Will Al-Qaeda Hit US Again?

The big question underlying Osama bin Laden's recent video offering as well as his audio introduction to the latest installment of Last Wills of the 9/11 Killers is this: Will al-Qaeda hit us here at home again?

With all due respect to the efforts of US and allied countries' security force, the answer is: almost certainly.

Al-Qaeda and its imitators have the continued will and desire to do so as indicated by the recent German success in aborting a plot involving US installations in that country. If further evidence is needed, the successes of Danish and Turkish security agencies in stopping attacks provides it.

The Islamist ideology has tremendous appeal. Get a grip on that unfortunate truth.

Americans might not understand it, but the appeal for individuals, even those of a privileged background, those with advanced degrees as in the case of the attempted vehicle bombers in London and Glasgow, is real, powerful, and growing. Get a grip on that unfortunate truth.

Islamists and their ideology have widespread and effective governmental support. Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two so-called allies, are involved directly, albeit semi-secretly, in supporting the agenda of global domination espoused by the Islamist ideology. So also is Iran. Get a grip on that reality.

Islamists have sanctuaries. The wild terrain on the Afghan-Pakistan border is one. Pakistan itself is another. Iran is yet one more. Several of the Central Asian Republics such as Uzbekistan are excellent candidates for sanctuary status. So are some African states such as Sudan and, perhaps, Eritrea. That's another unpleasant reality.

Still other countries might find it in their interests to look the other way if al-Qaeda or similar groups take up residence. Deals can always be struck, particularly if immunity from attacks or subversion are part of the package.

The United States is an easy country to enter surreptitiously. The drug flow or the traffic in illegal aliens is proof of that. Anything less than a Berlin Wall style fortification surrounding the land frontiers of the US backed by troops standing nearly shoulder to shoulder would not preclude the entrance of hostile personnel and their equipment.

Command, control, communication, and intelligence on soft targets in the US pose few difficulties considering the technical means available to hostile groups and their members. Neither is the importation or acquisition of necessary munitions and means of delivering them.

Put all these factors together and the conclusion is unavoidable. Some group is going to hit us again. Hard. Perhaps, as bin Laden indicated in an earlier video, even harder than the attack six years ago.

More of us are going to die one of these days. Get a grip on that.

The doses of soothing, soft glop provided by Secretaries of Homeland Security or Directors of National Intelligence or the FBI don't change the realities in play.

Neither do statements of resolve out of the White House. Sure it would be nice to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, but that wouldn't end the threat. Arguably it would only serve to increase it. Our emotional satisfaction with seeing Global Terrorist Number One in handcuffs or as a bullet riddled corpse would be surpassed by the spike in hatred felt by Islamists and Islamist wannabes. Imagine for the moment the reaction by all the true believers who would now clamor to join bin Laden's "Cavalcade of Martyrs."

Some victories are really defeats, right?

We will be hit again. Make book on it. Take it to the bank. Get over it.

What matters is not when or how we will be hit. Nor does it matter how many of us will be killed.

What matters, all that matters really, is how we respond to the hit when it happens.

Will we see it as one more Pearl Harbor? One more war against terrorism to wage? Will We the People and the Wallahs in Congress slaver after vengeance? Seek to strike someone, somewhere, somehow, so our pain and humiliation might be assuaged?

Or will we respond with increased firmness, determination, and focus upon the real enemy? The real enemy is not Osama bin Laden. It is not and cannot be terrorism per se.

The real enemy is and will be for some time to come the Islamist ideology and its practitioners.

The tactics of the Islamist true believers may be as loud as a multi-kiloton bomb. They may be as silent and lethal as a fast spreading, high morbidity pathogen. They might even be as still and seemingly harmless as a plea for understanding, for sympathy. The tactics might even be those of sensitivity and political correctness.

Regardless of tactics, the enemy remains the same. Just as the enemy during the First Cold War was the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and its practitioners in all forms, now in the Second Cold War it is the Islamist and the ideology of Islamism.

To win, We the People must have--and demand that those who seek to hold offices of trust and confidence under our Constitution also have--the will to keep on slogging. To keep our political will regardless of failures, irrespective of deaths among us.

It will be hard. Very hard. It won't feel good. That's right. It will not feel good. In recent years we Americans have put an enormous emphasis on feelings. That won't work. Not in a war.

Get a grip on this. Feelings won't cut it in our struggle with those who would kill us.

Only rationality will work. Grip that tightly. Only rationality. Not feelings.

Cold, unsatisfying rationality coupled with firmness and imagination will finally yield success against Osama bin Laden and the others who wish our collective death.