WARNING for AMERICA.. the time is now..
I pray it does not happen..

After watching the events unfold on the news about the hurricane I was thinking to myself, what would happen if the terrorist decided to pick now for a large attack?

Questions for discussion.

What do you think the response of the government would be like to a terrorist attack?

Would we be able to handle it even with the events that are going on in the South?

What type of attack would be the most difficult to handle right now? Why?

I pray this does not happen but the time is right, watch out for it, get ready for it, get your family ready and make your plans. Being ready and not needing the plans is better than not being ready and getting caught with out plans or supplies.

I think a large scale attack is unlikely, because they actually require a long period of planning (on the scale of years) to pull off. It would be impossible to have such an attack co-incide with Hurricane Katrina.

In which case, the only attacks would be small scale, which are tragic, but do not really impact on the wider scheme of things.

As far as I know, Al Qaeda's support network has been greatly impacted by coalition activies in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the recent crack down in Pakistan on Islamic Fundamentalism, which suggests to me that the ability of terrorists to strike at the US has greatly decreased over the last few years.

I think that the terrorists would strike us. If they could.

In spite of the never-ending attacks on our current government, the war on terror has been largely a success. Yet, uncoordinated cells of fanatics could strike us at this moment and cause even more public chaos than the natural disaster has brought.

What would the government response be? It depends on what happened. They could move quicker than they did in LA because, unlike in a hurricane, they would not have to pull their own forces back thousands of miles to avoid being wiped out themselves.

What type of attack would be the most difficult to handle? Obviously a WMD attack of some sort. That would ALWAYS be the worst-case scenario.

I agree that being prepared is part of being responsible. Hopefully, the hurricane is a wake up call for everyone in that regard.

Personally I would be more worried about subsequent hurricanes devastating other areas - Florida, say - to similar degrees. The hurricane season is only just getting started, after all.

NOLA is about the safest place for one to make landfall now, since there is little property left to damage and few people left in the area (finally) to feel the effects.

A large-scale earthquake or volcanic eruption on the West Coast would also stretch resources well beyond breaking point, and (in my estimation) would be similarly probable as a large-scale terror attack.

The response of government to another terror attack in the US mainland would, I think, be similar to the in response to 9-11. Firstly the emphasis would be on saving lives. Then on investigation to find out who was responsible. Then some kind of military action to "take out" those seen to be responsible. This last part would be where the resources of the military got stretched every bit as much as the domestic authorities would be in dealing with the immediate effects of any attack.

Let's not pretend that any anti-federalists, like those who attacked Oklahoma City, would not be equally likely to take advantage of the current problems following on from Katrina as any Islamic fundamentalist group, with the additional advantage of being able to move around more freely in their own country.

I think America would be able to handle something on the scale of 9-11 in addition to everything else that is going on, but the cost would be extensive - both in cash terms, but also in terms of the recessionary economic effects, and (if it were shown to be Islamic terrorism coming from the Middle East) the additional upward pressure on oil prices.

In other words, I think America could cope with one more disaster on top of those it currently is dealing with, but that would be the limit, and the next one after that (if it came in close succession) would be beyond even your huge abilities.

I am not going to speculate on what the weakest points would be - quite apart form anything else, on an internationally available public forum, I don't want to give anyone any ideas.

All I will say is that I've always thought that terrorism is ultimately counter-productive. Killing your enemy just galvanises the rest of them against you. I've always thought that, were I to ever take part in an "assymetric conflict", I'd go out of my way to avoid killing anyone with bomb or bullet, and instead make heir lives uncomfortable by attacking every kind of infrastructure I could - railway lines, powerlines & power stations, oil refineries, water works, pipelines, bridges, tunnels, roads, etc. Instead of making life frightening (which, in humans invokes the fight or flight response - i.e. you do get fear, but you also get anger), make it expensive and uncomfortable. People are then more likely to accept compromise in my favour, and demand it of their own government, to make life affordable and cosy again.

When the IRA was most active in Britain, I was convinced that randomly killing members of the public would just get them siding with the government, which is pretty much what happened. Almost nobody on the mainland cared what the legitimate greivances might have been (and there were many) and are only now starting to pay attention to them now the guns have fallen silent.

Whereas making sure that people couldn't live in the material manner to which they'd become accustomed would get them demanding action form the government, and my notional resistance group's avoidance of bloodshed would give us a kind of credibility, even a nobility, that no more bloodthirsty group ever gets.

What do you think the response of the government would be like to a terrorist attack?

It depends on the breadth of the attack. If the attack were 9/11 style (that is, point source), then I believe government would do an adequate job responding. If the attack involved WMD and/or wide-scale destruction, then I believe government would do a horrible job as demonstrated by Katrina.

Would we be able to handle it even with the events that are going on in the South?

....and given events in Iraq. Again, for wide-scale attacks, I believe we are at a major strategic disadvantage.

What type of attack would be the most difficult to handle right now? Why?

Coordinated attacks on major infrastructure, WMD or a series of attacks over a period of time forcing the US to over-extend its assets (financial and military). Katrina has demonstrated weak points in the US homeland defense network.