One reason I read Unqualified Offerings is that there’s always an interesting link to something I don’t find elsewhere. Here Jim points to this Gene Healy piece that asks if al Qaeda is as big a threat as we think:
Since 9/11, we’ve had Bali and Kenya. Domestically, nothing beyond the El-Al counter shootout (unless you count the anthrax mailings, which, to the best of our knowledge, were domestic). This suggests two possibilities:
1. AQ’s planning something huge, something that rivals 9/11;
2. AQ has tapped its well.If the American Jihad/mullahs under the bed/the-country-is-riddled-with-sleeper-cells theory is correct, then why so quiet? If Al Qaeda wants to trash the U.S. economy, why didn’t we hear from them the weekend after Thanksgiving—the busiest shopping weekend of the year?
[…]
[It’s] worth considering that perhaps we’ve weathered the worst. And if so, it’s also worth considering whether the measures we’ve adopted domestically—USA Patriot, a parallel court system for citizens accused of terrorism, Total Information Awareness—are not only unconstitutional, but vastly disproportionate to any threat currently presented by the enemy.
He goes on to address the question of whether or not attacking Iraq is an equally misguided response to the threat we face. Go check it out (and read his take on The Sopranos while you’re at it), but be warned that he’s been infested by a comments troll. I sympathize with your lack of time, Gene, and I agree that deleting a comment in Movable Type (if that’s what you use) is a pain, but c’mon: Does it really take more than ten seconds to ban an IP address?
I’ve been wondering since they relaxed airport security provisions earlier this week if the government thinks Al Qaeda has shot its wad, too. Or if this is just a sop to the airline industry. Or both. Can’t tell with this crew.