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This is an excerpt from an analysis I just received from Stratfor

The big winner today, intended or not, is the state of Israel.

Israel has been under siege by suicide bombers for more than a
year. It has responded by waging a systematic war against
Palestinian command structures. The international community,
particularly the United States, has pressured Israel heavily to
stop its operations. The argument has been made that the threat
of suicide bombings, though real, does not itself constitute a
genuine threat to Israeli national security and should not
trigger the kind of response Israel is making.

Today's events change all of this.

First, the United States no longer can argue that Israel should
endure the bombings. Moving forward, the domestic American
political mood simply won't tolerate such a stance.

Second, Israel now becomes, once again, an indispensable ally to
the United States. The United States is obviously going to launch
a massive covert and overt war against the international radical
Islamic movement that is assumed to be behind this attack. Not
only does this align U.S. and Israeli interests but it also makes
the United States dependent on the Israelis -- whose intelligence
capabilities in this area as well as covert operational
capabilities are clearly going to be needed.

Excuse me...big winner, intended or not?

Is this a suggestion that some Israeli faction might be involved?

Who benefits? Who pays?

I can't see this being a Palestinian operation. The last thing they want is a pissed-off US pouring more money into Israel. It might have been Bin Laden but I would've expected him to show more of a sick sense of "pride" in his handiwork. The Iraqis? maybe, but Iraq is monitored pretty closely and they know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of US ire. Answer who benefits and you might be close to uncovering the source of this wickedness.

This'll probably get modded to hell, but I don't care. Karma isn't everything.

Everyone,

As is often the case, the Economist seems to have the best story: America under Attack

Also see The Economist front page

Stratfor provides interesting and more complete analysis.

Lax Security One of the important points made in the article is that security in U.S. airports and on U.S. airplanes before the bombing was lax compared to the security in Europe.

George Bush had Increased Support for Israel. The Economist article does not mention that the Bush Administration in the U.S. had recently increased its support for the Israeli government and therefore also Israeli violence. The Clinton administration, in contrast, was more careful not to do things which could be interpreted as an incitement to violence.

Once again, intelligence agencies were useless. It is amazing to me that "intelligence" authorities claim that they did not have any idea that there would be an attack like this. Below is a link to an album cover from a band called "The Coup". It is black American "Party Music". The album was sold long before today's bombing. The album cover shows both towers of the World Trade Center in New York in flames:

The Coup -- Party Music, album cover shows the World Trade Center towers burning.

If black rap artists can have this idea, why didn't the intelligence agencies have it? The idea was not particularly innovative, since the World Trade Center had already been bombed once. Did the intelligence agencies think that those who did it would just stop trying?

From one of the Stratfor articles: "Reuters is reporting that Arabic satellite television channel MBC warned Sept. 8 that followers of suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden were planning a major attack on U.S. and Israeli interests in the next two weeks."

Violence is Assumed. Commentators on three of the largest U.S. TV networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, have made comments that assume without debate that the U.S. will engage in military action in retaliation. One U.S. senator said on TV that the U.S. response should be comparable to the U.S. response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of the U.S. responses at the time of Pearl Harbor was to be the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons. Is the senator suggesting that?

This is my reply to the many people who are recommending violence as an answer to violence:

Do you have any thought that violence in retaliation might be a mistake, and might just invite further violence? Those who say no may change their minds after they consider the following issues:

The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of thinking that violence is the answer. The U.S. government killed 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and maybe 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed were in any way directly threatening the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, friends and families and wives.

Most of the citizens of the U.S. had, and have, no idea of the beliefs of the people that their government killed. Most people in the U.S. cannot even locate the countries the U.S. government bombed on a map of the world. People cannot be thought to have chosen violence when they do not come close to understanding the issues. It is often the government that chooses violence, not the people.

No matter how violent a country is, or how many people a violent country kills, there is still an inexhaustible supply of people in other countries who also want to engage in violence. Violence can be unending. Do you want that?

No matter how angry you are, there are thousands of people who are more angry than you. Do you want them to attack you?

As was mentioned above, the Bush administration recently increased U.S. support for the violence of the Israelis. This was sure to make the people being killed by the Israelis unhappy. Do you find it surprising that some of them are motivated to violence also?

There are many countries where people are severely distressed by Israeli violence. Recently there was a TV news story about street violence in which Israelis were killed. The Israeli counter-attack was shown on TV: A helicopter fired rockets at a building, causing huge explosions. It is not important in this instance whether the Israelis are the aggressors. What is important is that a significant number of people in the world think they are the aggressors.

