Threat of Terrorism and WMD

¶ … Threat of Terrorism and WMD

If you are person living in the isolation of the South American rain forest, you might answer the question: How realistic do you perceive the threat of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruct ion (WMD) to be? Your answer might be you do not perceive it to be realistic at all. However, if you were in New York City, or at the U.S. Pentagon, or standing in rural Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, you would probably say that the threat of a terrorist using WMD against a civilian population is very real. If you are a Sudanese national, in the Darfur region, you would say that terrorists have already resorted to the use of WMD against the civilian population. if, on the morning of July 7, 2005, you were on a particular bus on your way to work; you might answer, yes. The threat of terrorist use of WMD against a civilian population is not a question of will they use it; it is a question of when will they use it.

Unfortunately for the civilian populations of the world, whose own governments often sell and trade their best interests in world negotiations of quid pro quos, the only way that fundamentalist terrorists think that they can get the world's attention is by committing horrific acts of violence against civilian populations. It does, indeed, draw world attention to the deed, but not to the cause of the terrorists. In fact, it causes the civilian world to withdraw any empathy or sympathy that might otherwise be available to the many causes of any organization or group.