How would you fight AGAINST the war on terror?

[Sir Sirius]

Is it realistic to expect to shoot someone from 75 feet away, not be detected and get away clean?

Provided that you do it at night, in some relatively remote location and use a silencer, I'd say that the odds of getting away with a totaly random shooting like that are fairly good.

Yes, I know, silencer don't eliminate the sound complately like they do in the movies, but they do reduce the range at which the shot can be regognized for what it is.

[The Third Man]

I'd look at tempting the Alliance into doing something rash (eg bombing a mosque) in Pakistan, with the aim of agitating the sizeable militant Pakistani Moslem populations in the West. It's already been shown by the (fortunately staggeringly inept) shoe-bomber that this can be done. Home-grown terrorists would then force the West into a viscous cycle of impinging more upon civil rights and freedoms, thereby agitating still more of their own population.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I'd attack vulnerable parts of major cities. For example, I might blow up the Golden Gate Bridge, or collapse some frequently used tunnel with a lot of explosives, of course. Perhaps poison water supplies, and set car bombs.

Then, I'd send snipers all over the country. They could smuggle them into the country, conceal them in something innocent-looking, and then assemble them when the time comes.

I'd do what the terrorists in the latest Tom Clancy book did in the mall, except with better trained terrorists.

Commit an act of some sort to make US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq look bad, like dressing terrorists up in military uniform and blowing up a mosque.

[Darth Wong]

Pretty damn effective message

Problem is, you have to deal with the possibility of a counter terror attack involving the words "Mecca" "Medina" "Peacekeeper" "ICBM" and "kilotons", if you end up being TOO effective in terrorizing the heartland.

Oh, but we're not at war with Islam, remember? Just ask George Bush.

[Darth Wong]

I would assume that training a sniper is much more difficult than training someone to walk into a crowd with a SMG and open fire.

Who said anything about snipers? A real sniper can take down a man from a kilometre away. The level of skill required to take out people walking their kids to school is much, much lower. Especially if you have a hole drilled in your trunk and a sniping space cut into your car, the way the Malvos did.

Also, the coordination is what brings you down. The more coordination you have to have to accomplish your mission, the more communication you require, the greater the chance you have of being discovered or botching something that will cause the mission to fail.

It doesn't take much co-ordination to send guys out with instructions to randomly kill people.

Although it terrorists are willing to train four guys to be pilots, I don't see why they wouldn't take the time to train a few to be snipers. Then again, no way four snipers are going to kill 3000+ people and bring down two 110 story buildings. Who knows what cost/benefit analysis these crazies use?

America has an abundance of firepower, but a shortage of manpower. Islam has an abundance of manpower, but a shortage of firepower. Their tactics are modified to suit.

[Stormbringer]

Pretty damn effective message

Problem is, you have to deal with the possibility of a counter terror attack involving the words "Mecca" "Medina" "Peacekeeper" "ICBM" and "kilotons", if you end up being TOO effective in terrorizing the heartland.

Oh, but we're not at war with Islam, remember? Just ask George Bush.

But that premise is getting stretched thinner and thinner as the shenanigans of the religion of peace continue. We might not be at war with Islam but we sure are with the lunatic majority of it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Oh, but we're not at war with Islam, remember? Just ask George Bush.

US foreign policy is consistent since when? What was that quote.... "If you don't like US foreign policy just wait a week and it I'll change." Something like that.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well since everything the US has is overly complex and intensely computer dependant.....


Hackers, Lots of Hackers.

[Darth Mall]

Use lots of bombs in areas such as tunnels and bridges, but do it at night to do a told you I could type attack, that scares the shit out of people and threaten to blow more bridges up in the day/rush hour if nukes are used.
Also smuggle terrorists in as janitors and get them to set up bombs in schools/office blocks all at once

[The Yosemite Bear]

Also with the infrastructure being as anchient and obsolte as it is, powerlines, Water Treatment plants, railroad tracks and certian sections of highway (where there aren't that many people on, but are nessary for transport of goods. Purhaps Hijack some regular big rigs with food shipments. Wide open variety of targets, not much that can be done about it,and in the case of the power and water systems easy to cripple a wide area with only a few hits.