The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for 3,300 years. The Jews say that they are the "chosen people" of God. The Jews say that Arabs are descended from an illegitimate child of their tribal founder, Abraham, and a slave girl.

It is not difficult to understand the thoughts of the Arabs. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live next to a group of people who claim that they are superior, and that Arabs are inferior. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live near people who claim that you are a descendent of a bastard and that God doesn't like you as much.

It is also not difficult to understand that the constant claims of the Jews of superiority over everyone else (including people of European descent like me) are mentally de-centering to Arabs who happen to be psychologically conflicted.

Violence is caused by mentally de-centered people. Mentally de-centered people engage in violence. It's that simple. Being violent toward them makes mentally de-centered people even more mentally de-centered. That's why violence is not a good answer to violence.

The U.S., and all those who hate violence, should take very strong action. But the action must be designed to cure the problem of highly-conflicted, mentally de-centered people. Whatever that response is, it must be more sophisticated than violence.

The terrorists are extreme examples of mentally disturbed people. Remember that those who crashed airplanes into the buildings cannot possibly benefit from their own actions. They are dead. Someone who is willing to commit suicide is about as mentally de-centered as it is possible to be.

Does the U.S. really have a place in a dispute that began 3,100 years before the founding of the country? How many people here really understand this dispute? What percentage of the citizens of the U.S. can even find Israel on a map of the world? I think the percentage is low.

I find the arrogance of my Jewish friends annoying, too. However, there are many differences between myself and the terrorists. I am less conflicted. I am better educated. It doesn't matter to me what other people have been saying for thousands of years; I don't believe Jews actually are superior. I don't live in an area where I am at risk of being killed by Israelis. I am not Arab, so I am not the target of the strongest claims of Jews that they are superior.

I can also understand why Jews would find Arabs annoying. There is an element of the Arab culture that allows Arabs to think that lies are sometimes acceptable. My Arab friends have sometimes lied to me over trivial issues. To someone who values careful thought, lies are extremely repugnant.

Should we be giving Israel money when that will be seen as us a choosing to enter a 3,300 year-old conflict? The U.S. government gives billions of dollars every year to Israel. If anything, this money seems to have made Israel weaker. The Israelis have spent money they didn't earn; this is always a corrupting influence; they have had problems with inflation. It can hardly be said that the people of the U.S. give the money; most have no idea that money is going to Israel. So, the people pay the money, but the government gives it away. Rightly or wrongly, sensibly or crazily, the Arabs see this money as encouragement of Israel's violence toward them.

On this particular issue both cultures are crazy! They've been killing each other since the time of the Pharaohs! What does this have to do with the U.S.? Do we walk into bars and take part in any fight that is happening there?

The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries. We often hear about secret activities of the U.S. government after it is too late to object. The U.S. supported the killing of president Mossadegh of Iran, and then supported an extremely weak man, the Shah of Iran. (See Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings) [thirdworldtraveler.com], for example.) This provoked a revolution in Iran that was hostile to the United States. Citizens of the U.S. were kept hostage.

The U.S. secret agencies' secret answer to the anti-U.S. sentiment was to support Saddam Hussein of Iraq against Iran. We supported Saddam Hussein's violent war against Iran. However, when Saddam Hussein became violent toward another country in the region, we spent billions of dollars to kill an estimated 150,000 Iraqis and destroy their property.

When executives do things openly they make lots of mistakes, and are sometimes held accountable, usually in a very peaceful way, and usually by their own staffs. When executives do things in secret, there is little accountability, and the mistakes can become huge.

Anyone interested in the activities of secret U.S. agencies may have been interested in a segment of the CBS show "60 Minutes" about the secret involvement of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the killing of Chilean General Rene Schneider. The show aired on Sunday, September 9, 2001. General Schneider was a strong supporter of democracy. Here are links to information about U.S. interference with democracy in Chile:

National Security Archive Chile Documentation Project [gwu.edu]

PBS News Hour: "... evidence of a policy to undermine democracy in Chile and to support dictatorship there" [pbs.org]

Hinchey Report, CIA Activities in Chile [state.gov]

Iran, Iraq, and Chile are just three of the countries that have suffered from secret U.S. involvement. There is some discussion of U.S. government interference in Saudi Arabia below. Also, don't forget Nicaragua. I asked someone who went to Nicaragua during U.S. involvement there whether it was possible to see the wealth that the U.S. government was pouring into that small country. The amount was said to be about $1,000,000 per day. I was told, no, there was no evidence of the money that was spent.

There is a cycle: 1) The U.S. government influences other governments in hidden ways, including arranging the killing of foreign leaders. 2) Some members of the countries with whom the U.S. has interfered want to retaliate violently to the violence of the U.S. 3) The U.S. uses the violent retaliation as a justification for more hidden activity.

