re: #446 Charles

Cool, so let me know when they discover something real. So far I don’t see anything solid at their website.

Here is something that’s real (i.e., that’s been published on a website). It’s the NYPD report on Radicalization in the West.

Tiny excerpt from the 90 page PDF:

OUTSIDE EXPERT’S VIEW: Brian Michael Jenkins,
Senior Advisor to the President of the Rand Corporation

The United States and its allies have achieved undeniable success in degrading the operational capabilities of the jihadist terrorist enterprise responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks, and numerous subsequent terrorist operations since then. However, we have not dented their determination, prevented their communications, or blunted their message. We have not diminished their capacity to incite, halted the process of radicalization, or impeded the recruitment that supports the jihadist enterprise. Indeed, recent intelligence estimates concede that “activists identifying themselves as jihadists are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.” As a consequence, “the operational threat from self-radicalized cells will grow in importance to U.S. counterterrorism efforts, particularly abroad, but also in the Homeland. As the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief Intelligence Officer testified in March 2007, “radicalization will continue to expand within the United States over the long term.”

The report also points out the the ability of al-Qaeda to inspire lone wolves to commit “autonomous jihad” is a huge threat — not surprising, considering what the lone wolves Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were able to achieve without significant outside support beyond ideological motivation.