Hi. Terrorism professor here. If you're wondering why I haven't commented on today's attempted bombings, it's because we don't know enough yet. The only thing I can say with confidence is some of you speculating and accusing are crawling out onto limbs that'll get sawed off soon.
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Enough public info now for early analysis of the attempted bombings. THREAD--Will update as more info becomes public. First, this fits the definition of terrorism: Non-combatant targets, violent (at least one device confirmed active), almost certainly political. 1/x
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Terrorism, by definition, is political. By contrast, criminal violence is for personal reasons. Violence by drug traffickers trying to make money, angry person seeking revenge, etc. aren't terrorism. 2/x
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Targeting a political figure is not necessarily terrorism. For example, Jared Loughner targeted Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed a judge. But he was schizophrenic and attacked Giffords because he believed she snubbed him at a rally years ago. Personal, not terrorism. 3/x
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But simultaneously attacking multiple political figures (Clintons, Obamas, Soros, John Brennan and others) indicates a clear political motive. That makes it terrorism. And at least some of the bombs have the same design, which indicates they have the same maker. 4/x
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Nicholas Grossman Retweeted Jim Acosta
Here's photos of the bomb sent to CNN. A few things jump out: 1) No postmark. Packages sent through the mail are required to have a postmark on the side with the address. Could be an error, but likely indicates package hand-delivered, not mailed. 5/xhttps://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1055147149158219778 …
Nicholas Grossman added,
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2) On bomb package sent to CNN, "Florida" misspelled in return address, "Brennan" misspelled in address, and Brennan contributes to MSNBC, not CNN. There's a widespread assumption that terrorists are smart--basically supervillains with elaborate plots--but often they're not. 6/x
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Terrorism is hard. Many instances of attempted attacks failing because the attacker messed up. Seen speculation that the bombs not going off is some sort of indicator. Most likely, it's just that law enforcement is good at what they do, and this terrorist is an amateur. 7/x
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Replying to @NGrossman81
Always makes me think of the IRA quote (paraphrased below) after a failed attack against Thatcher: You have to be lucky all the time. We have to be lucky once.
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Yup, that's a classic. Similarly, there's the David Galula argument: the insurgent can disrupt security anywhere while the counterinsurgent must provide security everywhere.
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Replying to @NGrossman81
Hadn't heard this one before. We talk in class a great deal about the difficulties of counterterrorism and countering asymmetrical warfare.
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