Los terroristas improvisados

¿Son la excepción o la norma?

La primera vez que fui a Perú, en pleno auge de "Sendero Luminoso", tuve que esperar varias horas un vuelo a Lima en el aeropuerto de Tumbes, en la frontera con Ecuador. Después del último avión, no quedó nadie en el edificio. Podríamos haber ido y venido como Pancho por su casa. Me acuerdo que comentábamos que el único motivo por el que los senderistas no se hacían del poder en el país era su increíble incompetencia:

The point here is not that all terrorists are incompetent — no one would call Mohammed Atta that — or that we have nothing to worry about. Even if all terrorists were amateurs like Shahzad, vulnerability to terrorism is inescapable. There are too many propane tanks, cars, and would-be terrorists to be perfectly safe from this sort of attack. The same goes for Fort Hood.

The point is that we are fortunate to have such weak enemies. We are told to expect nuclear weapons attacks, but we get faulty car bombs. We should acknowledge that our enemies, while vicious, are scattered and weak. If we paint them as the globe-trotting super-villains that they dream of being, we give them power to terrorize us that they otherwise lack. As I must have said a thousand times now, they are called terrorists for a reason. They kill as a means to frighten us into giving them something.