Get Ready for Terrorism on Soft Targets

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    Independent’s Eye by Joe Gandelman 

    Get ready for our already ugly and violent 21st century to be the century of soft targets for terrorists. The number of places where people feel safe will diminish as terrorists pick new venues to increase body counts — and grab more of that new and mainstream media publicity that helps with recruitment.

    What humanity is seeing now is yet another shift in how people kill people. During World War I, new technology changed the way warfare was waged. The 20th century later gifted humanity history’s most inhuman, evil and powerful madman: Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler. Hijackings and terrorism blossomed in the 1960s. In following decades so did serial killer killings, school shootings, mass murders and the rise of that religious terrorism so hypocritically excused and enabled by some.

    Then came 9/11, a financially costly terrorist operation that expertly exploited American airport and airplane security vulnerabilities to use passenger-crammed airlines as missiles in an operation designed to maximize the kills. “Greatest Generation” World War II veterans such my father, Richard Gandelman, who thought they had buried barbaric mass brutality with Hitler’s death, were shocked by 9/11.

    Enter ISIS, the world’s largest producers of snuff films, urging its true believers to kill Americans and other enemies wherever they see them. Those are the softest of soft targets.

    And the attention is turning to soft targets.

    In Sydney, Australia, “Islamist” terrorist Man Haron Monis, who was well known to authorities there, chose the Lindt Cafe as his target for a 16-hour December siege that ended in the death of two hostages and Monis himself. Sydney brought back (bad) memories of the 2008 Mumbai, India massacre on several “soft targets” including a mall, cafe, hospital and a Jewish Chabad house — ending in 164 dead.

    The world had barely absorbed Sydney’s finale when the shocking and sickening news broke that six heavily armed Taliban militants wearing suicide vests murdered 133 school children 12-years-old and up at the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. And so the Taliban continued its tradition of killing or trying to kill kids. Some warped minds still consider them “brave” warriors.

    Look for the Taliban and other terrorist groups to strike at more soft targets in Pakistan, because the country carved out of India is like a ripe apple ready to be harvested. The forbidden fruit is Pakistan’s nuclear program. If ISIS is cutting off the heads of journalists, businessmen, women and children, and if the Taliban is routinely murdering kids, exactly what do you think they’ll do if they acquire a nuclear weapon?

    Just as hell will be the final limit for those who mercilessly murder kids, the sky is the limit when it comes to massacring people in free and even not-so-free societies. First, merely pick a place where people congregate, feel relaxed about where they are and/or where their loved ones are. Second, send in or manipulate some l-o-s-e-r who thinks killing others and himself is a virtue and — voila! — there you have it. The headlines. The shock. The cost for the murderers’ bosses is low. The publicity over the outrage is big.

    The list of possibilities of soft targets is seemingly endless: pre-schools, malls, churches, synagogues, fairs, festivals, sporting events, swap meets, conventions, rock concerts.

    Everyone these days talks about “trending” on the Internet. So how is humanity “trending” so far in the 21st century?

    Not very well at all.

    Just as some websites are dominated by boorish, hyper partisan “trolls” who name call and push free speech to the limit of slander in their clamor to get noticed, we now have news cycles dominated by bloodthirsty terrorist and wannabe terrorist “trolls” who clamor to be feared, and exploit state-of-the-art social media technology to spread their message and their branding of brutality.

    They mercilessly and sadistically butcher their enemies, inflict maximum damage, and exterminate the opposition — which actually HELPS them sign up more recruits — who think it’s cool.

    Somewhere down there where it’s very hot, Adolf must be smiling.

     

    Copyright 2015 Joe Gandelman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

    Joe Gandelman is a veteran journalist who wrote for newspapers overseas and in the United States. He has appeared on cable news show political panels and is Editor-in-Chief of The Moderate Voice, an Internet hub for independents, centrists and moderates. He also writes for The Week’s online edition. CNN’s John Avlon named him as one of the top 25 Centrists Columnists and Commentators

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    16 COMMENTS

      • Or maybe they had foresight and were there to set up infastructure to combat what most at the time seen as a threat to humanity.

        • Unless you kill them all it won’t stop. And to stop it you not only have to kill the fathers but the mothers and kids too. That is what the Taliban do in Pakistan. All those kids that were killed in that school were the son’s and daughters of the Pakistan Army guys that were attacking the Taliban in the Mountains. This was a revenge killing and an attempt to not only exterminate their enemies but to take out their kids as well. If you want to tick off or intimate the Pakistan leaders and army guys there it nothing worse that one could do than to murder their children. And these people have access to nuclear weapons which scares me greatly. What if they get so made at the Taliban that they try to nuke them in the mountains and set off a nuclear war.

