If Al Qaeda really wanted to mess with us...

[WhoIam]

I always thought the best thing terrorists could do would be to launch three simultaneous mall suicide bombings on December 20th, one in a city, one in a suburb, and one in a rural area. No one would feel safe shopping again and the economy would take a big hit. All this for the price of three operatives.

[DrunkHamster]

Based on what seems like the latest plot over here in England, (for those of you who don't know a group were planning to kidnap, torture and behead a Muslim serving in the army), the most scary thing a bunch of terrorists could do would be to kidnap and behead randomly chosen people off the street and put the videos on the internet. I'm fairly sure with solid preparation they could get through quite a few people before getting caught, and I can't think of anything which would question peoples perception of their own safety more.

[Velocity]

hijacking/exploding some of those oil tanker trucks that drive on the interstate systems seems like it wouldn't be too hard to do.

[mmbt0ne]

Bombing two warehouses outside of Harrisburg could shut down the entire supply chain for about 50 of the biggest businesses in the world. That would be their best bang for the buck if they wanted economic disaster.

If you want to cause a mess and scare the [censored] out of people then you blow up a plane, but you do it about 3 seconds after takeoff while it's still over the runway.

[Howard Treesong]

Elaborate, please. Random criticism without explanation isn't really so useful.

[BigPoppa]

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I have nothing to add other then I get a decent laugh when people say "blow up a shopping mall".

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I don't recall anyone actually saying "blow up a shopping mall".

I, however, did say that a shopping mall is a great soft target. A food court at prime time will have a few hundred people in it and they're almost all set up so that you could drive a truck straight through the doors into the middle of it.

[PartyPooperGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
I always thought the best thing terrorists could do would be to launch three simultaneous mall suicide bombings on December 20th, one in a city, one in a suburb, and one in a rural area. No one would feel safe shopping again and the economy would take a big hit. All this for the price of three operatives.

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This would be misguided. It would only serve to speed the migration to online shopping, thereby increasing society's overall efficiency. The government should do this kind of thing to boost the economy.

[PokerBob]

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DC-style sniper attacks.

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I agree with this completely and at the time was wondering why Al Qaeda hadn't done this. Sending out 15 teams into random areas throughout the country could cripple the nation with fear. Then release a few videos taunting the US. I am genuinely surprised they haven't done something like this.

[Alobar]

It would be ridiculously easy for them to organize crippling terror in this country, it wouldnt take much money or many men, or much organization. Like some are saying. Just put a man in like 20 different cities and have him be the DC sniper. The country would be gripped by fear and it would go on for MONTHS.

I remember a thread like this a while back in OOT and someone said something to the effect that since this stuff obviously isnt happing, that they either dont either have the desire or the means, which was kind of a realization as I had never thought about it like that since all we hear on TV is about hieghtened terror alerts and what not. Which to me means a lot of this terror stuff is just fear mongering by our own government and media.

[kipin]

[ QUOTE ]
I remember a thread like this a while back in OOT and someone said something to the effect that since this stuff obviously isnt happing, that they either dont either have the desire or the means, which was kind of a realization as I had never thought about it like that since all we hear on TV is about hieghtened terror alerts and what not. Which to me means a lot of this terror stuff is just fear mongering by our own government and media.

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"Terrorism" and "protect the children" are the two root passwords to openly violate the Constitution. It sucks that we live in a society that is so willing to give up freedoms for the appearance of security.

Just look at the statistics of terrorism and it is [censored] ridiculous that we spend that much money "preventing" something like 3,000 people from dying each year.

Security in the US is a joke and is just meant to make people feel better.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin