Why, do you suppose, have there been no suicide bomber here?

It just seems odd to me that a suicide bomber or roadside bomber or some similar acts of terrorism have not taken place in this country yet. Anyone got any theories as to why it hasn't happened? I mean, its not like it would be a major feat to get into the country and it certainly wouldn't pose any problem getting the explosive materials. Opportunities abound for placement of devices in relatively unprotected places from sporting events to mega churches or just the sidewalks of one of our major cities.

It just strikes me as odd, what with all the reported hatred for us, that it hasn't happened yet.

I believe the person means post-9/11...I find it odd indeed also...but as my gut feeling keeps telling me---INSIDE JOB--Connect the dots and follow the money...Bushies, Carlyle Group, CIA, Bin Laden Family, Saudi Arabia Royals, Cheneys, Halliburton, large contracts, etc. etc....didn't all these people I mentioned benefit greatly from 9/11?.....think about it...

:shrug:

Don't confuse opportunism with cause.

Or did someone actually die in the truck? It's possible, I suppose, but I wasn't aware of it.

Get my drift?

and Dracula from the head of homeland security said that,there are groups of men and women bombers on their way here. You can take that for what it is worth, I can't believe anything these people say.

Just kidding :).

I don't know, it is an interesting question. The truth is the probably simply don't have the resources to do it. We are talking about a bunch of idiots that live in caves, it still amazes me how they were able to pull 9/11 off (and if you are reading this with your tinfoil hat on please don't bother replying to this, I'm not in the mood).

Terrorists come here, meet a hottie and decide that 72 virgins will just have to wait.

;-)

w. a radio shack on every corner if you had a serious political purpose it would be stupid to be a suicide bomber when you could set up a delayed device for a few dollars and live to fight another day for your beliefs

we've had terrorist bombings in usa since at least the 1920s, but most bombers who "suicide" do it only because their skill level is poor and the bomb goes off before they intend, it is just too easy to put a device on a timer

i don't know if it is a comment on the poverty in the middle east that people won't spend a few bucks to put a timer on the bomb or what or if there is a deliberate effort made to seek out bombers who suffer from depression or another mental illness such that they actually want to die?

also in usa we have a gun culture -- people in usa who want to die but who also want to take out a lot of other people go the way of the gun, such as the virginia tech guy -- it just seems more "filmic" and more in keeping w. the usa culture to hose the place down w. gunfire and then kill oneself/suicide by cop rather than using a bomb

in short we have plenty of suicide actions that take out others besides the angry/depressed person -- it just involves guns and attention-seeking for personal reasons rather than bombs and attention-seeking for political reasons -- but i suspect these are drawing from the same category of people w. the same category of histrionic mental illnesses

Different societies, religions, etc, look at death differently. What is worth dying for differs. I would also add in to your ideas that perhaps there is a societal thing, that death is bad so blow up other people but not yourself. Good thoughts there pitohui.

:crazy: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

:rofl:

so they have yet to follow us home, being the puppy dogs that they are.

Why come to the United States and incur all the costs and troubles when you can do the same damage in Europe.

suicide bomb here. That all of "them" live in Europe. Am I right?

I have to think that there may be more points to be gained, so to speak, to attack the 'great satan' itself than one of its minions? I'd think that there would be more virgins awaiting a bomber that stuck in Seattle than one that hit Bonn. I could very well be wrong though.

Logistically, it is easier to do it where most of them live anyway. USA is too far from their base of operations. Even in asymetrical warfare, communications (that is supplies, logistic support, human reinforcements etc.) are necessary and the further from home base, the harder it is to do it.

The motive is there but the means and opportunity aren't. The 9/11 hijackers had $500,000 of slush funds from Bushco allies to help them out plus all the other stand downs, quashed investigations, ignored warnings etc that gave them a free pass to carry it out.

USA USA USA!!!!

:sarcasm:

2001. That job has been completed. They hit the symbolic targets (or tried) of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and (tried) Capital Hill. That was their message. It wasn't just indescriminate killing as the intent. They are closer to targets in Europe and the Middel East and will continue to hit those IMO. All this requires police work (intelligence) in order to shut them down or locate their hiding places.

They can realistically say, "Mission Accomplished".

played right into their hands.

You can just go shoot up a bunch of people, like at VA Tech.

It occured to me at the time that those two guys were shooting up the DC area. I thought to myself that if 10 teams of guys with rifles just drove around the country shooting one person a day and then just driving on to the another town they could shut this country down in about 2 weeks. If they stuck to small (25,000 or so) to medium (250,000 or so) sized towns the panic would spread mighty fast and it would take forever to catch them if they could be caught at all.

One is that it is simply not that easy for men drawn from the readiest and most plentiful sort of recruits to operate in the United States. Even in Islamic immigrant communities, jihadis drawn from the radical madrassas of Central Asia stand starkly out. Persons born here, or well acclimated already, who become sufficiently radicalized to contemplate such activity, tend to be poor-grade amatuers where the work is concerned, and should they travel to gain training, or have contact with trained foreigners, raise many red flags with the security services.

Further, there is no need for such attacks at present. Violence in war is always aimed at some end, not done just for the hell of it. The intent of the attacks in September '01 was to provoke the United States into a fight on a foreign battlefield, where the success the jihadis conceive themselves to have won against the Soviet Union could be replicated. They initially envisioned that Afghanistan would be the field of this, but the present administration was kind enough, when that hope failed decisively, to accommodate them with an invasion and occupation of Iraq. Since they have what they sought to achieve, why bother conducting further opoerations? It would be a waste of resources, of networks and methods and man-power, that would be better husbanded against a future need to provoke some desired reaction.