Invading countries and killing the residents and destroying their property is not a way of relating I consider socially skilled. Why do the citizens of one country think they can kill the citizens of another? If killing is the answer, can't the U.S. ask a better question?

The interference in the affairs of other countries by the secret U.S. agencies has prompted some people to retaliate. These people who retaliate are called "terrorists" in the U.S. The terrorists make everyone in the U.S. less safe. So, U.S. citizens have, in some ways, gotten less security for the money they spent on secret activities.

The violent attitude toward people outside the U.S. has, predictably, spread to the internal police forces in the U.S. When some religious fanatics decided to do stupid things in Waco, Texas, the U.S. government responded by bringing in very violent-minded people. The result was that people were killed.

There were people who didn't like the activities of the U.S. police forces in Waco. There were people who were psychologically de-centered by these activities. One of them, Timothy McVeigh, bombed a U.S. government building in Oklahoma. So then the U.S. government killed him.

Secrecy encourages people not to trust. Violence encourages violence.

We tend to hear about the activities of secret U.S. government agencies about 30 years after they occur. What are they doing now?

It is 10:00 o'clock. Do you know what the U.S. government is doing? No, it is a fact that you don't. You don't know any other time, either. You cannot even know how much of your money is spent on secret activities, because the budget for secret U.S. government agencies is hidden in other appropriations.

Definition of a terrorist: The other country's CIA.

There is in the U.S. very little attempt at understanding other cultures. Arab friends of mine have described situations in Saudi Arabia that are extremely volatile. Apparently Osama bin Laden, and many average Saudis who live in the U.S., feel very unhappy with U.S. influence in Saudi Arabia. They think that there should be political parties and democracy in Saudi Arabia. However, the U.S. government strongly supports the dictatorial regime of the house of Al Saud. Residents of Saudi Arabia, for example, are not allowed to leave the country without an exit visa. They are potentially prisoners of their own country.

Why not ask ourselves why Osama bin Laden is willing to go to so much trouble to promote terrorism? Maybe we would learn something. I am NOT saying Osama bin Laden is right about anything, and definitely his violence is reprehensible. Nevertheless it may help to understand him. According to Arabs to whom I've talked, there is considerable good reason to be dissatisfied with the secret actions of the U.S. government.

As other people have said in the past, the U.S. government has a history of supporting corrupt dictatorships. The U.S. government supported Pakistan against India! India is the world's most populous democracy. It has been suggested that the preference for supporting dictatorships is due to U.S. government corruption. A dictator is almost certain to be willing to support embezzlement of U.S. government money, and to keep it secret. Trying to arrange embezzlement would be very dangerous in a democracy because of the danger of being discovered.

Under the stress of conflict, people show how they truly think. It has always annoyed me that people who call themselves Christian often reveal that they don't really believe in the important messages of Christianity, and that they don't even understand those messages.

Basically, Jesus Christ's idea of not returning violence with violence means that we can vigorously protect ourselves, but that any response must be the true minimum necessary to achieve security. This is a theory that can be recommended even to the majority of people in the world who are not Christian. The theory seems to fit the facts. The facts seem to be that violence always has severely negative side-effects that overwhelm any effect that might be seen as positive.

Answers? Prevention is an answer. Better understanding is an answer. Being charitable long before any problems begin occurring is a good answer. And maybe there are times when we just don't know the answer.

There is often considerable misunderstanding about non-violent methods. One reason to suggest non-violent methods is that they can be extremely powerful. For example, suppose that representatives from the U.S. knew Osama bin Laden's family. Or suppose that you understood how money is transferred to bin Laden. Or suppose the U.S. was so well-liked in the region that bin Laden had difficulty finding supporters. One of the values of non-violent methods is that literally hundreds of them are available, and many of them are far, far cheaper than violence.

The desire for non-violence is a desire to be extremely powerful. Those who are really powerful can have a strong influence just by voicing disapproval.

There are many people who support violence because they want to act out their own personal anger, while at the same time hiding their internal conflict from themselves. It is a fact that such people would be FAR more comfortable if they could be helped to understand and take responsibility for their anger. Acting out anger is like a drug. It provides only temporary relief, and it makes the person who does it more angry. Having un-recognized anger is like carrying a 100-pound sack of cement on your back wherever you go. Un-recognized anger drags you down 24 hours per day.

Violence is not a good answer to violence.

Regards,

Michael Jennings

Michael Jennings
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.

E-Mail: M_Jennings@USA.com

This letter maybe sent to anyone by email without permission from the author, provided that no changes are made. If you print this article with no changes, you may give it to anyone you know. Other use requires permission. Copyright 2001.

