By Alan Green, HSO Contributor
The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Delta passenger jet has shifted the world's attention to Yemen, which apparently has become the newest al Qaeda stronghold and a base for training the next generation of terrorists. This seems to have taken everyone entirely by surprise, even though in late December of 1999, media reports about Osama bin Laden noted that the world's most wanted man was quite familiar with the land of his father's birth. As Scotland's The Herald noted, young Muslims recruited in the UK "received basic survival and unarmed combat training in Britain, and were then flown to various camps in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to be instructed in the use of firearms and explosives."By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it HSO Contributor
The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Delta passenger jet has shifted the world's attention to Yemen, which apparently has become the newest al Qaeda stronghold and a base for training the next generation of terrorists. This seems to have taken everyone entirely by surprise, even though in late December of 1999, media reports about Osama bin Laden noted that the world's most wanted man was quite familiar with the land of his father's birth. As Scotland's The Herald noted, young Muslims recruited in the UK "received basic survival and unarmed combat training in Britain, and were then flown to various camps in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to be instructed in the use of firearms and explosives."
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On that same week in 1999, the federal government warned that terrorists may be planning to conduct attacks against Americans both here and abroad. Among the countermeasures employed: more drug-sniffing dogs and devices to check air travelers for traces of explosives. Which as weary travelers know is what's happening now at both domestic airports and at airports with flights bound for the US.
Of course, December 1999 was the eve of the impending Y2K disaster, which was expected to disrupt everything from the air travel and the banking system to telephone service and the electronic grid -- a potential catastrophe not unlike the threats now posed by cyberterrorism, which could cripple economies.
Ten years ago, the millennial change was expected to turn otherwise sane people into food hording survivalists whose militia groups would take up weapons to beat back the government's attempts at imposing martial law. In its description of these groups, the Washington Times noted: "If the computers go down and the power grid fails, militia leaders across the nation worry that the White House might use an ensuing panic as an excuse to impose martial law. As they see it, the National Guard and the military would be activated to conduct door-to-door seizures of firearms. Ultimately, United Nations troops would be called in to keep the peace, thus moving the nation closer to the one-world regime known as the 'new world order.'"
The black helicopters never materialized, but that hardly changed the hearts and minds of the militia men. In fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that militia groups have seen a resurgence since the election of Barack Obama.
As they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Let's hope that over the next 10 years we hamsters manage to get off the wheel (although I have my doubts).
But if bin Laden and the militias and the computer terrorist networks are still with us, at least one thing will change with the new year: I've enjoyed my opportunity to add my two cents to this website, but with this blog post I'm off to other challenges. Thanks for all the e-mails over the last five months (particularly the ones that didn't challenge my IQ and sanity). Cheers.
Alan Green was formerly editor of investigative projects at the Center for Public Integrity, in Washington, D.C. His books include Animal Underworld: Inside America's Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species, which chronicles such issues as the threats to human health posed by the trade in pet primates.
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