Investors Editorial: Times Square Scare
Posted 06:23 PM ET
War On Terror: A Muslim-American terrorist's car bomb didn't go off as planned in New York's busy Times Square. But it explodes a number of stubborn myths about the homegrown threat.
Myth No. 1: The only violent citizens we need to worry about these days are anti-government Tea Party types angry over ObamaCare. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg repeated the faulty assumption — oft-cited by the Obama administration — in an interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric the day after the scare.
Never mind that the bomb-laden SUV was parked nowhere near a government building. And never mind that the Times Square subway just last year was a target of Najibullah Zazi, another homegrown jihadist. The mayor must also have been napping a couple of weeks ago when two other Muslim Americans were busted in Manhattan for supporting al-Qaida.
Myth No. 2: Unlike Muslims abroad, our Muslims don't partake in violent jihad. And Muslims immigrating to our shores clamor to become U.S. citizens because they love America.
Times Square terror suspect Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani immigrant who became a U.S. citizen last year, sure has an odd way of showing his love. Authorities say his car bomb would have killed hundreds of fellow Americans.
Shocking truth is, hundreds of Muslims living in America have been busted for terrorism since 9/11. And tens of thousands more have supported jihad through charitable fronts. In fact, every major Muslim charity in America has been shut down now.
Myth No. 3: The Taliban's terror reach is limited to South Asia.
Pakistan-based Taliban claimed credit for the car bomb plot in an audio tape. And there are reports that Shahzad recently trained at a Taliban camp in Peshawar.
The Taliban and al-Qaida provide angry Muslim Americans with the fuse, and then secrete these human bombs back inside American communities such as Bridgeport, Conn., Shahzad's home, or Aurora, Colo., where Pakistan-trained Zazi lived.
It's perhaps no coincidence that Shahzad traveled to Pakistani camps after obtaining his U.S. passport, a document cherished by Taliban and al-Qaida recruiters. Terrorists who are American citizens have a better chance of re-entering the U.S. undetected. Authorities are doing next to nothing to close off this end of the Pakistan terror pipeline, and not nearly enough to close off the other end .
Myth No. 4: Drones alone will take care of the enemy's training camps, safe houses and leaders inside Pakistan.
New videos from the Pakistani Taliban show their leader alive and refute earlier White House claims that he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in January. Hakimullah Mehsud's embarrassing survival underscores the drone campaign's limits.
The enemy enjoys sanctuary inside Pakistan's remote tribal region, and continues to operate with virtual impunity.
Without boots on the ground there, our chances of defeating the enemy before it can launch attacks against us are slim.
Myth No. 5: Shahzad is another al-Qaida wannabe. They're incompetent amateurs. Nothing to worry about.
While his car bomb may have been a dud like the Christmas airline bomb, he still got the bomb in place before authorities caught on. Bottom line: We're still reacting to terrorism. And lately, we've gotten lucky.
But we also got lucky in 1993 when a truck bomb failed to knock out the WTC pilings — until our luck ran out eight years later, when the Muslim terrorists came back and hit the towers again, this time with winged bombs.
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