I'm Not Worried

I just heard about the suspected al-Qaeda plot to bomb New York subways, perhaps in the same style as the London Underground bombing of 2005, some time this holiday season. For once, I'm not worried.

Why? Because it doesn't make sense. Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of George Walker Bush's arrogant, militaristic, unilateral foreign policy to advance its cause, but the election of Barack Obama as his successor in the White House has won back a lot of goodwill for Americans that was lost due to the Iraq War. Much of that earlier goodwill came from the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. If al-Qaeda were to launch an attack in the U.S. at a time when we have a well-respected and admired President-elect coming into office vowing to pull troops out of Iraq, it would be a public relations disaster for Osama bin Laden's crew. They'd rally even more international support for Obama and the country.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who is bin Laden's second-in-command and the originator of the idea for 9/11 (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the one who actually planned it), recently surfaced on videotape calling Obama a "house Negro" who's ready to due the bidding for the white Christian establishment that runs America and the world. If Zawahiri hoped to drive a wedge between the Kenyan immigrant's son and his global admirers, it failed miserably. An attack on American soil will only renew our resolve - and strengthen Obama's own resolve - to exterminate al-Qaeda.

There is some ill will against Westerners, though, as the attacks in India today demonstrated. (That attack was not al-Qaeda-related.) But al-Qaeda should realize that their days are numbered - they won't have much to fight against once Obama takes office and redirects U.S. foreign policy - and that another large-scale attack on the U.S. or anywhere in the West will hasten their demise.