Terrorism in America

On the morning of May 20, America awoke to see horrifying footage of hundreds of bloodied, sick and dying Americans on CNN. The tragedy was the result of terrorism using chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction used in Denver and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Except it wasn’t a tragedy, it was a simulation called TOPOFF.

A simulated casualty during operation TOPOFF on May 20 this month in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The simulation was to determine the effectiveness of MMRS (Metropolitan Medical Response System) authorized by Congress in 1996.

While most people believe it cannot happen in America, national leaders consider the threat of terrorism to be very real. The U.S. may hold great military might, but according to a draft National Security Council document outlining a new global strategy, this very strength exposes America to the evil of terrorism. The report states, "due to our military superiority, potential enemies, whether nations or terrorist groups, may be more likely in the future to resort to attacks against vulnerable civilian targets in the United States."

The terrorism document is in response to the 1996 Public Law 104-201, the "Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act," passed by Congress. Through this Act, Congress facilitated the creation of 25 emergency teams to be trained in major cities nation wide known as the Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS). The goal was to see 120 cities equipped with MMRS-trained teams by 2000. These teams are being trained to fight a new kind of war which was spawned in the 20th century and is sure to intensify well into the 21st century. The TOPOFF simulations on Saturday May 20 were designed to test the MMRS training.

Various branches of the armed services are responding to this new reality. The National Guard created its Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection teams to help assess the nature of an attack and to serve in an advisory capacity to state and local disaster teams. The Marine Corps has also established a Chemical/Biological Incident Response Force to perform consequence management in the case of an attack. These and other similar teams have been training to assist in the case of an attack on American soil.

This new warfare is very different than anything seen in the past. Terrorists don’t wear uniforms identifying who they are. They will use weapons with names like Anthrax, and the battlefields will be crowded subways, school buses, and busy downtown streets. These are the front lines of terrorism. Defending against terrorist activity is hopelessly unpredictable. Unlike conventional warfare, when combating terrorism, it is hard to know who the enemy is, foreign or domestic, or what his targets will be. It’s like fighting a phantom.

As America witnessed late last December, one of the predominant dangers comes from the scores of fundamentalist Islamic groups who see the U.S. as "the great Satan." In March of this year, customs officers from Uzbekistan discovered 10 lead-lined containers at a border crossing with Kazakhstan. These containers carried all the makings for construction of "radiation bombs." These "poor man’s nuclear weapons" are a means by which radioactive materials are dispersed by the utilization of conventional explosives. It is suspected that the containers were ultimately bound for super terrorist Osama bin Laden for use against Israel and the West–especially the U.S.

The threat of terrorism is not confined to civilian extremists. Discerning the Times Digest reported in August, 1999, that China has a new military doctrine called "unrestricted war" that calls for the use of terrorism using weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks against the U.S. if it has to confront us. Although it has never been made public, senior Russian military officers hint that Russia’s new military doctrine signed last month does the same thing.

Biological weapons are especially insidious because they are so much cheaper to produce than chemical or nuclear weapons. Those that present the greatest threat are smallpox, anthrax, and plague because they spread quickly and have the potential to cause large numbers of deaths. Another reason these heinous weapons are so desirable to terrorists is that the perpetrators can easily escape since it would likely take days for authorities to even realize that a problem exists. By that time, one of these horrible diseases could have spread to epidemic proportions.

The groups that would like to see the demise of the U.S. are too numerous to count. It is a near certainty that technology developed in America and stolen by Chinese, Russian or other spies will be turned and used against its own creators in the future.

Although the U.S. is facing the greatest threat to its national security in history, the peril also serves to show that security cannot be found through man’s efforts alone. True security can only be found in Jesus Christ. V ks