          And winter takes hold of us I fear that some hacker in China or North Korea will somehow figure out a way to turn off the electricity.

          I fear that if there is a war with China they will shoot down and destroy our satellites and leave our army and navy helpless or at least incapacitated in many ways.

          At least with the Russians we have MAD to help protect us. They know that if they start a nuclear war that they too will be destroyed in the process so they won’t do that. It’s called MAD or mutually assured destruction. No one in their right mind would start a nuclear war. But I fear that these terrorists are not in their right mind. they don’t play by our rules of war. Maybe it’s time that we start adopting their rules of war and make them fearful at all times that they too might lose their children or wives. Maybe a little MAD for them is in order too? But then again are we not already doing that now with our drone and missiles. It’s no wonder they are attacking us as we are attacking them day and night too. But has this not been going on in one form or another for the last 3 thousand years. Before the Bible was even written the Israelites were battling the Philistines and then there were hundreds of years of crusades etc. Man is at war all the time. We find cave man bones that were broken in battle. Even our nearest relatives the Chimpanzees are at war with other Chimps. It’s actually in our genes to be at war with each other.

          • Personally I will NEVER accept EVIL as it appears some are prepared to do. If EVIL tries to harm me or my loved ones it will be dirt nap time,,,,our military lays down their lives trying to protect you from said EVIL.

          • The Geneva Convention and LOAC has to be set aside when fighting terrorist. If liberals continue to have their current level of influence I see little hope for us. Cheney is right and was right. I have notice that most of the ones getting their heads cut off seem to be a little to the left. But the Taliban seems to have a friend in the white house, releasing the data on our treatment of Taliban prisoners borders on terrorist activities. You would have thought after the terrorist attack in Boston the folks there would change, not happening, still the same liberal sheep.

    2. Ain’t no big thang. In America, we got guns! Everywhere! The NRA has helped us have guns everywhere, anywhere, even the COPS know there are guns everywhere. It’s why COPS prefer to kill rather than arrest and take you in. “I thought the guy might have a gun!”, the cop says. He is right! Everybody does have a gun! You think the COPS hate black people? B.S.!! Cops are paranoid everybody’s got a gun! So, they just kill and ask questions later. That NRA, they did that for us, protecting us all against the COPS. I ain’t worried about no soft target man. I got a gun. Everybody’s got a gun. And the NRA is gonna help us all get more guns. This is Tea Party America man. We are good for the country!

      • Glad you have a gun, a gun is as much of a home and personal security device as a smoke or carbon monoxide detector. Strap your gun on just like you put on your seat belt, treat it as a safety device. George Bush and the NRA are visionaries and front line warriors protecting our second amendment rights. I’m thankful for them everyday. I don’t hold any great animosity toward liberal democrats and the pantsuit mafia but I do categorize them as domestic constitutional enemies who bare considerable scrutiny. I approve of the liberal war against our police officers, if I were a criminal I would also fear the police, criminals are suppose to. If you do your research you will find that most people in prison are democrats and are to be feared. Here’s a simple question, if people in prison were not democrats, why would Hilliary and other democrats be fighting so hard to restore their right to vote? They’re already lost their 1,2&4th amendment rights, do we want to restore those?

        • pov, You know you’re right. Look, I want to own this, because it really is who we are — a bunch of ragtag, militia hayseeds and hicks. I don’t read books, it is all bull anyway. I just want to shoot guns, reinforce my bunker and serve some more tomater-wine to CountryBoy, POV, Al Sharpie and Joe-Biden. We gots the life.

    4. As long as we have Evil in this world peace will always be in the balance….we should rest our loins on what our Lord should, “Blessed are the meek (peacemakers) for they will inherit the earth” be vigil and pray for the peace of mankind…

    6. Key point, Joe, don’t ever speculate on your local own political weaknesses. Hold that line stoically never speculate.

      Stay high point maneuverable on your challenge. Watch that advisories position, always
      move to leverage it, I don’t think you’ll ever have the series, I once was told straight up, Airman you are good really good, and I love that. God, I wish we could teach it! And everyone learned.
      Not written, but said, the Guy that told me that was, by his given
      name Robin Olds.
      And its value became and remains a proven with myself and squadron of others.
      People need to absolutely stop challenging our President, Robin wouldn’t, he’d a
      just served.
      And that people is the tough quality that keeps America a free and very powerful nation.

      Given all that, the same mission qualities supports our human commitment to just what we have always said we STAND for.
      Those locally based Vanderburgh/Evansville Indiana politics please be excluded from the call. They just don’t add up. Yet.

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