Another reason is more subtle. Guerrilla operations, when they occur, must give the impression always of gaining strength, moving forward, which means that each must top the impact of the last. In the case of attacks in the United States, that would be very difficult to achieve, relative to the attacks of September '01. A handful of self-immolations would not create the necessary effect, but leave more a 'that's all you've got?' impression, suggesting weakness rather than strength in the attackers. It is better to leave the thing hanging, perhaps even for years, while the enemy fills in fears of future attacks from its own imagination, than to let off a squib.

"Execution of a threat is always less effective than its utterance."

I'm not sure I entirely agree though. Its hard to think that anyone really stands out in this country, particularly in the large cities. People step over the homeless every day, who looks to see if they look foreign or speaks to them to see if they are fluent in the language? That said you do have a very good point - it would be hard for most to buy a 100 pound sack of nitrogen fertilizer down at the local feed store though maybe not so difficult to pick up a box of shotgun shells at the closest Wal Mart and then just start blasting away.

The 'more subtle' reason seems to me a good one. You are a failure if you can not outdo your previous achievments seems to be the point. Could very well be.

and the delusion that things are OK?

Suicide bombers are a sign of total hopelessness in a significant percentage of a population.

Give it time. Sadly, we will get there too.

In fact, my husband and I were discussing that very thing a few weeks ago. It does strike me as odd that it hasn't happened yet. My husband thinks it's only a matter of time, particularly if we don't change our international policies. I pray he is wrong.

But yes, I've wondered why it hasn't happened yet. I hope it's not because what they have in store for us is far more organized and planned out than a random suicide bomber attack would be. Still, you wonder about the crazies or the rebels, the unconnected, working on their own.

means, motive, and opportunity?

Before I went to Afghanistan we got a class from a guy (who's name I can't remember, and wish I could) who had been the US ambassador to Afghanistan in the 80's and has held several other official roles in middle eastern countries.

One of the topics we discussed was what makes a suicide bomber. I'm not quoting exactly, but here's the gist of what he said:

"In the US, life is usually pretty good. All of you guys have a job. If you didn't have a job, the chance of you finding one is pretty good. Even if you couldn't, many of you have family members who could help you out, tide you over or at least give you a place to stay. That's not how it often is in the middle east. Lets say you're a male of working age. You're supporting your parents, you're supporting your wife and three kids. You live in the suburbs of Kabul. You don't have a job. Your prospects of finding a job are very, very limited. You have a lot of people to take care of and very little hope that you'll be able to do it.

Then you get a job. The city will pay you to kill rats in the sewer. Your job is to go into the sewer with a big, pointy stick and kill rats. They will pay you about the equivelant of a quarter per rat. Your job is filthy, disgusting and pays next to nothing but you do it because it's what you can find. You come home every day reeking of sewage and filth but you come home with a little bit of money. Then you get fired. The city can afford to pay you anymore so you're out of a job. You're of your filthy, disgusting job that most of us would never consider doing. That's when "they" show up.

"They" are usually mid-level managers of terrorist cells or the Taliban. They offer you a deal. $50,000 dollars to drive a car load of explosive into a building or to put on a vest of TNT and blow up a market. The catch is that you blow up too. Would any of you do this? Do any of you feel so passionately about something that you'd kill yourself to further that cause? (All of us shake our heads or say no). What about saving your kids? How many of you would sacrifice yourself to save your kids? (quite a bit fewer no's this time). That's the offer they're making you. Your prospects are zero. Your future is nothing. But your kids and your wife can have a future, and all you have to do is die.

Desperate people do desperate things. You don't see Osama strapping a bomb to himself. He's smart. You don't see the "lead" terrorists do these things. They're smart. They know there are desperate people who will do those things for them. That's the anatomy of a suicide bomber."

It does seem that this is a possible scenario. I saw a special on terrorism and the idea of “Them”, the mid-level managers of terrorist cells showing up when the time is ripe sounds right. "Desperate people do desperate things", so true.

I'm curious what your take on it is.

It seems to me that it would be so easy to do that if reports of hatred for us is so great in a community where such acts are commonplace it is bewildering why it hasn't happened.

or perhaps the person is too selfish? There are bombings and shootings here, but when they're done by Christians it doesn't count as terrorism.

People who have committed suicide are considered victims here. The only references to suicide in the Penal Code deal with investigations.

George "King of the World" Bush is keeping us safe.:sarcasm:

:shrug:

first, they've heard about the high gas prices ... many in the "exploding vehicle" crowd have to pay for their own gas ... it's not like the old days where budgets weren't watched too closely ...

and then you have all the car rental paperwork. have you seen all those forms? does anyone really know whether you're supposed to go along with the "collision waiver" or not? it's totally confusing.

and the benefits have been cut way back. many of the agencies that hire these people make them pay some or all of the health insurance premiums.

and don't even get me started on retirement plans.

no, the romance has gone out of the suicide bombing business. i mean, what's the point of blowing up a country that's doing a pretty good job destroying itself?

fear.

They accomoplished that mission already.

And they're too cowardly to off themselves as a political gesture, in general.

I believe they accomplished their goal of drawing us into their neighborhood, so they don't really need to come here to kill Americans, also, I think the idea of killing indiscriminately may have something to do with it.
There was after the sept 01 attacks a backlash in the muslim world to just that the killing of so many innocents, that doesn't explain Madrid or London though. Why not here I don't know, only that it's easier to kill Americans in Iraq, and that it's a sanctioned form of killing.

would have us all believe.

Even if you buy the 911 story hook, line and sinker, there are only so many people willing and able to do such a thing. The 19 people who are that batshit crazy for this century have been used up.

Most people in the ME just want to live. Sort of like anyone else. They actually don't (in spite of the media and * insisting that we are the center of the universe) think about the U.S. and nothing but the U.S. all day. They don't spend 23 hours per day frothing with hatred for the US.