Joe Katzman at Winds of Change (who I've finally gotten around to adding to my link list) has some interesting thoughts on what the "Abdullah Al Muhajir" aka "Jose Padilla" case implies about Al Qaeda's abilities and preparedness. He believes that it indicates that they are even less competent and sophisticated than has been previously evidenced by their behavior, and that this represents, if not an actual intelligence coup, one that can throw enough fear and panic into the terrorist network that it will help us turn many more. In short, he thinks it was their Midway.

He may be right, and it's a good time to review much of the mythology about this organization. Right after September 11, much of the press were praising bin Laden as an "evil genius," his tactics being lauded as "brilliant." Unfortunately, even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, even the redoubtable Condi Rice was feeding into this myth--"no one could have foreseen anyone driving hijacked airliners into skyscrapers," when in fact, many had foreseen it, including Tom Clancy, and as recently as a few weeks before the events, members of the sci.space.policy newsgroup (though the latter were discussing hijacking space freighters, rather than airliners, but the principle was the same). It was easily foreseeable, as long as one wasn't a high-level bureaucrat at the FBI or CIA.

But any realistic current appraisal, looking back over the past few months, should conclude that if there are intelligent people running this organization, they are few and far between. Most of the ones to which we've been exposed seem fanatical and not particularly bright.

The leadership (like much Arab leadership--remember Saddam and the Gulf War--the "Mother of all Battles"?) relies more on bluster and fiery rhetoric than competence. Mullah Omar continued to make his loony predictions of the death of America, even as he was being chased around southwestern Afghanistan, living out of his car.

And as for the foot soldiers, Richard Reid aka Maxwell Stupid is not an exception--he's probably quite typical. As is Johnny "Jihad" Walker, who walked around Yemen being more Islamacist than the Islamacists, to the point at which he became a joke among the locals.

Even one of the successful hijackers, the misogynistic extremist Mohammad Atta, was so blatant in telegraphing his intentions that it was only the politically-correct tolerance that was so prevalent prior to September that prevented him from being turned in by the government loan officer, for threat to commit bodily injury, if nothing else. Based on descriptions of the behavior of all the hijackers on the airplanes, none of them would have succeeded in their missions on September 12--they would have been far too obvious. And as Joe points out, there's nothing to indicate that they've learned any lessons from any of this.

We have been fortunate, and will probably continue to be, because there are two sets of people here--one is the set of people competent, intelligent and knowledgable to carry off things like this, without tipping their hands beforehand. I belong to that set.

The other set is people who are insane and angry enough to do it (to which, of course, I do not).

The people that we have to worry about is the intersection of those two sets (to go back to Jay Manifold's Venn Diagram tutorial). That set of people is, fortunately, miniscule.

Unfortunately, it's not zero, and we will have to remain vigilant.

But not panicked.

Good article. I'm sure others could better develop this point than I could, but here goes... When people don't know, they want to create 'evil geniuses' where they don't exist because the alternative is guilt. If they aren't genius then we're stupid, when neither are true.

In defense of the rest of us, Clancy writes novels... most of the scenarios that he and others come up will never see the light of day. I'm sure we could come up with a long list of deadly attacks right now that wouldn't be hard for some fool to implement. It's not that we can't predict what might happen, it's that nobody can predict what will happen.

That's why interdiction is so important.

I need to clarify my last post. By interdiction, I mean of people, not plots. The Israelies point out that why we look for knives on planes, they look for people. It's important not to miss the distinction.

Nobody's made much progress (at least publicly)
in assigning blame for the anthrax letters, but
I think there's probably an Iraqi connection, and
it's just not time to talk about it yet.

All the technical indications I've heard about
point to some state-sponsored bioweapons program,
and it seems curious that the FBI hasn't broken
the case.

The September 11 attacks and the anthrax letters
were also fairly close to each other in time, so
it seems like the reported meeting between Iraqi
agents and the hijacker crew in Europe should be
getting more attention than it is. My guess is
that Iraq didn't do anything other than sell Al
Quaeda the bioweapon out of its reportedly large
stockpiles.

As time gets closer for taking down Sadaam, my
prediction is that Iraq will be revealed to be
the source of the anthrax used in the attack.

Good analysis, Rand, thanks. I hadn't put it in quite those terms, but you added a good set of points and I agree with them.

