When the Cats are busy…

 previous page    homepage  

This article is published in AD&D Magazine

The last time an American president – Bill Clinton – had to contend with the opposition controlling both houses of Congress, the US was so mired in internal issues that everyone missed telling clues which led to the 9-11 tragedy. With the world now faced with another “lame duck” presidency, coupled also with internal political uncertainties among America’s major allies, it’s anyone’s guess as to what new audacious terrors may be unleashed over the next few years. Chances are the next major terrorist threat could well come from the ocean…

leaders of the world-busy with domestic politics © - AD&D Magazine

Few around the world harbour any doubts that the recent mid-term Congressional elections in the US may have far deeper implications than might have already been seen so far.
With the American public’s sentiment towards the Iraq war having clearly swung against president George W. Bush’s stance, the fallout may well extend much further than the resignation of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Even before the ink had dried on the polling results, the Democrats have begun hogging national attention (in the same way Clinton’s sexually-charged impeachment debacle did in the late 1990s) in seeking a domestically popular but hasty withdrawal of American troops from the Persian Gulf.

Further, a number of scandals related to ill-treatment of war prisoners have already been uncovered and more outrages are likely to see the light of day over the next two years to keep the current administration on the defensive until Bush leaves office.
The proverbial knives ready to be stuck into Caesar’s back are probably being sharpened as we speak, but there are bigger issues at stake as well – for the US is the self-professed “world police” although other less tolerant nations might term it bully tactics. These internal politics are likely to leave an intelligence policy vacuum which could lead to another 9-11 terror audacity.

This prospect is especially frightening, especially in current times because America’s usual allies, who are usually quite capable of filling this intelligence policy void, are also busy with their own domestic electoral issues.
Staunch ally UK prime minister Tony Blair is currently on the way out after a public squabble with his widely expected successor and current chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown over many issues, including his unstinting support for the US invasion of Iraq – which Blair seemed to have admitted on Al-Jazeera TV that it had been "pretty much of a disaster".

Critical ally French president Jacques Chirac is believed to be stepping down when his term ends next year and his protégé Dominique de Villepin, who is also France's prime minister, doesn’t have the wide popular support needed to be sure of replacing Chirac.
Australia too will be facing elections next year and prime minister John Howard's charge forward could yet be derailed by the explosive statement of Liberal Party deputy and treasurer Peter Costello that a deal or understanding on a leadership handover had been reached at a 1994 meeting.
Israel is still undergoing the backlash from its ill-fated incursion into Lebanon even as impeachment is being mulled against president Moshe Katsav who is facing charges of rape, sexual harassment and wire-tapping.

Popular Russian president Vladimir Putin is barred from running for a third consecutive term for the 2008 elections, which follows the December 2007 parliamentary elections.

The future of Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-bian is uncertain following the indictment of first lady Wu Shu-jen in an embezzlement case. Japan and South Korea are focused on the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.

The list goes on and this coincidental alignment of domestic and regional matters leaves only China among the major superpowers or those with extensive intelligence networks on a high alert for terrorist activity ahead of the 2008 Olympics.
But is that going to be enough?

High profile targets

In view of the maximum worldwide media coverage that recent terrorism activity seems to have focused on, it is only natural to assume that the Chinese Olympics would be the number one target – ahead even of the recently-concluded Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.
But terrorists targeting the Olympics wouldn’t be something new, despite the daunting challenge and temptation for terrorist masterminds to show up their smug sneaky conniving ways.

Chinese Olympics mascots - a prime terrorist target in 2008? © - AD&D Magazine

Even last month’s warning of possible cyber-attacks against online stock trading and banking Web sites lacked the pizzazz factor that publicity-seeking terrorists would want. Given that a two-year period is available to plan and execute a truly audacious plan, with all due respect being given to the ongoing intelligence gathering activities, the targets can be expected to be of an even higher profile than we can dare to imagine.

What is very probable is that the attack or series of attacks would centre on causing the maximum number of casualties and damage, preferably involving multiple nationalities. The obvious choice – the UN headquarters on American soil – was possibly considered and rejected in 2001; it is hence unlikely to be a target again.
Looking through Hollywood imagined disasters for inspiration might provide a clue, especially bearing in mind the horrific views of the World Trade Center’s collapse on live TV. It is supremely patent that sick terrorist masterminds take pleasure in watching events cascading in real-time as the whole world watches in horror.

Another important point to note is the one-upmanship attitude likely to come into play, for the follow-up attacks in Bali, Madrid, London and Mumbai lacked the riveting shock value of the 9-11 visions of destruction. What more terrible out-of-the-box tragedy could be carried out that could top the 2001 strikes?

These exact thoughts have already been running through the minds of intelligence strategists with cargo ships and trains already factored into possible terrorist attack scenarios. A countless number of other top-secret strategic attack potentials have also been considered, including dirty bomb attacks, and comprehensive preventive steps have already been implemented, much to the inconvenience of many travellers and businesses.

But, what if the next attack involved something more? Suicide attacks resulting in major lost of lives is already a given aspect of such attacks, so why not go beyond the conceivable to overwhelm and negate every preventive measure that has been put into place?

Manmade disasters

One would only need to recall the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which wiped out almost 100,000 lives, to start imagining just how much it would have sparked wild plans in a sick terrorist’s mind.
The potential to trigger off another one aimed at the US and also Europe is a temptation that is infinitely hard to resist, especially with many experts now agreeing the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canaries archipelago is potentially unstable.
If this volcanic flank was deliberately caused to plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, terrorists would be watching in glee as panicked hordes scrambled helplessly to escape potentially 15m-high waves pounding the eastern US seaboard on uninterrupted live TV coverage.

Alternatively, several tankers fully laden with explosives could be sunk and set off along underwater fault lines to trigger off earthquakes and tsunamis.
Are either of these scenarios likely?

Map of Atlantic ocean showing America, Europe & Africa © - AD&D Magazine

It would be foolish to put it past depraved minds that have already conceived crashing fully-laden commercial jets as ready-made missiles into buildings. Saving their own lives was never an important factor, so why should the unimaginably large loss of lives and extensive property damage be an issue?
Continuing on this tack and acknowledging the James Bond movie “A View to a Kill”, what’s to stop terrorists planting explosives along the fault lines in California? It is very conceivable that specialised scientific knowledge and training would be involved, after the flying lessons the 9-11 terrorist took.

But if we were to take a global view and stop limiting ourselves to just American and European shores, even more frightening potentials could be identified.
Foremost among these are long-dormant volcanoes which are overdue for eruption – these are sitting powder kegs just waiting to be set off. There a number of such candidates on all continents, including southern Europe, northern American and the Pacific ring of fire.
Potentially the most calamitic one amongst these would be the Toba supervolcano, which is believed to have erupted over 75,000 years ago and plunged the whole world into a mini ice age lasting about 1,000 years.

Would the terrorists, especially the al-Qaeda, go so far as to bring the entire modern civilisation to its knees simply in pursuit of their supposed religious agendas?
Unsurprisingly, the answer would be yes as they would simply point to the old testament of the 40-day flood and claim to be modern-day Noahs.
As horrible as this prospect may sound, these scenarios are exactly what intelligence agencies worldwide need to be looking out for over the next few years while their political masters are busy with electoral wrangling.

And hopefully, none of these manmade doomsday scenarios will ever come to pass.

Source & copyrights: AD&D Magazine

 previous page    homepage