Any knucklehead can start a fire, set off a bomb, or fire wildly into a crowd of unsuspecting people. A knucklehead is not a terrorist; he's simply a knucklehead.
A competent terrorist has a clear, achievable objective in mind. When Cory Moore took a police captain and his secretary hostage in 1984, he demanded that "all white people leave the earth immediately." Cory Moore was an extraordinary knucklehead, not a terrorist. The guy who put explosives in his underwear was no ordinary knucklehead either; he's more of a superconducting, supercolliding knucklehead.
Competent terrorists follow a few other rules as well:
A competent terrorist avoids becoming a serious suspect. This one should be common sense, but just about all of them get a failing grade here. Once a terrorist becomes a suspect he loses the ability to commit another act of terrorism. A terrorist who cannot continue terrorizing is no longer a terrorist, he's just a criminal waiting to be killed or arrested. A terrorist who retains the ability to strike repeatedly leaves his target audience with two options: deal or live in fear.
A competent terrorist chooses a target audience that possesses the ability to comply with his demands. He also understands, step by step how that target audience would go about complying. Someone who bombs a daycare center because he's angry with the banking industry is a knucklehead.
A competent terrorist makes very certain that his target audience understands exactly what the problem is and how to address it. I don't have a damned clue what Jared Loughner meant when he claimed that the government was brainwashing us with grammar. Nor do I understand how shooting a very likeable congresswoman is supposed to motivate anyone to change anything. Loughner is even more of a knucklehead than the underwear bomber.
In the movie "On the Waterfront" Terry Malloy uttered the famous words, "I could'a been somebody." Most Americans have felt that way at some point in their lives, often for the same reason as Malloy. Those who stage media events probably feel as though others have damaged their lives and they want to get even. They should think more carefully about what they do. A competent terrorist thinks and acts on a rational plan. A knucklehead feels and acts on compulsion.
No one who feels wronged should be a knucklehead. they'll wind up dead or in prison. And after their behavior becomes yesterday's news, we'll only laugh at them.
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