[Solauren]

I would have posted this if not for the SQL problems earlier in the weekend

okay, here goes

Step 1- Smuggle in as many operatives as possible, each with assigned target, date, and enough money to let them live until the time.
Commit Fake attacks in the name of the US to piss people off first. i.e American looking men raping Iraqi or Afgan woman for the 6 o'clock news. People willing to get shot and killed by Us forces in Iraq, fake soliders attacking a mosque, etc.

Step 2- Learn police patrol routes in the city (i.e time they will be at so and so intersection) as well as location of police station


Note: All references to suicide bombers and the like assume claymore mine variant from the movie 'Swordfish' if possible.
All operatives wearing the claymore vests from Swordfish. Orders are not to blow up until completed mission or they are shot. Also have deadman switch activation. If being chases, turn it on, so when shot, still explode
They are also ordered to not show any sign of hating America or Americans, etc. If pushed, or shoved, take it for now.

Operatives will come in via Canada, Mexico, and appearing to be Cuban refuges (if possible)


Step 3+ Attacks
Attacks
1- Use Thermite (easy to make) to cut out sections of railroad tracks (say, remove a 2 meter section) to cause derailments near railway crossings to seriously impede traffic. Do several sections within 100 meters of each other to gaurantee the derailment.

2- To single the start, have a bunch of operatives, trained in martial arts, and armed with hard plastic martial arts weapons if possible board lots of airplanes (not just 4) at once. Also if possible equip them with some kind of gas weapon to flood the plane with. Say, something in an old shaving cream can, however you could. (i.e the laptop that really holes parts for a 9mm handgun and a clip) There orders are to ram them into landmarks and major office buildings, etc, including hospitals, in the planes destination city, and they are not to attempt to seize control and/or deviate from course until about 2 miles from the airport. (Delay the time to shorten delay time). First attacks on a city are to be rammed into the airport control towers.
Before getting on, place a few guns in an airport locker, and possible explosives on timers (set to go off in 60 minutes).
Anyone that foresaw a problem getting onto a plane is to wait until a target time (i.e all the planes are schedueled to leave at 10, wait until 10:30 - 10:45) to go get there guns/explosives back and then start mowing down people in the airport. All at once.
There will also be operatives who's sole purpose is to do that.
Also steal or rent small planes before hand, and use them on that day and ram them into buildings and monuments, and blow up claymore mines inside the buildings to increase damage (deadman's switch/timers)

Release tape to the news, filmed at 10am EST admitting to the attacks, and that more are coming. Release it over the internet onto Kazaa and the like, as well as mail them to Al Jazera and MSNBC

3- Use Poison gas (ala the attacks in Tokyo) and poor them into the ventilation systems of major office buildings, tourist sites, subway stations, and power plants if possible

4- Hacker attacks. This can actually be done from anywhere in the world.

5- Plant bombs with radio activated detonators set off by cell phones and police frequencies. Someone is walking down the street on there cell phone and BOOM.

6- Start sniper attacks on police headquarters, then after a few days, phone in tips as to were they are (or have someone turn themselves in). When the cops to arrest the snipers, when they go into the building, Claymore mine. At the same time, snipers near by in cars set up like the Washington DC snipers start shouting them down. They have all been informed at this point there life is forefeit and the babes in the afterlife await them.

7- Random sniper attacks all over the United States, all 48 main states, as well as any protectorates (like Porterico, sorry I know I spelt that wrong), and Haiwai. Sniper attacks in Alaska would be a waste of time. There are better ways to fuck with alaska.
The snipers are to use the same tactic as the Washington area sniper, but if possible are to own several used cars to avoid being 'eyed' easily.
i.e Monday it's a black van. Tuesday is's a red chevy, Wednesday is a Green Jeep, etc. They are to keep going until caught, and preferably have some kind of bulletproof in the trunk. In the event of capture, it's claymore time.
Stealing the cars and then leaving them abandoned with motion activated claymores is also okay (i.e steal the car, sniper someone, and then leave it in a parking garage to blow up later). Just leave cans of gas in the trunk to make the vehcile really burn. This has the added effect if the bombs are not motion activated, but are instead linked to the engine starter, of possibly not blowing up for days or weeks or longer.