Hope you also liked the Milky Way post today!

Just a passing comment: I haven't noted any skepticism regarding the story told by the Federal Loan lady in her meeting with the charming Mr. Atta -- that story doesn't sound true to me -- I assume that most any person would react strongly to someone threatening to cut their throat -- the story just sounds too pat.

I have no idea why this lady would make a story up (or greatly embellish what actually happened), but it sure seems that people are buying it whole cloth.

Agree with Rand on the quality of Katzman's posts on this. You didn't mention what Katzman considers a good possibility and that is that this is a ruse to squeeze Zubaydeh into giving up the real goods by making his buddies in Al Qaeda think he may be snitching and thereby putting his family at risk, leaving him no choice but to cooperate. Or Zubaydeh may have given up Padilla as a lower level non-Arab operative. Regardless, it explains the pub Justice is putting out on this.

I did discuss that, but perhaps too obliquely.

If we were really fighting the war, I might agree with you. Unfortunately, the government's too busy playing bureaucratic games for this to be anything other than an incidental and accidental victory.

I agree with you fully that they are NOT the brightest cookies in the bunch but one thing that allows these idiots to be made out as "masters of terrors" is the fact that most of americans out there have never experienced any type of "terror" in their own lives so eliciting fear in the public to make them compliant or more willing to forgo certain liberties in the name of security is too easy when your scared of your own shadow. An example of this is too apparent with the revalations of the "Dirty Bomb" Think about it for a moment.. Weve heard about them countlessly since the whole war began and everytime its stated that they are for terror purposes only and maybe a little non-nuclear mayhem on the side but as far as being a danger radioactively the fallout is benign so if thats the case, then why even risk exposing yourself radioactively to set off something that isnt going to do anything but explode? why not just skip uranium waste and go with the explosive itself the result is the same isnt it? But these are the types were dealing with from middle class marin county talibans and Latin Arabs to british scholars who pack semtex in the heel of their shoes and think that they can actually strike a match ON A PLANE and light a fuse before anyone would notice and or react is beyond my comprehension He obviously has never purchased Red Devil fireworks and tried to light a sparkler.

As you said angry fanatical idiotic types. Why are they idiotic? heres my synopsis

1) LACK OF CREATIVITY - Although hijacking 4 planes is a feat never before done, if you knew that committing this act would unload Americas grandest of retaliations on you and your cohorts why would you settle for just 3000 people (although 1 is too many in my book) when you stand to be annihilated by US forces? if a terrorist is making a statement by taking lives wouldnt the highest yeild in bodycount be most important? so why not pull this stunt on New years day? how many people are attending bowl games on that day at the same time?? Better yet instead of hijacking them why not just shoot them out of the sky with stingers? theres 2000 of those things floating around the US in the WRONG hands now.. AND think how shocking that would be if daily you saw 2,3 or 5 planes downed?? I think that would be more than enough to elicit some type of public fear greater than 911.. but as I say this Ashcroft just said that they found the casing of such a device.. I spoke too soon..

2) DOING YOUR OWN DIRTY WORK - Admit it..Middle easterners already have a bad rap when it comes to terrorism So why make it obvious you did it? Why not adopt the Mossad way, "War by deception"? doing the act and making it look like someone else did it? works for Hamas..

3) POOR PLANNING - This I dont get, why plan or attempt to do ANYTHING on a religious day, holiday special day etc?? Theyre expecting that!! and will be waiting for you.. Its almost as if they WANT to get caught which I fail to see how it furthers the cause. Pick a day like thursday July 18th or some other arbitrary day when theres nothing going on but not a meaningful day they EXPECT you to do something..

4) OVERKILL ON THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY - What better way to draw attention than to NOT abide by the laws or speak negatively while youre being inconspicuous as you plan or commit your terror act. If anything Jose Abu and atta's loan application should be a good enough example.

5) RESOURCES - Did Atta really think that the government would hand him money to carry out his plan although masked as a crop dusting business? how many arab farmers in the US do you know?? Ive seen about as many as there have been shark attacks on African Americans - ZERO. Also doesnt Laden have Millions?? he couldnt cough up the $650,000?? again the bulb dims.

So yes Mr Katzman I agree that intersection of billiant but mad is quite miniscule.