Thursday, February 16, 2012

The incompetence alibi

New York Times article on what looks like one of several Iran/Hezbollah terrorist cells active in Asia --

Some terrorism experts expressed caution about what they called a rush to judgment. Will Hartley, the editor of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London, said in an e-mail, “The attacks in India, Georgia and now Thailand have all been highly amateurish, and lack the sophistication that would normally be expected from an operation” by either Hezbollah or Iran’s external operations wing, the Quds Force.

The problem with this is that "amateurish" is an ex post concept. The attacks failed, hence they were amateurs. There was another bunch of amateur terrorists who made fools of themselves at strip clubs, got pulled over by the police, landed a light plane on a main runway at Miami, and made unduly complicated itineraries for themselves on their final escapade. That would be the 9/11 hijackers. But since they murdered 3000 people, nobody thinks of them as amateurs.

And anyway, if Iran was professional, it wouldn't have attached itself to a psychopath like Bashar al-Assad and his clan in the first place. From which they need a distraction, so they send out the clowns in Thailand, Azerbaijan, and India.

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