At the same time, start Suicide bombers with claymore mine set up from Sword fish. The bombers are wearing business suits to really freak people out, with the bombs in the brief cases is possible (variant dress and yield if possible). Go into a bank or other place of business (like a mall, movie theater on opening day, subway station, etc) and blow up and take a bunch with you.

Also have the snipers drop lots of letters into the mail (i.e 3 each a day, with different hand writing on them, 1 to a mailbox) with fake Anthax in them, as well as real Anthrax and the like (i.e SARS) if I can get ahold of it.

8- After about 200 sniper victims, or all the snipers are caught, I figure 4 - 5 days, drive by attacks on police stations, fire houses and the like. Preferably with RPG's and the like. Lots of damage.

9- Start taking out power line's between cities, and then inside the cities themselves (i.e blow out relays, power junction boxes, etc)

10- Start major forest fires, and minor forest fires

11- Start attacking the coast guard as well.

12- If I can get the weapons needed into the states, try to activate a supervolcano. (Douptful)

13- Also do this in other nations on the UN security council

14- Tell them all this will stop when
The UN pulls all forces out of the following countries, leaving all military equipment behind (probably Israel, Palestinian lands, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc). Attacks will continue in all countries until all forces are out. If military equipment is not left behind, attacks continue. The military equipment is to be handed over to my operatives so I can take control of the Middle East. Equipments not handed over but left does not count as left behind.
Total trade embargo on Israel
No taxing on goods from the countries I listed.

[weemadando]

Sorry for the necromancy, but I couldn't help myself.

Economic warfare. Set up a couple of trading houses (all you need are some phone lines and money) and then let a couple of commerce/economics trained people loose on the various markets in an effort to break every market manipulation and trading law known to man and in the process crash a couple of the markets.

Psychological warfare. A few carbombs into major transformer farms and you have mass blackouts. Combine this with deceptive radio reports issued from over-powered mobile transmitters to create mass panic in affected areas.

Disruption of routine. Who cares if you don't really have anthrax. Just some yeast from your local supermarket put in a letter to (insert name of random politician/law enforcement agency/joe average) will have people concerned and paranoid again. A couple of carbombs at traffic chokepoints in major cities will have them slowed to a halt. Minimum effort for maximum response. Having a major cities HAZMAT teams attempting to respond to 100 anthrax callouts is going to cause problems.

Blind terror. Sniper attacks. COMPLETELY RANDOM MAILBOMBING - I'm talking pulling a name out of a phonebook random. You need to have people afraid to do the most simple of day to day things.

Military attacks. The IRA has gotten good at dropping mortar rounds on UK forces and bases. And to the best of my knowledge the majority of US bases aren't protected by anti-mortar/RPG mesh. All you need is a pick-up truck and about 45 seconds to set it up, drop 3-4 round and pissbolt. It mightn't be that effective but it only has to inconvenience. And what happens when someone drops some mortar rounds into a local PD? Suicide squad attacks on public targets is another possibility but DPG and SS in the US are pretty sharp, so you might as well just get them to wander into a shopping mall and spray until the cops arrive.

I can continue detailing more variants if people want.

[HemlockGrey]

Wipe out Washington D.C. Concentrated car bombings, snipers, Oklahoma-style blowouts; simply leaving the capital a smoking ruin and then moving on to another city will inspire quite a bit of fear.

[Exonerate]

1. Explosives. Lots of them. I like Ando's idea about random mailbombings. Set up a few Oklahoma style bombings, but also plant bombs and many fakes in highly populated areas, such as shopping malls, schools, etc. Destroy power plants, powerlines, etc.

2. Cyber attacks. DoS is fairly simple to do. Shut down a few internet backbones, and you're set. And send lots of spam messages which include words that will set off NSA programs filtering traffic.

3. Random kidnappings and murders. Make people be afraid to go out. Send in a group of people, go into a house, kill everybody, then flee.

4. Try to get people angry with the government and their inability to stop the attacks. Start riots, mobs. Do this everywhere; the US, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

5. Destroy highways with explosives, whatever is handy. Cripple traffic flow.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Can't fight a war without any allies.

