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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (95279)	4/20/2003 11:47:53 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This may happen, but I think it's very likely that their attention will be focused on Iraq. Disagree. The most likely place is one which will give them more bang for their buck. Such a place is clearly Saudi Arabia. A few well placed bombs and oil is suddenly at $75 or more a barrel and the hated House of Saud is given a tremendous blow, if not toppled. An Islamofascist's dream come true.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (95279)	4/21/2003 1:22:38 AM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Our presence in Iraq will provide terrorists with a target that they can attack with less risk and cost than are involved with operations in the US. Our people there - and that includes civilians - will have to be very careful. Hi Steven, I am sure you are right about there being attacks in Iraq and I assume they have already begun. But I question whether OBL is spending any time on them. Such efforts would not require his claimed "strengths" and declared purpose of high profile targeting. And it is pretty clear that the current administration would much rather fight such terrorists anywhere but in the US. I don't think OBL has the time to worry about individual martyrs with car bombs or plastic explosives strapped to their chests, unless they are in a place like Chicago, Manhattan, or SF. It seems to me that he has to go for the big targets. Whether in the US or elsewhere, they have to be visible as "American" targets. Embassies, ships, leaders, or anything in the US. Otherwise, he will be playing the game the way GW wants it played. If he selects targets in any Arab country, he further runs the risk of angering more Arabs than he pleases when his "martyrs" produce more "collateral damage" to Arab interests than to American. Remember the Embassy bombing in Nairobi? He killed more Africans than Americans. He can't do that in Baghdad, Basra, Kuwait City, etc, with a car/truck bomb and not risk doing damage to Arabs. Can he guarantee a radical Mullah's son won't be riding by in a car just as the bomb goes off? Similarly, blowing up oil wells, pipelines, electric plants, water pumps, etc in Iraq will paint him with the same brush as Saddam. Moreover, the military security there is only going to grow, and would seem much more costly to deal with than, eg, the Oakland Port Authority. Certainly he may be running out of "assets" in the US and getting new ones in must be pretty difficult right now. But if he fails to pull off a US attack this year I am going to start assuming that he can't. If he starts claiming credit for terror strikes in Iraq or any other Arab nation, I'm going to start assuming that GW has already won the war. Time is no longer on the terrorists side. Unless he finds a way to kill a lot more Marines than he has, or to bring a significant amount of "blood" back to our streets, his goose is pretty well cooked. ...Unless, of course we do something completely insane first. 0\|0