HOMELAND SECURITY

March 10, 2008 

Last week marked the fifth anniversary since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  This week it will be six and a half years since 9/11, during which al-Qaeda hasn't pulled off another successful terror attack on US soil.  Why haven’t they?  Is it because Bush Administration policies and actions like the formation of DHS have really made us safer, or have we just been lucky? 

Safer, of course, is a relative term, and measuring what it means is largely subjective, especially in the highly partisan atmosphere of the past several years and an ongoing presidential election campaign.  Nevertheless, I believe the evidence suggests that, on balance, we have been safer, but the likelihood of an attack on US soil now may be increasing.

According to a November 2007 report, 19 attempted terrorist attacks have been thwarted since 9/11.  Although few of the attacks were potentially as devastating as the attacks on 9/11, they posed varying threats to American lives by Islamic extremists directly motivated by or linked to al-Qaeda.  They've never stopped trying to attack us, but apparently measures put in place since 9/11, including interrogations of high-value al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo, have produced positive results.

Perhaps the most effective measure has been an open season on terrorists.  The US and its friends and allies have cooperated to locate al-Qaeda leaders and other terrorists and take them out wherever they find them.  Most often it’s the US that pulls the trigger but not always. 

Most recently, on January 28, a US missile strike in Pakistan killed Abu Laith al-Libi, the number three man in al-Qaeda.  Two weeks later, a car explosion in Damascus killed one of the world’s most wanted terrorist, Imad Mugniyah.  His most notable crimes were the 1983 Marine barracks and US Embassy bombings in Beirut that killed 350 people.  No one has publicly taken credit for his death, but Hezbollah immediately pointed the finger at Israel.

On March 3 the US fired two missiles from a US submarine in an attempt to kill Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan who was involved in a 2002 bombing of Mombasa's Paradise Hotel and a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in Kenya.  He also is a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed more than 200 people.  It’s not clear yet if Nabhan was killed in the attack, but if he’s still alive, no one is selling him life insurance.

In Iraq and Afghanistan al-Qaeda has suffered serious defeats.  Yes, Iraq’s role in the war on terror is a main point of contention between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats argue there wouldn’t be an Al-Qaeda in Iraq if the US hadn’t invaded.  Nevertheless, the presence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the concentration of al-Qaeda in Iraq made them both target rich environments that have resulted in the elimination of a long list of terrorists who otherwise would be plotting to blow up US targets.  With the squeeze on al-Qaeda and much of its top talent out of action, it’s been more difficult for them to communicate, plan, and execute large-scale 9/11 style attacks in the US.

On the other side of the ledger there certainly is much to criticize.  After all this time, Osama Bin Laden remains at large.  His call to jihad, echoed by radical imams in mosques around the world, especially in the Middle East and Europe, are attracting new members to al-Qaeda all the time.  His occasional video and audio tape messages, however inane, remind everyone that we haven’t been able to take him down. 

Winning Muslim hearts and minds, abroad and at home, is a long-term challenge, one that we have barely begun to deal with.  So long as radical Islamic fundamentalists preach “death to America,” the terrorist threat isn’t going away.  America and the West must do a better job winning friends in the Islamic world and combating the anti-American, anti-Western indoctrination young Muslins receive in fundamentalist madrasahs.