Recounting the shoe bomber, the Christmas Day bomber, and Faisal Shahad — terror plots barely averted — John Podhoretz observes, “it appears, our luck has run out.”
“In each of these cases,” Podhoretz notes, “an inexplicable combination of luck, incompetence and attentive bystanders helped prevent mass casualties.”
But our record of thwarting terrorist attacks is even more amazing than Podhoretz suggests. In 2012, The Heritage Foundation compiled a list of 50 terror plots foiled since 9-11.
The case has been made that America overreacted after 9-11 — that the energy, money, and worry expended exceeded the danger. That we were overwrought. Boston may cause some observers to rethink that.