Asymmetrical yet very low tech

"For anyone to think the Islamic Terrorists were satisfied with the massive damage they caused on 9/11, I invite you to think again."

It seems no matter who I talk to these days, the one thing most folks have in common is a sense that something is coming. And it ain't good. For many it is a sense of dread or foreboding. If it is the stock market imploding, the banks failing, an unexpected pandemic or massive civil unrest, it is going to be bad. Many others fear what I have been fearing for quite a while now - the follow-on attack to 9/11.

For anyone to think the Islamic Terrorists were satisfied with the massive damage they caused on 9/11, I invite you to think again. Why do I think this way? We are still here. And we are still a Judeo-Christian nation. The next attack might be soon. Maybe this year. Our intelligence experts have been preparing us for such in the past few weeks. Do they know something that we don't? As we say in Minnesota, "you betcha!"

Even though our President refuses to believe we are at war, we are. And we can't "PC" ourselves out of it. And we need to start calling the enemy by name. As our old pastor would say about sin, "name it and claim it." The next attack(s) could be a series of "soft target" attacks on innocent people gathered in prayer (remember, they hate Christians and Jews), sporting events, or shopping. Where ever they can do the most (damage) with the least (resources). Or the attack could be much more spectacular.

The thing about asymmetrical warfare is this - you can expect the unexpected. Everything is unconventional to how warfare once was. It was reported in Reuters News yesterday that some radioactive material has "gone missing" in Iraq. And the fear is it has fallen into the hands of the Islamic Terrorists. For any terrorist worth his or her salt, gaining possession of any type of nuclear material, even "used" material which is still very hot, is like getting candy for Christmas.

One of the lowest tech WMD that any terrorist can use is a "dirty bomb". When you have the radioactive part you are almost there. All you need are the explosives and a good target. If you can get enough explosives (like the Timothy McVeigh bomb in Oklahoma City), and a favorable wind, you can make a good part of a large city uninhabitable for years. Besides killing many people by radiation poisoning. 

Of course there is one more attack up the ladder of technology. Still low tech by today's standards, it involves the help of a nation state with the right resources. The EMP bomb. It can be launched from a barge just offshore, a ship, a submarine. It can be a crude rocket with just enough juice to get to a proper altitude carrying a small nuke on board. We all know what the result of that would be. Lights out for many of us, in more ways than one.

We need to go forward this year, living our lives the way they should be lived. At the same time, we need to be vigilant. Be prepared for the unexpected. And be prepared to survive.