to illegal NSA Eavesdropping, or to the Military Commissions Act, none of which has actually led to the arrest and conviction of a single viable terrorist. It is mostly due to the fact that nearly all of the six to eight million Muslims living in the United States are undoubtedly peace-loving and wish this country no harm.