Please mention errors and shortcomings to the author.

Stratfor

Concise, more comprehensive than anything else I've seen, and by far the best analysis.

Usually, they're a leading foreign policy website, focusing on 'intelligence' rather than 'news'.

Remember, the power of terrorists is terror -- don't let them win.

Sounds pretty trivial and stupid, right? Think it through - people are willing to pay >$100/year to subscribe to something like stratfor, which pretty much recapitulates information you could find with a broad sampling of news feeds. Why are people willing to pay for it? Because it sorts the wheat from the chaff, and puts it into a context that makes sense.

What's that mean in a concrete sense? Anyone care to take bets on how long it'll take Yahoo to move to a subscription model (very small, sez my money), probably one not too different from the phone book or the newspaper.

W. Europe is mortgaging it's political indepenedence in favor of cheap gas transiting through Russia and causing the Russians (who don't have a lot of luck running a real economy) to shift towards cheap and dangerous nuclear designs like the RBMK. The alternatives are there, of course, but nobody seems to want to do the heavy lifting to manage non-russian energy alternatives. If the existing Baku-Supsa line were enlarged and the Constanta-Trieste line were built, you would have reasonable, non-russian transit while only having to tanker across the Black Sea (without having to go through that eyedropper called the Dardenelles).

Again, these people should know better than to push the Russian's into further RBMK deployment. And yet in the last few months, encouraging RBMK deployment by sucking up most of Russia's natural gas for shipment to the west is what they've done.

DB

In fact, there is a package called LabView which is extensible and many data collectors provide modules to LabView with their sensors. LabView is predominantly a Windows product, but don't let some folk's bias get in the way of work. [Note: I'm not a Windows fan, but will use it when required or if it's the right tool for the job, which it is for things like data collection.]

I cannot attest to cost, but merely to the fact that advertising in TechBriefs has even stuck with someone who has no interest in scientific data collection, like myself. Cheers. ----- Want intelligence? Go to Stratfor.com. If it's in the news, it's too late.

Yeah, you're right. Let's get the CIA right on that.

Check out stratfor.com for some actual intelligence.

Not to mention the fact that the only good news is at Stratfor (free) and Jane's (not free).

http://www.stratfor.com provides a unique news platform. They are not traditional media newstypes - rather a former intelligence consulting firm providing world news with comentary as to what affects this has to the surrounding governments, our government and etc...

Rather than provide you with the same story of tradgedy the Kursk incident was, they discuss the effect that loosing the sub will have on all future Russian Naval operations.

Quite literally, this is at least a different apporach to the news if nothing else...

http://www.stratfor.com provides a unique news platform. They are not traditional media newstypes - rather a former intelligence consulting firm providing world news with comentary as to what affects this has to the surrounding governments, our government and etc...

Rather than provide you with the same story of tradgedy the Kursk incident was, they discuss the effect that loosing the sub will have on all future Russian Naval operations.

Quite literally, this is at least a different apporach to the news if nothing else...

Wrong. Try again.

A 200 knot torpedo/missile (that's not even designed to make drastic course changes at all, much less 180 degrees) has a minuscule (read: impossible) chance of taking out its launch platform once launched.

Far more likely is the theory that K-141's standard torpedoes detonated in the exercise, probably while still in the tube or weapons racks.

The Bellona Foundation has posted their analysis here, and the venerable folks at Jane's have their's up as well.

Finally, the effect this will have on Naval funding and deployment was discussed at STRATFOR.

Hey, this company is global information analysis consulting company NSA of sorts , but for hire. They have deduced some of the classified information by watching the newpapers, tv broadcasts, and other media streams and analyzing it.Visit it

The Le Monde article comments that the US considers cybercriminality to be a case of natianal defense as well as protecting economic ineterests. Before they start organizing some gung-ho international cybergestapo to go after miscreants, they should start by actually building up their cyberDEFENSES. A good place to start would be by reading this article from the intelligence analysis website, Stratfor.com, which looks at the implications of most of the computerized world being "overwhelmingly dependent upon a single computer operating system that is exceedingly vulnerable to even simple attacks."

If a teenager with little talent can shut down major websites with DDoS attacks or corrupt computer files with a simple script, imagine what a foreign intelligence agency could do. As the article says, "the real threat from rogue states won't be nuclear attack, but cyber attack. Rogue states won't launch nuclear attack for fear of the counterattack. But how do we retaliate against a virus attack? We depend on computers. They don't."

It seems that a much more effecient way of protecting yourselves would be to prevent as much damage from happening as possible instead of just sending the troops after someone after the damage has already happened.

