Do you think that Al Qaeda would have been intercepted if they tried today to do what they did on Sept 11, 2001?

I would hope not! Although the government would use it as an excuse to shave away a few more liberties. It’s sad that on the one hand we want to be safe but on the other hand the useless empty suits we keep electing use tragedies for personal and political gain. At least Al Qaeda is honest about their intentions. Whether we are prepared or not remains to be seen but I honestly don’t trust the government to get it right and not use an incident for something politically motivated.

I’m sure that AQ (or whatever other groups are out there) have developed other messaging systems and more clever alternatives to what they did a dozen years ago. I think that terrorist organizations are smarter than we think they are.

The US has a tendency to fight the previous war, not look forward to the next. So now we are safe from approaches that were successful in 2001, but are we safe from the things that the bad guys have developed since? One hopes. But who knows?

If they can meet and coordinate a prearranged plan including every detail of the attack and don’t use electronic communications they can still blindside the US.

I don’t think they could do it without electronics!

@Dutchess III ,Sure they could. all they would need is to have a physical meeting to go over a detailed plan with a set place and time and a rendezvous point from which to stage the attack. communications could be done by courier.

So, if the “pilots” were in the US training to be pilots, and they needed to contact their boss in Iraq, they send a letter?

They would have to change their method of operation.for example they could buy the precursor chemical to make sarin gas at Walmart.

That doesn’t answer my question. If you have them scattered all over the world, and situations come up, how would they communicate quickly with the home base in another country, if not electronically? Carrier pigeon?

They could be called to a meeting electronically and then be given instructions without US intelligence knowing what took place at the meeting.

I think they could do something like that again, maybe not with a commercial flight. Anyone could slip into a public building with an incendiery device unless there are checkpoints. The illusion of safety is and always will be simply an illusion, imo.

Don’t forget, a lot of US Citizens could do the same thing.

Yes.

I mean the shear SCALE of what they did, flying the planes into the WTC….they planned it for years. Could they do that again today?

@Dutchess_III – I’m not a terrorist, but my general answer would be – with enough planning and attention to security, yes.

Of course not. They would let it happen again.

Yes