I am afraid the US (and the West in general) is not in this for the long haul; we are only in it until the next election...this is going to be a generational war.

Finally, the point of Robb's work is to point out that the modern/post-modern global arrangements of states is heavily dependent on thousands of lightly to non-protected systems that are extraordinarily vulnerable to low cost attacks by quasi organized groups acting with a fairly high degree of self-direction and low centralized organization. You are arguing his point for him while trying to argue against it.

I will not enjoy the misery to which these parts of the world seem headed, but I will not miss the arrangements that made blaming everybody BUT the people in these parts of the world appear at least superficially plausible.

Nigerians who wan't freedom, or at least non-Sharia, need to speak up and act up now, and if they can't, they will share blame for what comes next.

Also,we might want to seriously consider building about a hundred nuclear power planst some time next week.

In a previous post, he predicted this sort of attack as the next logical step for global terrorists.

What in the world are you talking about, James? This is a pretty old method used by insurgents to advance their political agendas. I am not sure if there are any "lessons to be learned" by this especially given the fact that the current dispute inovlving the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta emerges entirely out of the history of corruption in Nigeria, the role of oil wealth in sustaining corruption, and long-standing regional independence movements that have been prevlent in the country since its independence from the UK in 1960.

To link this event to John Robb's previous post is absurd given the fact that this has absolutely nothing to do with the US or its interests. Independence groups in Third World countries bordering on anarchy offer little in the way of understanding how terrorists might operate in the US.

You fall in the trap of assuming that "terrorist" groups are some sort of homogenous whole without recognizing the historical context of these groups' emergence.

Terrorists are lazy, they don't attack directly where the strength is, they attack at the fringes, where the weakness lies, with the minimal force necessary to cause maximum gain. Boxcutters and light airline security was a brilliant move (cost to them to stage it versus the cost to us reacting to it make the 9/11 attack probably the single most effect attack in history). Thus, I see container ports a much more likely entry point for the next level of terror -- the cost to truly secure these has a far greater economic impact than attempting to attack the resource rich oil industry.