On the other hand, if by 'national defense', they mean making the world safe for the MPAA by going after Norwegian teenagers, then perhaps they have a point.

The Le Monde article comments that the US considers cybercriminality to be a case of natianal defense as well as protecting economic ineterests. Before they start organizing some gung-ho international cybergestapo to go after miscreants, they should start by actually building up their cyberDEFENSES. A good place to start would be by reading this article from the intelligence analysis website, Stratfor.com, which looks at the implications of most of the computerized world being "overwhelmingly dependent upon a single computer operating system that is exceedingly vulnerable to even simple attacks."

If a teenager with little talent can shut down major websites with DDoS attacks or corrupt computer files with a simple script, imagine what a foreign intelligence agency could do. As the article says, "the real threat from rogue states won't be nuclear attack, but cyber attack. Rogue states won't launch nuclear attack for fear of the counterattack. But how do we retaliate against a virus attack? We depend on computers. They don't."

It seems that a much more effecient way of protecting yourselves would be to prevent as much damage from happening as possible instead of just sending the troops after someone after the damage has already happened.

On the other hand, if by 'national defense', they mean making the world safe for the MPAA by going after Norwegian teenagers, then perhaps they have a point.

The democratic socialist movement is making huge advances in membership. Although I'm sure that you would prefer the old, inhuman system of randite capitalism, some of us prefer to take this imperfect system and kick out the
door where it belongs. Face it, not everyone buys into your notions of the benefits of capitalism with which people like you are brainwashed at a young age. Get over it: human society and brotherhood are the important aspects of
human civilization. Capital is merely one way of forming a living, but it is hardly the best.

Give me a good example of a strong world power that impliments anything that has anything to do with capitalism and I will believe you. Russia has fallen, Chian is essentially using capitalistic ideas, Cuba is a speed bump now that their big brother Russia is out of the running, North Korea can barely feed it's own people. Now I guess that leaves Vietnam and maybe some other isolated places. Please to some acurate political and intelligence forcasting and tell us again precisely how capitalism is inferior to foo and how and where foo is implimented.

Things are changing, here, and elsewhere. Be prepared.

Sounds like the hippies of a 20-30 years ago. Generally this will not happen. The average person does not agree with this statement. And what you are forgetting is that for any sort of massive change usually top officials and the military have to be behind it. Last I checked I think that military people like getting paid on a regular basis and the top officials were quite amiable towards capitalism because it pays them to like it.

p.s.: although it is probably pointless to argue with a brainwashed capitalist like yourself, advertising on Slashdot is tacky as hell.

No you know what's really getting tacks? It's thinking that the 60's are still alive and that other nations even using military force could easily topple the USA in the next 10 years at least. I suggest you look at the political analysis at stratfor under their predictions of the decade for the major political areas of the world or maybe take a look at Jane's Intelligence Review at your local library or get a subscription (yeah it's expensive but it will put all those little fears to rest that the US is going anywhere). These sources are quite unbiased and quite good reading.

What I am wondering is which country you are actually from and exactly what kind of things that they do there that make it a good place to live for the "average person" not just the governmetn or the rich how exploit the region.

So this guy is a blowhard...think of Russian anti-americanism just like the days in America when anti-communism was popular. And let's not mince words here...the communists were out to get us, through global domination...read any of the old communist literature...it's pretty clear on this subject. But now that the tables are turned, just replace anti-americanism with anti-communism, and this Mr. Z. isn't so scary or foreign any more...he makes a lot of sense. Say what you will about capitalism, but it hasn't worked in Russia, mostly because the country has been looted (i.e. profits not reinvested to make more profits in the future, but rather placed abroad in foreign accounts) by the people who grabbed the pieces of the soviet system. More financial aid wouldn't to Russia wouldn't have made a difference, there would have just been more money for them to steal. I just hope that the Russians will be so busy rebuilding their empire that they won't have time to directly threaten Europe or America for quite some time. Search for Russia on www.stratfor.com for some good info.

Wasn't this thread about a new way to track aircraft :) ?

This means each of these companies is looking for some new angle that they can impress their customers with. Afterall, they are just repackaging public information. They have no spies, and only rarely get tips from people in the know. It is unsurprising that Jane's might use a forum like /. to get relatively current info. I have my suspicions that others have done the same thing, if not here than elsewhere, without admitting to it. And certainly, all these "intelligence services" know how to use Inktomi, Altavista, and other search services to find relevant material wherever, including /.

What they need to watch out for is that the information on /. does not come with a built-in credibility meter. It is just as possible to pass complete BS off here as it is anywhere else. There's no substitute for actually knowing what your talking about.