Ignorance Based Fear and the Denial of Reality

We've had another attempt to blow up an airplane, this time by a 23-year-old Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmuttallab. He used the same type of explosives as that carried by the attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid. Common features: both men were fanatics and neither of the attacks worked.

Herein lies essential base of al-Qaeda (which translates to "the base"). It has thousands of loyal recruits who are willing to lay down their lives for their cause. In fact, their life circumstances make them ill suited for anything but cannon fodder. Those with any education, military training or political power quickly become leaders within the movement. These leaders, conveniently for them, are too "important" to sacrifice themselves. This by default leaves, by and large, an uneducated and unsophisticated group to actually carry out attacks.

It is this reason, the very poor quality of the attackers, that has prevented the majority of attacks. It is not anything done by any security measures, airline procedures, domestic and international spying, or anything else, it is the sheer incompetency of fanatics. It is also a natural function that as continued suicide attacks occur, the pool of attackers gets closer to the bottom of the barrel with each attack. In fact, suicide attacks in general seem to be just from the point of view of strategy, a product of illogical thinking. It wastes the most fanatical soldiers.

Look at the immediate evidence. The best that al-Qaeda can do at present is Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmuttallab. These guys couldn't even detonate explosives with fire. If this really is the best they can do, then their major operational problem is incompetence.

This is not to say that there will not continue to be attacks by misguided fanatics. There are plenty of Mohammed Atta's, and Timothy McVeigh's out there, and some of them will pull it off. By and large though, it is their own fanaticism that is the best ally of everyone in the world.

Balancing out their incompetence is the false sense of security produced by creating an illusion of safety that involves taking away nail clippers and screening your shoes. However, any one who has flown knows the sham that this process has become. Disinterested TSA agents chatting with each other, an over reliance on technology, and a realistic assessment that the likelihood of an attack is low all make for a typical casualness towards the process that makes it resemble a Kabuki theatre.

Now you can expect tighter security for a few weeks, maybe even months, then everything will settle down. That is what the leaders of al-Qaeda will do. Wait for another lull. The reality is that another attack is already being plotted, another apple is being pulled from the bottom, and after that one there will be another and another. Eventually one will get through. No matter how poor the quality of their members and no matter what is done.

It is not uplifting to think or predict that it will happen again, it is just realistic. It is comforting though to note that even the successful plots carried out have been dwarfed in number by those thwarted. It is also something to keep in mind that a more realistic view of those carrying out fanatical attacks is as a mostly incompetent and illogical lot without the ability to do much more than blow themselves up.