Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Non-Threat of Islamist Terrorism

In her latest column for The Daily, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia wonders why Islamist terrorists haven't struck the U.S. in the 10 years since 9/11? Is it because our $2 trillion in military spending has made us safer? Or is it because Islamists aren't the low-tech version of Dr. Strangelove we make them out to be? In order to pull off attacks worthy of our never-ending war on terror, Dalmia writes:

They [Islamist terrorists] would have to be radicalized enough to die for their cause; Westernized enough to blend in without raising red flags; ingenious enough to exploit loopholes in the security apparatus; meticulous enough to attend to the myriad logistical details involved; self-sufficient enough to make preparations without enlisting outsiders; disciplined enough to maintain complete secrecy, and—above all—psychologically tough enough to function at a high level without cracking while planning their own death.

That emphatically is not the profile of an average al Qaeda foot soldier, who is a semi-literate peasant with little experience of the outside world.

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