Stardate 20030127.1031

(Captain's log): So the Super Bowl has come and gone. Two teams played, and one of them won. One of the quarterbacks threw five touch-down passes, three of which were scored by the other side off interceptions. He gets "goat of the game".

As is always the case, it was a sell-out, and as is always the case it was viewed live by a larger television audience in the US and around the world than any other single event of the year. (A friend of mine in Germany even told me he watched part of it.)

And with the eyes of the world on the stadium here in San Diego yesterday, there was no terrorist attack. None. Zip. No indication that there was even an attempt. Indeed, I don't even remember hearing about a threat. The biggest security concern here was the possibility of Raiders fans going on a rampage if their team won. (They have a reputation similar to British soccer hooligans.)

We keep hearing about how the terrorists are biding their time, how they have hundreds of sleeper cells waiting to go, how they're going to open a can of whoop-ass on us Real Soon Now, or how they'll do so if we go ahead and attack Iraq. But as golden opportunity after golden opportunity for such things come and go with no action by them it is becoming increasingly apparent that most of that is bluff.

We keep hearing from some that the operation in Afghanistan was really a failure. It did not cripple al Qaeda; it simply scattered it to the winds to reform elsewhere in the world and if anything this increased the danger to us. No one without access to classified information can really know for sure, but we can surely start to make this empirical observation: where the hell are they? If al Qaeda really were unharmed and even more angry, why have we not seen further spectacular and highly public demonstrations of their power? What possible reason could they have for showing restraint? They couldn't even come up with a couple of guys with rifles to shoot at the crowd, or one guy in a light plane to try to crash into the stadium? To create a newsworthy event, even if the body count was low, would have required pitifully small resources, and they didn't even managed that. The most exciting thing that happened yesterday was three pass interceptions and a blocked punt which were all returned for touchdowns.

There were fifty ways that one dedicated follower, just one man, with only a small amount of money, could have produced an "event" yesterday which would have made massive waves internationally. None of them happened.

The only conclusion that makes sense is that the reason they have not mounted any further attacks is that they can't. Either they don't have the operatives and money to do so, or else any plans they've made have been foiled. It's probably a bit of both; "sleeper cells" seem to number in the single digits rather than in the hundreds, and several of those who were actually making serious plans for attacks were caught. One cell here in the US was broken up last year, and there were recent arrests in London and in Spain. al Qaeda has been shattered and deeply crippled; most of its leaders are dead or under arrest and most of its followers have been demoralized.

Only a fool would become complacent because of this, or assume that we will never be attacked again, whether by al Qaeda or by someone else. But as time goes on and they miss more and more opportunities, we can at least begin to feel more confident. We really are winning the war against terrorism (everywhere except Israel); we really have massively reduced the short term danger.

Which is why we must now start concentrating on eliminating the long term hazard, and that road travels through Baghdad.