Arguably the country’s most authoritative voice on counterterrorism, Michael A. Sheehan takes aim at “terror punditry” and misdirected government priorities. Sheehan, a veteran of special ops, international diplomacy and clashes with federal agencies, lays out simple, logical arguments. An excerpt from “Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves.”

Introduction: Terrorism Unplugged
The terrorism attacks of September 11, 2001, changed the way Americans look at national security. This new lens on the world is, in some ways, clearer than ever. But in other ways it has become distorted and blurred. In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans were keenly aware of the vulnerability of the U.S. homeland; now we take comfort in not having been hit again. Are we leaning on a false sense of security — or is the worst truly behind us? This book attempts to provide answers to questions such as this in plain language and without any hidden agendas. In this firsthand account of more than twenty years of counterterrorism work, I hope to present the terrorist threat in the most realistic light possible.

Anti-American terrorist activity has not abated since 9/11; overwhelming evidence points to the contrary. We’re safe today for one primary reason: America has thus far been able to detect and crush the cells that would do us harm before they could fulfill their purpose. The clandestine cell is the essential building block of a terrorist operation. Effective terrorist cells are usually very small and tightly managed, generally comprising three or four people and rarely involving more than ten or twenty. When they get bigger, cells become much more vulnerable to penetration by law enforcement or detection by alert citizens. The 9/11 operation was conducted by four cells composed of about three to five people per cell, all of which were led by Mohamed Atta. Only Atta knew about all four cells. This highly disciplined group operated without being detected and achieved its tragic effect because our nation was asleep to the threat it posed.

Any terrorist cell is difficult to stop once it has devised a plan and assembled a weapon without detection. We live in an open, democratic society with attractive targets everywhere. We can and should protect our most critical infrastructure, and I’ll discuss the best ways to do that as we proceed. However, all people and places can’t be protected at all times — even in a fortress state, which nobody wants. Rather than adopting a bunker mentality, we must address the issue of terrorism at its source. Ideally, we should work toward changing the dynamic that drives a young man to kill for the sake of a radical cause, but changing that equation will take at least a generation. In the interim, we’ll face a significant number of terrorists who are committed to doing us harm. Hence, the immediate and paramount goal of U.S. counterterrorism policy should be to detect and dismantle terrorist cells before they can attack.

Rather than attempting to eliminate every terrorist from the face of the earth, we need a policy that focuses on strategic terrorism, which is the real threat to our national interest. Terrorism is deemed strategic only when a terrorist organization exhibits the capability to sustain multiple conventional attacks over time, or develop and deploy a single catastrophic attack with a weapon of mass destruction. Only a strategic attack can change our way of life. Lone-wolf attacks such as those of Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh are tragic onetime events and shouldn’t be confused with strategic attacks. In the immediate aftermath of one of these tactical attacks, we should mourn the loss of innocent life, then concentrate on finding, arresting, and trying the perpetrators. But these isolated events shouldn’t fundamentally distort our lives or redefine our national security posture.

Don’t Self-Terrorize
Tactical terrorist attacks can change our way of life only if we choose to terrorize ourselves, thereby giving what is in fact an isolated incident strategic dimensions. A terrorist attack is normally conducted by the weak and humiliated as an act of desperation against a superior military foe. As implied in the word terrorism, those who engage in that practice employ their enemy’s fears and insecurities as part of their weaponry. Terrorists depend on an overreaction to scale up the impact of whatever they’ve done. If we overreact, then we afford the enemy disproportionate power. In this regard, we should take a lesson from Israel and the United Kingdom. Both countries have experienced more than their fair share of terrorist activity, but with experience comes wisdom. The Israelis and British don’t allow a terrorist attack to have an impact beyond the immediate blasting area of the explosion. They clean up the attack area quickly, mourn their dead appropriately and without excessive fanfare, care for the injured, and get back to normal life. Politicians, pundits, and civic leaders are relatively mute compared to their hyperventilating counterparts on American talk radio and cable TV.

If a bomb explodes tomorrow in a New York City subway car, how should we react? In the first minutes after the attack, we should assume that there’ll be other attacks (for that is al Qaeda’s modus operandi). The trains should be shut down and thoroughly searched for additional bombs and bombers. However, it’s essential to get the trains running again as soon as possible, no later than the very next morning rush hour. Commercial aviation was stopped for four days after 9/11, but hindsight has revealed that this was unnecessary. If terrorists attempt to disable our transportation infrastructure again, we must deny them that satisfaction. We must minimize the impact of the attack on our lives. Of course, extra security is appropriate, but we must not shut down entirely, as we did following 9/11. It’s crucial to maintain our national composure in the wake of a terrorist attack.

In light of how overreacting plays into the terrorists’ hands, those who in the wake of an attack promote hysteria to gain political advantage or raise network ratings should be held accountable for the havoc they wreak. Politicians and pundits who run to the microphones with frightening pronouncements should be condemned.

Regardless of their political leanings, they’re usually inaccurate or flat wrong.

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