A terrorist set off a bomb in New York’s subway Monday morning, and the worst thing he did was blow up his own crotch. That may be why you don’t see the cries and arguments that you usually see in the wake of terrorist attacks. There have been no loud calls for new security measures, no angry attacks on the intelligence community, no bills proposing more surveillance, no new legislation to curb immigration, and no new country we’re supposed to invade.
This relative silence doesn’t reflect a lack of vigilance, in our mind. It reflects a proper proportion of vigilance.
The New York subway pipe bomb attack reflects the happy news that our country’s tireless counterterrorism efforts here and abroad are largely working.
A suicide bomber, or anyone who would set off a bomb in the New York City subway, was probably aspiring to something grander than a pipe bomb. He was certainly hoping to damage more than his own nether regions. It’s important to consider for a moment why he couldn’t do more.
The terrorist bomber couldn’t plan anything bigger, in all likelihood. If he knew anything about U.S. counterterrorism he would know that reaching out to other jihadis is fraught with peril. The FBI has roped in dozens of would-be terrorists with sting operations.
Aside from these sting operations, there’s the fact that a terrorist is less likely to find any sympathy among American Muslims. For all the problems America has with racism and immigration, we are extraordinarily welcoming to immigrants and effective at assimilating immigrants of all backgrounds. In Europe, Muslim migrants are much less likely to land in a good neighborhood with decent life prospects than in the U.S. Here, the average mosque is not a place of seething anti-American hatred, and so a plotting bomber can’t turn there.
Our intelligence agencies’ surveillance power sometimes worries us, but our government has generally used this power responsibly and effectively, sniffing out terrorists usually before they can strike.
And our military has been destroying Islamic State strongholds in Iraq and Syria, weakening the terrorist organization. This is after we demolished al Qaeda.
Obviously we have not reached a “Mission Accomplished” moment in our fight against ISIS. The fight against Islamic terrorism will never be completely won, and it is a near-certainty that terrorists will have a more successful attack on U.S. soil sometime soon.
But for now, we can look at the terrorist who exploded his own pants in the subway and say that it is the counterterrorism efforts of our government that made his plan such a dud.
Good work. Keep it up.
