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New York's Times Square empty of tourists after police and fire personnel close off parts of the area - Source: Reuters -
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Now that senior White House officials have decided that the Pakistani Taliban did in fact sponsor the hapless, murderous-minded Faisal Shahzad's attempt to firebomb Times Square , we are able to see just a little more clearly.
The group did claim responsibility with a web video congratulating this "jaw-breaking" (I suppose the word "fizzer" isn't in their vocabulary) attack on "Satan's USA", but because they have a history of harvesting where they haven't sown. US officials quickly discounted them.
Then the group retracted their claim, possibly out of fear of reprisals from the US in the form of Predator drones.
A Predator drone is an unmanned flying vehicle that can be controlled from a bunker in, say, Virginia, and attack from on high in stealth. One minute, you're on the roof of an apartment getting a massage, as the previous head of the Pakistani Taliban discovered last year, the next, you're splattered.
Collateral damage is a problem with such scenarios: Children, wives, and relatives become fatalities and casualties. Some argue that this has motivated the Pakistani Taliban to look beyond Islamabad and contemplate the towers of Manhattan.
President Obama allowed 50 Predator drone attacks in his first year of office, more than George Bush authorised in his last four years as President.
The fact now seems that the Pakistani Taliban did organise an attack on the US ; thankfully, they don't have the wherewithal to organise a successful one.
After Shahzad's attack, a kind of haze descended. The reported 600-plus security cameras in and around Times Square turned up - from what we know so far - no image of Shahzad fleeing the scene. I wonder what became of the man pulling off one shirt to reveal another, and acting suspiciously? Even as law enforcement officials released the video that raced around the world, they said that it might not be significant. The day of Shahzad's bombing attempt was hot.
Neither side, I'm afraid, comes out of this looking... professional is the word you'd use. Apparently trained in the Northern Waziristan area of Pakistan, Shahzad proved to be worse than inept. This is pleasing. Apparently he was moved from militant group to militant group, possibly out of fear of Predator drone attacks. What is clear is that besides not actually learning to make a bomb, he was also useless at covering his tracks (the wrong treatment of the fertiliser, keys to his apartment left in the Nissan bomb-vehicle). When customs officials boarded his Emirates flight, he asked, "What took you so long?"
Good question. The FBI lost Shahzad. Emirates didn't see he was on a no-fly list. Once again, as with the Christmas underwear bomber, the US got lucky. But if the US is getting lucky with second raters like Shahzad, what happens with a semi-pro terrorist rolls into town?
The New Zealander in me wants a nuanced answer to that question involving carrots and sticks; the New Yorker remembers that this kind of thing didn't seem to happen when George W Bush allowed his goons to waterboard sometimes innocent people.
The fog of terror that I refer to in the title is the fear that typically follows a terror attack, whether successful or not. I had it put to me a couple of times this week that even when they fail, the terrorists have won. People become scared. This is notionally true, but not entirely accurate.
Getting worried about bags left in Times Square and trucks abandoned on the Triboro Bridge is not the same as inviting the retrenchment of what makes the United States a free civil society - habeas corpus, the right to remain silent, etc. There are shadowy forces in any country that dream of removing freedoms and legal protections. The terrorists' job - in part - is to unleash them.
Another detail is clear after this attack. We in New York had hoped that, having had out turn on 9/11, Washington might be next on the terrorists' list. No such luck.
Read more of Tim Wilson's articles.
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