Bombing’s Lesson: No One Is Immune Cities Large And Small Are Targets For Terrorist Message Of Fear

If there is anything to be learned from Wednesday’s tragic bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City, it is that no one is immune to manmade disaster.

“In the Midwest, we tend to have the notion that these attacks will happen in New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles - those types of large communities where terrorists might hide,” said James McKenney, associate professor of political science at Wichita State University and an expert on terrorism and international affairs.

But … Oklahoma City?

“All of a sudden, people are going to be more conscious and less secure than before,” McKenney said.

Although the cause of the disaster is still unclear, terrorism experts fielded questions Wednesday from people who wondered: Why here? Why now? Why Oklahoma City?

“The answer is, ‘Why not Oklahoma City?”’ said Felix Moos, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. “I think we should not be surprised that it can happen anywhere. Tomorrow, it could be Salina (Kan.).”

Moos, who teaches a course on terrorism, said traditionally, people in the Midwest have not felt vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Political violence happens in Damascus, not Des Moines. People are gassed in Tokyo, not Topeka. Buildings explode in New York, not Newton, Kan.

To discover the reason behind a specific terrorist act, you must remember the reason for terrorism itself, Moos said. And that reason, simply put, is to send a political message through fear.

“If you want to destabilize a society - to make everyone more insecure and remind us that we are much more vulnerable than we think - why not Oklahoma City?” he said. “Why not the place no one would expect?”