The big news is the feds looking into a “credible threat” of a terrorist plot involving New York City and Washington DC to mark the 10th anniversary of 911 — but The Daily Beast’s John Avlon notes that there is a more reassuring context: since 2001 47 jihadist terrorist plots have been thwarted:
As news of a new “credible” threat swept across the nation on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Americans were abruptly reminded that terrorism is always one bad day away from being issue No. 1.
In the latest case, one report said at least three people—one believed to be a U.S. citizen—entered the U.S. in August to plan a car-bomb attack against Washington, D.C., or New York. The suspected terrorists are thought to have come from Afghanistan or Pakistan, and at least two rental trucks are being sought nationwide. White House officials confirmed that President Obama had been briefed on the “specific” terrorism threat.
10 years after the worst terrorist attacks in our nation’s history, we sometimes fall into a false sense of security – a degree of 9/11 amnesia takes hold; a desire to recast the attacks as a tragic isolated incident.
The facts tell a very different story. The record shows that there have been at least 45 jihadist terrorist attacks plotted against Americans since 9/11—each of them thwarted by a combination of intelligence work, policing and citizen participation.And these are just the plotted attacks that we know about through public documentation—the real number of credible plots is no doubt much higher. No truly authoritative list exists because of the preponderance of classified information, although organizations such as the Heritage Foundation have published detailed lists in the past. An additional problem in coming up with a comprehensive list lies in consistently defining the parameters of thwarted attacks. The plots also are of varying degrees of seriousness, from some that were days from causing mass bloodshed to others that were twisted ambitions caught well before fruition.
The list published below comes as close as I could, using public sources and past lists—and it was reviewed by both government and academic organizations that track terrorist attacks.
Since 9/11, there have been devastating terror attacks in cities like London and Madrid. But America has so far batted 1,000 againstt. the constant stream of civilian-targeted terror threats, though trends show the types of plots are changing to an increase of military targets (think the deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan) and Americans’ training overseas for the purpose of terrorism.
Professor Erik Dahl of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and the START program at the University of Maryland has compiled the most detailed list of attempted terrorists attacks to date, spanning a period of 25 years, in his paper “The Plots That Failed: Intelligence Lessons Learned From Unsuccessful Terrorist Attacks Against the United States,” recently published in the academic journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.
Go to the link above to read the whole post and see the list.
Avlon’s point cannot be forgotten: all it takes is for terrorists to score once and it’s big news. The big news is never the plots that officials and citizens helped short circuit.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.