Comment by DrSprout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DrSprout | Hacker News Reader

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What you're missing is that nothing occurs in a vacuum. People don't like being associated with terrorists, especially not people helping immigrants across the border. If you go to Latin America, they're often even more bigoted than Americans are - and I'm not talking about gringos. The level of hatred for blacks is positively revolting from a North American perspective.

So Mexico really isn't a great entry point for a dark-skinned Arab, unless he speaks Spanish with a flawless accent (though given the variety of Spanish accents, that's not necessarily that hard.)

>I also disagree that "small attacks aren't enough". If you and 9 of your friends coordinate to roll grenades into 10 elementary schools in 10 different cities, I can assure you that you'd make headlines, and bring daily life to a standstill as parents refused to send their children to school.

If you've managed to coordinate 10 different homicidal suicidal maniacs in 10 different cities to kill a bunch of people on the exact same day (and somehow managed to find 10 who won't tell anyone anything that suggests they're doing something suspicious,) aside from the fact that that is very hard, you've definitely evolved to a large-scale attack.

> If you've managed to coordinate 10 different homicidal suicidal maniacs in 10 different cities to kill a bunch of people on the exact same day (and somehow managed to find 10 who won't tell anyone anything that suggests they're doing something suspicious,) aside from the fact that that is very hard, you've definitely evolved to a large-scale attack.

I'll counter by saying that if no terror group exists that is capable of obtaining:

   * 10 people willing to kill for their beliefs
   * 10 hand grenades
   * 10 cell phones

Then we have been vastly oversold on the dangers presented by terrorism.

Forget the hand grenades. Just 10 suicidal guys with semi-automatic rifles. This seems stupidly simple to pull off and impossible to defend against.

What you're describing are essentially the same as what happened in mumbai 2 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2008_Mumbai_attacks

In the article the Indians claimed that up to 37 people were involved in organising it. That's a pretty massive operation.

You can't just have 10 guys who not only have convinced themselves or other to kill themselves but also people to do a variety of tasks, like: coordinate the movements plan, recruit the other 9, get them to the right places with minimal chance of intercept, make sure none bottle out at the last minute, house them until attack, buy the grenades, etc. etc.

And that's just a list off the top of my head and more pop into it all the time. Like they also need the right clothes to not look odd, make sure they attack schools which are easy to get into, have maps to find the school. I'm sure there's much much more to plan in such an attack.

It's like saying that a special forces attack isn't backed up by a massive logistical operation. If it wasn't they'd be nothing special about them as they'd all be dead.

Think of the drug trade, which manages to organize far larger groups in disparate cities who actually have to transport large shipments of physical goods, and have to do it _repeatedly_.

There are backwoods meth labs that display at least as much coordination as would be required for the type of attack I'm describing.

You're asserting that no terrorist organization has the resources to coordinate a group of 10 people to act in concert.

The alleged U.K. 'liquid explosives' plot resulted in 25 arrests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plo...

My core question is: why would terrorists choose such a complicated, risky, hard to execute method of terror when easier avenues are available?

Because as the article described they need to appeal to their sponsors as well. I completely agree with you that if the terrorist simply wanted to terrorize Americans the best way to do it is to attack suburban schools and small towns. However these types of attacks still require resources.

I think that the best comparison would be to American Universities: The best way to teach students is obviously to have the teachers focus on teaching. However many of the largest schools professors focus their efforts on complex new research and ideas that are difficult and expensive to pursue but that get the donors' attention, bringing the school prestige and money.

Attacking a school would probably be the easiest, most effective way to terrorize Americans, however simply because ti would be relatively easy (or at least seems like it would be) there would be no political or economic rewards for going that route.

If you believe people aren't acting rationally based on the information you have, shouldn't you first question your assumptions?

My own take would be that Al Qaeda is (generally) forced to import plotters, builders and attackers whereas the drug trade uses locals and thus enjoys innumerable advantages.

Simply: 10 lifers in a couple trailers in the back woods of Kentucky, buying, say, a few guns and cleaning supplies in bulk doesn't raise the same flags as 10 foreign guys, new to the area, with funny clothes and accents.

Further, there are plenty of people who know the tweakers are out there cooking meth or the local gang is pushing drugs. But they're such an ingrained regular presence, these people have normalized it into their life.

In any event, if it truly were easier to get 10 guys with guns to open fire in the US, I'd expect we'd have seen it by now.

those things are easy to obtain, but they are well-on near impossible to smuggle into the US without someone noticing.

Note that many people from the middle east can pass for Hispanic. My family is Egyptian and I occasionally get cab drivers who start talking to me in Spanish because I look Puerto Rican. But I agree with the rest of your comment.

This isn't just true for middle-eastern types. My girlfriend is Native American, and often has guys trying to hit on her in Spanish (especially true in Spain), even after telling them repeatedly that she doesn't speak Spanish.

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