There are now reports going around that al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the recent massive electrical power outage in Canada and the United States. This is the sort of notion which will appeal to the paranoids of both the right and left, those who see sinister government conspiracies lurking behind ever curtain. However, with nearly absolute certainty I can say this: the Great Blackout of 2003 was an accident and any suggestion that al-Qaeda was behind it is absurd. The members of al-Qaeda could claim responsibility for earthquakes and hurricanes as well, but that wouldn’t make it true.

Now, I must admit that I am not very well versed as to the technical side of what went on last week. However, from what I have read it is fairly clear that the blackout was caused by a failure somewhere along the grid, with speculation now seeming to center in the state of Ohio. In any case, there are more obvious reasons to believe that al-Qaeda did was not responsible for the blackout: the lack of any sort of supporting operations whatsoever. If al-Qaeda really knocked out power to a tenth of the continent and then did exactly nothing to follow it up, then they are the stupidest terrorist organization in the entire history of the world. Imagine the difference it would have made if, on Thursday afternoon, the press had in their hands a statement from al-Qaeda or, for that matter, if a few Jihadists with semtex-accessorized jackets had decided to take a stroll down Broadway.

There were millions of people on the streets on New York one Thursday night. A few suicide bombers would probably, in those crowds, killed hundreds of people. Hundreds (and perhaps thousands) more would probably have been killed in the ensuing panic as millions began to franticly charge about the streets. Just a few bombs would have turned the Great Blackout into the worst terrorist attack since September 11th. For that matter, half a dozen terrorists with AK-47’s could easily killed several dozen people. Yet none of this happened? Why? The answer is simple: al-Qaeda did not know, could not have known, about the blackout in advance.

Quite frankly, I don’t think the real terrorist threat, as of today at least, is of a massive attack. Since September 11th al-Qaeda has been seeking to repeat its performance: and it’s been failing. If they do not strike in North America again soon the people of this continent, naturally forgetful as they are, will forget to fear them: and the Islamists will not have that, especially given the terrible effects that the seeming decline of Islamism must be having upon their recruiting and fundraising.

Where then will they strike? The answer is simple: they will strike at America’s vulnerabilities and where they have the greatest chance of success. I believe that they will strike repeatedly as targets all across America, using tactics as they have used in Israel but, perhaps, with even greater violence. If they are insightful enough, they will choose their targets very carefully, for they have a great asset which they have yet to effectively use: the massive fifth column which exists within the United States. Many people who reluctantly opposed the September 11th attacks (and with even greater reluctance supported a military response to those attacks) did so only because of who had been killed- civilians in New York. Had the terrorists chosen exclusively military and political targets, I fear that there are a great many people in America who would have applauded and that the resistance against a serious reaction would have been ever more furious.

What al-Qaeda and the others Islamists have, to date, failed to comprehend is that slaughtering American (or Israeli) civilians en masse is a counter-productive strategy. They lack the resources to effectively damage the civilian or economic base of either country. Instead they throw away their most dedicated members in exchanges whose overall kill ratio run against them- exchanges whose primary effect is to unite the people around their leaders.

It would be much harder to arouse public enthusiasm for the War on Terrorism if al-Qaeda restricted itself to military and political targets. As we saw in the cases of the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers and others, the general public doesn’t really care all that much if a few US servicemen are killed by terrorist bombs. Frankly, I think they’d care less if a few Congressmen bought it. However, such strikes would have a very real effect on US morale and the political will to wage the war.

The other thing lacking on the part of al-Qaeda is an effective public relations team. The group needs to recruit a spokesman, someone British or American educated, who can go on Western television and plead after they commit an atrocity that they are, “only defending their homeland� and spout off the rest of their propaganda is measured and sane-seeming tones.

It would be a mistake to think that the Islamists cannot win this war: they can. While they cannot win by the means of a single, massive, battle they can win the long war of attrition of the United States lacks the will to continue the fight. The key to victory here is political will and, in a democracy, political will to win a war can never be sustained for very long if the people are not under direct threat of attack. If this war becomes a war of decades, the terrorists will win. They will not win upon the field of battle, but rather within a weakened American mind.

There is, therefore, only one option for the United States. America must invade the nests which host and give birth to the terrorists, and it must burn them to ashes. Then it must go out into the world and kill the enemy wherever they might be found, slaughtering them where they sleep, obliterating them where they stand.