Defense Contractor Guy writes
regarding Al Qaeda claiming responsibility for the blackout ... remember the audience - that announcement is aimed at the same folks who believe the US has x-ray specs and air conditioned uniforms.
A good point, I think. And further amplified in this piece.
Claiming credit for what appears to have been the product of a fluke equipment failure in Ohio is a sensible move for al Qaeda. The communiqué is a psyop, aimed at the United States to some extent, but more importantly, at the faithful abroad.
Al Qaeda needs to show that it is still relevant and can mount significant attacks on the Crusaders, and claiming credit for the largest power outage in U.S. history is as good a way to demonstrate puissance as any...
But suppose terrorists had managed to bring down the power grid — what were the effects? It was not a day of terror, alarm, and fear, as al Qaeda claimed. New Yorkers dealt with the outage with a degree of aplomb. Some journalists offered stranded commuters the opportunity to lose their tempers on national TV, but I didn't see anyone seriously complaining. The most critical people seemed to be politicians and newsmen seeking to render blame or push policy agendas. The contrast with the expected chaos was notable...
There were no signs of panic, drivers were taking turns at intersections, and traffic was flowing fairly smoothly. Even had the outage been the achievement of the Abu Hafs al-Misri Brigades (not to digress, but why are these platoon-sized terror subgroups always called "brigades"?), it did not result in anything like the harm they claimed in the announcement.
What it shows us is that the terrorists have failed at their most basic objective, namely to terrorize. This is not a country on a knife-edge of tension, ready to dissolve at the first disruption of daily life. If there is a lesson al Qaeda can draw from this event, it is that they will have to do something a lot more spectacular than even this massive power outage to get the country's attention. 9/11 is a hard act to follow.
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