Inevitable
U.S. must deal with terrorist attacks When the next terrorist attack on the United States takes place, the perpetrators carrying it out might very well be of the homegrown variety.
The Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group, headed by former 9-11 commission leaders Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, last week issued a report that warned the United States has been slow to recognize and take seriously the threat posed by homegrown terrorists and that the government has failed to put systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon.
The Associated Press reported over the past year that terrorism experts and government officials have warned of the threat posed by homegrown radicals, saying terror recruits who go abroad could return to the U.S. to carry out attacks.
These warnings haven’t gone unnoticed. The news service reported the Obama White House this year added combating homegrown terrorism to its national security strategy. It’s the first time that’s been done.
But there’s another way in which the federal government and the American people are unprepared. The question remains as to whether we have the personal, political and governmental resilience to rebound from a terrorist attack.
Make no mistake. No matter how many precautions are taken, the odds are very good that a successful terrorism attack will take place on American soil because it’s impossible to thwart every attempt.
The issue then becomes how we react to a successful attack. We have two role models, one domestic and one international, already in place.
The mass shootings with multiple victims that take place on a regular basis in the United States provide the domestic example.
Last week a suspended worker walked into a Philadelphia Kraft Foods plant and shot and killed two co-workers and wounded a third.
It made the national news, but not for long because incidents like this are commonplace. Only the number of victims changes. The only thing that made the shooting unique was that the killer was a woman.
Israel provides the international way of dealing with these situations. After a terrorist attack, Israelis clean up and get back to normal as soon as possible.
Imagine what would have happened last week if two terrorists, domestic or foreign, had carried out an attack similar to the one at the Kraft plant.
It would have been a national story for days, followed by weeks of recrimination-filled rancor and the inevitable investigation by a commission.
Instead of doing that, let’s use the role models already in place.
Beaver County Times