False.

Conflict: War of the Grand Alliance.

Alignments: France Vs. Effectively whole of European Alliance System (Austria, England, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Bavaria, Savoy, Palatinate, other small states).

Sustained: 1688-1697 (Hence also called the "Nine Years War".)

Result: Strategic Tie. French ambitions in the Rhineland were not met, but the prior French annexation of Strasbourg was confirmed.

If Louis XIV and his twenty million Frenchmen could do it, why do you doubt your Republic so? The Iraqi campaign is a mere piff-poff compared to the great events of history.

[Darth Wong]

If Louis XIV and his twenty million Frenchmen could do it, why do you doubt your Republic so? The Iraqi campaign is a mere piff-poff compared to the great events of history.

Key differences:

1. Willingness to die. There's an awful lot of brave talk from people on bulletin boards, but reasonably affluent human beings do not risk death as readily as they once did.
2. Clearly defined, achievable objectives: the so-called "War on Terror" has none.
3. Contempt for the world, or lack thereof: despite Americans' constant public denials, they do care about world opinion. Why do you think there's so much rage about French criticism? If you honestly don't give a shit what they think, why get so angry that they don't like you? Looks like hurt feelings to me, covered up with a lot of long-winded explanations. Americans, like it or not, actually do care what the rest of the world thinks. They do not revel in hatred the way earlier colonial powers did.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Willingness to die. There's an awful lot of brave talk from people on bulletin boards, but reasonably affluent human beings do not risk death as readily as they once did.

I'm not sure that this is a permanent aspect of society; but may be a temporary result of the way certain events occured in the 20th century.

Clearly defined, achievable objectives: the so-called "War on Terror" has none.

I'll concede that.

Contempt for the world, or lack thereof: despite Americans' constant public denials, they do care about world opinion. Why do you think there's so much rage about French criticism? If you honestly don't give a shit what they think, why get so angry that they don't like you? Looks like hurt feelings to me, covered up with a lot of long-winded explanations. Americans, like it or not, actually do care what the rest of the world thinks. They do not revel in hatred the way earlier colonial powers did.

We could probably use a little stoic contempt; and I grant that the current situation with France and Germany is a bit like the shock of finding out people you thought were your friends are not. The long term ramifications of that--and I think there will be long-term ramifications--on the American collective psyche should be interesting to see. They may, ultimately, not be good ones.

Even if we win this war it might not be for the best in America. The situation with civil liberties illustrates that most; but then, wars are hardly ideal situations to put yourself in--and this one was not our's to the starting. (Iraq is but a Campaign in the War on Terror; perhaps an ill-devised or even outright stupid one, but it seems clear now that the connection at least in the administration was intentional. They had strategic reasons for undertaking it as part of the War on Terror. One also grants there were--rather ill-thought-out--strategic reasons for Churchill committing troops to the defence of Greece; which ended in the fiasco on Crete.) The sacrifices in Louis XIV's France to endure Nine Years of armed struggle against the whole of Europe were hardly pleasant.

But they could be accomplished. And, ultimately, the sooner we look at the problem and take the steps to solve it--steps which may require a great exertion--the better. The enemy is at war with us; and each year we dawdle they shall grow stronger; strong enough and real sacrifice will be required. Perhaps it will to awaken the populace to the necessity of the affair.

What's being done in Iraq is too subtle for me; the entire campaign has been waged a bit too nicely. But I think it will still work:

My advice for the Islamist would be to go silent, now, and convince the American that he is dead. Sleep, grow in strength and try to build a quiet hatred over what we've done--see if you can beat our effort at democracy in the long-term, instead of the formative stages, just like Nasserism also was killed by the traditions of the Mid-East. Then strike.

If they keep themselves in the public eye then they will just keep our weight against them until they are defeated. As long as they only have the ability to enrage America their struggle is futile; so they cannot think in the Now of victory, but rather of a very long struggle.

But their mindset convinces them victory is still possible even now. And so the very thing that makes them dangerous ultimately will probably also lead to their defeat--a lethal overestimation of themselves courtesy of their God.