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• Monday, August 7, 2006 02:10 PM

  Re: Surprising that there aren't more attacks?

  Thanks for your comments, Zaynab D., and I share your hope about interfaith relations. A brief clarification: I didn't mean to suggest there could be lots of Muslims lurking around who would start randomly shooting Jews in response to what's unfolding in the Middle East. (Also, as "lauri jst" pointed out per updated news reports, the accused gunman may have been mentally ill rather than acting out of political rage, that's still not clear.) Rather, I was thinking about Haykel's analysis, and how al-Qaida -- or other terrorist groups, copycats, etc. -- might seek to respond to what's unfolding. And while this incident occurred in Seattle, something like it, or even worse, could just as easily happen in, say, London or Paris. That one hadn't happened until Friday (or maybe still hasn't, if the gunman was indeed mentally ill) is to some degree surprising, weeks into the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. The war there has taken the incendiary politics of the Middle East to another level, and I fear we can expect violent acts elsewhere as a result. The U.S., especially considering its current relationship with Israel, is hardly exempt; sometimes I wonder if there's a false sense of security settling here again, since no serious attack has occurred in the five years since 9/11. (Why one hasn't occurred is a knotty discussion all its own.) I wrote a couple of related pieces last year:

  http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/07/19/london_attacks/index.html

  http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/05/26/hezbollah/index.html

  The latter looked at substantial support for Hezbollah inside the U.S., centered around criminal activity in Los Angeles. So with the war raging between Israel and Hezbollah today, a violent response elsewhere, including inside the U.S., seems to me a distinct possibility and worth considering.

  [Editor's note: Due to a system glitch, this letter was reposted from Aug. 3 to clarify the author's name. The content of the letter is the same.]

  —Mark Follman Read Mark Follman's other letters
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