Bloggings by boz

Yesterday's failed attacks in the UK along with today's strange events fortunately did not cause too many casualties or too much damage. They do, however, speak of a frightening possibility for the future.

Lone wolf terrorism or unnetworked terrorists who commit acts without leadership always pose a challenge. The Unibomber or Eric Rudolph are examples of this here in the US. However, this sort of terrorism as it is linked to radical Islamic ideology can be more dangerous as it has shown the ability to recruit relatively large numbers of followers for radical or even suicidal acts without the financial or communication connections that would allow governments to stop the terrorist action.

Also, for every 100 or even 1,000 lone wolf terrorists who have minimal explosives or firearms training and cause few casualties, there will be one who is much more dangerous. A lot of pundits are looking at the events over the past few days and seeing it as a good sign because they think Al Qaeda is weakening. More likely, these are the weakest of the lone wolf jihadists (or copycat jihadists) striking out, and others who are more dangerous are holding back and preparing. I don't mean to be the pessimist, but those spinning the recent events as good news risk complacency.

So far, I think Tony Blair and the British people are handling these events with remarkable skill and grace. They have the right attitude to win a war of ideas. Let's hope they can take some steps forward over the next few days and let's also hope they can pass some of that good sense on to our own government.