Did Osama Shoot His Wad? (cont'd)

Finding terrorists is like trying to corner a blob of mercury; the more you try the smaller and more numerous the blobs become: all we did in Afghanistan was scatter the problem: a great PR move, but it was not very well conceived as a means of eliminating terrorists.
Was the object of the exercise to blow up training facilities or was it to destroy Al Qaeda?
Instead of sending in a large number of troops to surround, engage, and eliminate the terrorists, we sent in missiles and bombs; which are good against installations. but aren't very effective at rounding up terrorists. We went for the "high-tech" and low casualty route, instead of doing it the old fashioned sure way by using large numbers; like dropping in 10,000 airborne and their equipment at strategic spots to surround and eliminate the bad guys.
Developing and proving new military concepts was more important to Rumsfeld and his war planners than doing the job right. The American people are now paying the high price for the ineptitude of our leaders.
The U.S. had the same problem, of ambitious generals, high-tech advocates, bad strategies, and planning, in Vietnam--and the troops paid the price as always.
The Taliban were no threat to speak of to our military; we could have landed an AB division near Kandahar, captured the airfield there, unloaded our equipment, and then dared the Taliban to do something about it. We could have gone anywhere we wanted to in that country; but no, instead we let a rag-tag indigent force do our heavy lifting and they ended up letting Osama and his Al Qaeda thugs slip away to continue to threaten and bomb.
The question I have not heard asked, by the media to the administration, is how will the terrorists attack us in the U.S. and with what? How much danger are we really in?
The experts speak generally about WMDs--nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; which supposedly are capable of killing thousands of people. The Kurds in Iraq are often cited as examples of how terrible WMDs are; and of course the nuclear threat is well known (or is it?); and the pictures of small pox victims are frequently flashed on our TV screens by the media, yet no one has explained in any explicit way the details of how they can be manufacturred by unsophisticated and untrained individuals, how these weapons can be used, and how much of a threat they are.
The question of effectiveness is a pivotal one. A terrorist carrying a germ or chemically filled mortar or artillery shell in a back pack or suit case is unlikely to be much of a threat for a number of reasons--the main one being that he would be noticed right away; and two, such a small number of devices would be hardly effective as WMDs: not much more effective than an regular explosive device of the same weight.
All of these so-called WMDs are "dangerous", but they are designed to be dropped or projected by a weapon, such as a gun or airplane, to be used in large numbers.
No one in the administration has described explicitly how military WMDs were to be used against us in any effective manner. I have heard many "ifs", "coulds", "mights", but no specifics as to what threat the WMDs posed.
Most of the WMDs talked about required great expertise and complex facilities to develop and produce; something that terrorists don't have and countries are not about to give them.
WMD effectiveness is limited because they need to be delivered accurately and conditions at the target must be right; i.e., wind blowing the right direction etc. Another factor is WMD concentration; to be effective chemical and biological weapons must be delivered to their intended victims in sufficient quatities in order to maim or kill. This is very difficult to do using an aerosol can or small portable bomb.
Even more complicated and difficult is making a nuclear bomb. The first two U.S. nuclear bombs were so large and heavy they required a special Boeing B-29 airplanes to carry them. The nuclear bomb a terrorist might construct, if he could refine uranium, would as large, in not larger, than the Hiroshima bomb. Smaller bombs can be made, using about 30 pounds of 90% U-235, but would require expertise and facilities way beyond any average person's capabilities.
You don't hear counter arguments such as these; only the "what-ifs" that support scary scenarios, kind of like kids telling "ghost" stories under the blankets.
Fortunately the "terrorists" are dumber than rocks. They are fair at tacticts but strategic morons. They go for sensationalism and overlook more effective ways of creating fear--our problem is they may wise-up.
The most dangerous WMD is the low-tech paper match. It is one of the most common objects around, and the BIC lighter is not far behind.
The terrorists today are only effective once. They are expendable, to be used once, and then are used up. In the long run this is counter-productive, for the most zealous members annihilate themselves and fervor declines.
The Achilles Heel of the Al Qaeda group is their dependence on the use of explosives. The explosives and bombers identities are important leads and clues, which ultimately will lead to the incident's planners and expediters.
P.S.
I wrote the above just prior to the London bombings and held off posting it for further developments. The bombings do not change anything, in fact support what I have been saying. The bombings do help to clarify the mind-set of the terrorits however There is "glamour" involved in the movement that is being overlooked--glamour on both sides of the conflict in fact. It is a case of "them" against "us"; the "us" being the Arab/Muslim identitiy, which is being "abused" world-wide by "them"; the West. They (and we) see themselves (ourselves) as heroes "righting" wrongs done. They see Kosovo, Chechnia, Serbia, Israel, Iraq as reasons to "punish" the West. We are in Iraq to preserve "Freedom" and democracy and payback somebody for New York.
The bombing points out, while 52 lives lost and horrendous damage done is a tragedy, in real terms the bombing was ineffective. The bombers are dead, to "fight" no more, clues will be found to point to more, they will be eventually caught, and life goes on.
What does that mean to the U.S.? It means we are facing an impotent foe.
England is a much easier target to attack, because of its proximity to the main continent, where borders between the counties are very porous. It is much harder to get to the U.S., despite our open border, because of the distances getting to this continent and it's large land mass.
No, we may sustain a bombing or two, like the London bombing, but in the long run, keeping our cool and being sensibly vigilant, our country is safe.