MUCH TO BE
LEARNED FROM RANDOM EVENTS
MANY
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Miriam Carey
surrounded by law enforcement on Thursday near the Capitol Building
TAGS: WASHINGTON NAVY YARD SHOOTING, NYC PARACHUTISTS, WHITE
HOUSE GATE CRASH,
MIRIAM CAREY, AARON ALEXIS, AL QEADA, TERRORISM,
VULNERABILITIES,
SECURITY BREACHES, 1% DOCTRINE, INTELLIGENCE, VIGILANCE
(Thursday October 3, 2013, New
York City) New Yorkers are familiar with
the ubiquitous signs and billboards all over the buses, subways and streets
throughout the five Boroughs with the saying “See Something, Say
Something”. It is this simple principal
that enlists the vast population of New York City to be additional eyes and
ears of the NYPD. If any lasting
alteration in the psyche of New Yorkers has occurred since September 11, 2001
it is the realization that they have an obligation to be ever vigilant, always
alert for the unusual and atypical behavior they might observe as they go
about their business. The See Something,
Say Something campaign has proven to be valuable and, in some classified
scenarios, successful. If terrorists
have taught us one thing it is the importance of the power of observation. From the huge collection of information
seized from Al Qeada and other related terrorist factions we have learned how
adept they are in using careful observation in casing potential targets,
identifying weaknesses in various security protocols in airports and other
locations and parlaying their patient methodical study into lethal
attacks.
As tenacious and creative as
are our intelligence gathering and interdiction tactics are they are matched by
the terrorists and their never ending quest to exploit any vulnerability they
can here and abroad. To believe that
they have ceased seeking out novel methods with which to inflict tremendous
damage, fear, and death on our soil is to deny the stark reality of the world
today. Since September 11, 2001 we have witnessed brutal acts of terrorism in
places from London to Madrid, Mali to Malaysia, Libya to Yemen and points
between. That we here in the United
States and New York City in particular have not suffered another terrorist
attack is certainly not indication that those malign forces and small cells
have abandoned their stated designs. The
NYPD has interrupted at least 11 serious terrorist plots any one of which would
have dealt a serious blow to our City and our sense of safety and security and
likely would have claimed an unknown number of innocent lives.
WE FORGET, THEY LEARN
If we know one thing for
certain about Al Qeada and their bastard offshoots it is that they do their
homework and do it well. We know that
the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks had made several “dry
runs” on early morning flights from the northeast to the west coast studying
the flight crew and procedures. It is
likely that their careful rehearsals provided them all the intelligence they
required to craft the details of their plot with the least amount of effort or
margin for error. They knew the flights
they’d ultimately choose would be fully fueled and not many passengers would be
onboard. They identified what were at
the time gaping holes in airport and airline security and they would likely not
encounter much resistance from the early morning travelers. When they USS Cole was bombed in 2000 while
in the port of Aden those perpetrators and planners had scoped out the
harboring procedures for United States warships using the docks for refueling
and resupply. Actually, it can be said
that one of the most frightful hallmarks of Al Qeada is their meticulous
planning and the ability to develop plans of attack that give them maximum
advantage in this asymmetrical David versus Goliath struggle. They have proven
to be adept at altering their plans, quick to adopt accordingly and are a
tenacious devoted adversary. There can
be little doubt that Al Qeada operatives follow the news and social networks
avidly. Some recent events that have
occurred here in the past 3 weeks have likely been of great interest to
terrorists around the world.
SOFT TARGETS, HARD HEADS
On September 16th a
mentally disturbed employee of a defense department contractor walked into his
job at the Washington Navy Yard, allegedly one of the “harder” targets in our nation’s
capital , opened fire with several guns he had secreted in prior to that day,
and kill 12 people while wounding four others before he was shot. Aaron Alexis had been a navy reservist and
was granted a security clearance for his job with a technology subcontractor
working on the internal military computer systems. Alexis was widely known to have mental health
issues and many of those who knew him recalled observing his behavior grow more
erratic, paranoid, and delusional in the months leading up to his rampage. What does this say about the level of
security at the Navy Yard and all the other federal building, military bases,
ports, airfields, and installations across the country?
In the early morning hours of September
30th two men were caught on closed circuit monitors parachuting into
lower Manhattan just blocks away from the site where the World Trade Center
Towers once stood, the New York Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and Wall
Street. How did this happen? Did they jump from a plane or perform BASE
jumps as stunts? Whatever the case may
be and it is likely we will never know, it is more than troubling to realize
these two individuals were able to penetrate what is arguably one of the “hardest”
targets in New York City – the Financial District. It stands to reason that if they did in fact
jump from an aircraft they would have had to use some device such as a GPS app
so as to avoid landing on a rooftop in that structurally dense neighborhood of
Manhattan, the site of two previous terrorist attacks. Is the airspace over New York City vulnerable
to some sort of attack from a small private aircraft? It certainly seems to be so.
Earlier today a woman from
Connecticut drover her car into the gate on the east side of the White House,
led law enforcement officers on a high speed chase before crashing her car and
being shot by the responding officers.
How is this possible? How did she
get that close to the White House of all places?
While these events are in no
way shape or form related – they are each random instances - collectively they
make a powerful statement as to the quality of the security in some of the
locations we would expect to be the most secure. Have we already grown so complacent 12 years
out from September 11, 2001 that run of the mill citizens with severe
psychiatric problems can penetrate such important site so casually, so
easily? What must Al Qeada be thinking
when they see these events taking place here and in Washington DC?
We live in a wide open society
of 400 million diverse and disparate people.
There are far too many variables to account for even a fraction of the
madness, murder and mayhem that transpires daily. What we can do, however, is to remain ever
vigilant in our fight against terrorism.
Isolated, unrelated events can teach us something and it is these
lessons we must learn. Perhaps it was foolish to believe that we had already
learned them; the events in the last three weeks stand as damning proof that we
have not.
Those in the intelligence
community often refer to the One % Doctrine meaning that terrorist only have to
be successful once while we have to be successful in deterring, interrupting, interdicting,
or capturing them 100% of the time. They
have infinite opportunities for grand slam type events as we have just
witnessed last week at a shopping mall in Kenya. Hopefully the powers that be will assess and
analyze their security efforts and protocols with a more discerning eye given
recent events that could have been much worse.
Having witnessed what “lone wolf” lunatics have been capable of we can
only imagine what a terrorist organization such as Al Qeada with resources,
personnel, determination, dastardly imagination and unbridled hatred towards us
is learning from the news these days.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment