Slashdot Mirror
A New Kind of War
Americans think of D-Day or the invasion of Iraq when they think of war -- massed fleets, armies and planes, tanks and fortifications. But the National Security types and military brass were clearly talking about something else completely.
This sort of offensive, confusing and strange-sounding to non-tech laypeople and those outside the military, will clearly rely heavily on security technology -- surveillance, wire-taps, electronic ID's from cards to voice and fingerprint scanning, biological warfare and defense, e-mail encryption and interception, satellite photographs, the digital tracing of money, the use of pin-point troops and weaponry to go after small numbers of terrorists located in inaccessible cells in distant countries. Such a conflict raises all sorts of policy questions, from our grasp of different cultures to the nature of religious fundamentalism to changes in traditional ideas about civil liberties, to use of the Net as a communications medium for terrorism, to technologies that might make airplanes and buildings safer. People have suggested more sophisticated X-ray devices to spot weapons and bombs, stronger pilot cabins, buildings less massive and vulnerable than the World Trade Center towers.
Most officials were quick to say the war would like unlike any other, and that drafting vast numbers of people wouldn't be necessary. This war would be fluid, varied, combining weaponry with diplomacy and economic pressure.
The intelligence experts who came out of the cold last week were nearly unanimous in agreeing that old-fashioned spies -- sometimes unsavory humans -- were crucial to get close to terrorist "cells" but also that new forms of communications -- e-mail, cell, the transmission of encrypted files -- required new laws and better technologies to monitor them, since they were terrorist tools. Also needed, they said, are computer programs to better track the movement of money.
Is such a war possible? Technologically feasible? Can encrypted terrorist communications really be followed online? Is it possible to trace money so precisely by digital means? To what degree can civil liberties or privacy be protected in this context? Is there technology that can spot a knife in a briefcase or hidden in a human body? How close can satellite surveillance take us to small terrorist hideouts in urban or rural areas? Is the idea of the mobile, tech-equipped soldier feasible? What weapons would he or she carry?
Over the last few years, I've gotten e-mail from academics, defense researchers, satellite trackers, government cryptographers about various issues relating to technology. It would be interesting to hear from some of you who know more about this than most people. In fact, some of you might be directly involving in working on these things.
America's defense and policy planners are calling for a new kind of war and a new kind of warfare. Few people have any idea what it might look like or how it might work.
Technology has brought us to a point where communication can be relatively clear and simple over great distances. It's no longer necessary for communities to share a physical location (Slashdot is a great example of this.)
This has also allowed the formation of armies without a single physical location. Its troops are scattered around the globe, making it difficult for the United States to simply "invade."
War is a classical pursuit, and its concepts are rooted in histoic notions of borders and terrain. We don't yet know how to attack an army made up of citizens of our own country, living in our own neighborhoods.
This is not to blame the Internet for what happened. The internet had nothing to do with it. However, access to technology gives everyone the freedom to communicate -- everyone
Got Rhinos?
Why not actually attack the source of the problem rather than the symptoms.
Money would be far better spent removing the motivation for people to become terrorists rather than putting out fires by stopping individual terrorists.
Seriously, Jon, what credentials do you have for war? There are many people on /. who have military experience, and you're not one of them.
Look, it's going to be nasty, brutish, bloody, not fun. War sucks. Killing, noise, fire, confusion, being tired constantly, on edge, it's not a game.
There are many ways we can do it. The smartest would be to get some local intel of terrain and people (many of whom have fled, maybe some assistance from Afghanis who fled the Taliban to Iran would work, since the Pakistanis support and arm the Taliban, and half their intel would be designed to trap us). Land on mountain tops and passes, set up defensive perimeters with mines and mortars, anti-tank and ATA, put spread out artillery in gun pits, and blast any vehicle or concentration that moves. Because only the Taliban moves in 2/3 of Afghanistan, the local population that they control (who don't support them) don't have mobility.
But we'll probably do something dumb instead.
Some of us have combat experience in mountains, Jon. And you're not one of them. Your techie toys won't work in mountains - a defender has a 20:1 or 10:1 advantage if he knows the terrain and the opponent is vaguely unfamiliar with it. A few people can hold off battalions, when placed right, we'll be lucky to move 2 miles in a day.
And cruise missiles are economically ineffective - JATO-assisted dumb bombs have a 98 percent kill rate, while a cruise missile there has at best an 80 percent kill rate, and you just need a dug-in position and nothing short of a nuke will affect you (and even those have to get the angle right).
This isn't a war game. This is a war. We will lose people, we need sound strategy and tactics, not people with ideas about fire-and-forget missiles that get confused in mountain terrain, or using MBTs in mountains (which are easy to kill with mines and vertical attacks with anti-tank).
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
It's hard for me to talk about this issue and not sound like an alarmist, or sound like I'm coming out of an ultra-leftwing camp spouting X-Files/Orwellean warnings. But that's really what we're talking about here.
/., I think we sort of have a responsibility to inform those less tech literate, less educated (including our politicians and policy makers) to understand the issues and ramifications of their actions.
Digitally tracing cash? How bout we just get rid of cash and everyone use credit cards? That's what George Orwell wrote about in 1984...
A "new type of war" where one country is the enemy one day and our friend the next, and the American people are supposed to go along with whatever way the winds of war blow that particular day? Again, straight out of 1984...
How about we give the government access to all our personal information? Worked for Big Brother...
Again, I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but these are extremely important, fundamental issues that are going to be raised in the next few days.
Everyone has said this, but as the tech-literate, educated people we are on
Today I plan on calling my Senators and Representatives, and writing letters (snail mail). I think it would be prudent for all of us here to show that, even in times of trial, democracy still can work. Make your voices heard and inform the policy makers of your views!!
Reading this and watching the news makes me sad. It is clear that the government and Bush's administration have very little intention to have a Desert Storm type war over this, but the pundits, the reporters and news anchors; don't seem to understand this fact. They talk about "a new war" and "35,000 reservist called up", showing us pictures of tanks and ground troops assaulting a position. It is true that they have been saying something about high-tech ways to stop terrorism, but nothing of a high-tech war on terrorism.
Maybe we are using the wrong word when we talk about a war. Maybe we need something new, something that better describes what we are doing. If we look at the War on Drugs or the War on Crime or the War on Poverty these were not 'wars'. Maybe they too need a better word. A word in which we do not automatically think of large military efforts or fire raining down from the sky.
I have talked with many of my classmates and friends in the past week and most of them seem to think we will invade Afghanistan. The media has made it seem as if all of Afghanistan is part of this, and that much of the Middle East is partly responsible, when its not. It is as much our faults as these foreign states. It is not because we are free or because we don't regulate people lives like Pat Roberson seems to thing, it is a failure of our foreign policy. I am not saying a failure in Bush's foreign policy, a failure of the American peoples foreign policy. We do not pay attention to the rest of the world; we don't understand them or what goes on with them. And this is our failure. So while we look at ways to solve this situation abroad, let us try and prevent further actions like this at home.
-Grant
|grant.henninger.name|
Phil Agre has written an article about this which I recommend reading. Some of the language is a bit opaque, but he makes some interesting points about exactly how new this "war" really would be: if we allow our leaders to begin it, the war will extend to every facet of our lives, permanently.
i think anyone who's been following current events (save for the last two weeks) could see we were on the crest of something huge ... military-type authors, ie. tom clancy (although netforce was pretty much a joke) have been throwing terrorist theories around for years (red storm rising - opens with a group of terrorists attacking a major russian oil refinery). if you want to read something that will make your hair stand on end, try rainbow six, which begins with the hijacking of an airliner.
... as if those who acted out of their hate for american would stand-up long enough for the boot of the us military to come crashing down on their collective heads. is this a war? yes, without a doubt. but it's a war we've never see (on our own soil) or fought. i have every hope that our leaders will realize just what a huge leap we took on the eleventh, and how far we have to go to catch up.
the main problem with our military and the concept of it, is that it's geared for fighting nations, not individuals. "the us army is a broadsword, not a scapel." invading the nation that hosts the individuals who are responsible may bring them to justice. we should keep in mind that the eyes of the world are on america right now. i don't think there's citizen on this planet (who has access to television) who isn't considering what we're going to do next.
evidence to the fact that we're still not thinking about this correctly comes from quotes like "rid world of evil-doers"
_f
The problem is that Afghanistan has not, nor ever will declare any kind of war. The people who are talking about declaring a "Jihad" are unelected lunatics who have already made sure there is nothing left of the country.
The ordinary citizens of Afghanistan don't even fully understand what all the fuss is about - they have little or no access to television, radio or print media. Anything they do have access to is strictly controlled by the ruling Taliban "government" ( for want of a better word).
Between the Soviets and the Taliban who took over when the red army left, there's practically nothing left now. I've read and heard comments about "bombing them back to the stone age". Sorry, too late, its already been done.
There's little or no infrastructure in place,and the only people who have access to rapid transport are the lunatics in power. You can bet if there are any indiscrimiate attacks, its the ordinary, innocent Joe Soap who's going to get hurt - His "government" will have long since fled Kabul to hide in the hills.
Lets not get carried away on a wave of Anti-Afghan, Anti-Muslim or Anti-Anything rhetoric and start dropping bombs on anything that moves in Afghanistan. Whats needed are surgical, well-planned and determined assaults on the real perpetrators of this crime.
Consider this: You are an instructor for a firearms class. One of your students uses the knowledge gained to assasinate the president. You are arrested for teaching the student a skill that was used for an illegal activity.
Granted, Osama does have violent intentions toward the US. But the way his organization works is that wanna-be terrorists go to his camp to be trained and become part of the community. They meet each other and develop their own terrorist plans, completely independent of central leadership. If Osama Bin Laden thinks that US citizens should die, then yes, he is guilty... of THOUGHTCRIME. The first ammendment would protect him until it was proven that he was somehow part of the planning for the specific incident. The US Gov has yet to produce any evidence that would prove this beyond reasonable doubt.
Bush has turned this man into a scapegoat, a punching bag for 300 million angry americans to get their agression out on. Bush has asked for the death of this man, without fair trial. How long will it take for us to lose our freedom and rights as Osama Bin Laden has? If he is guilty of planning the WTC incident, he should be punished. But the Bush administration could not allow him to be 'innocent', they would have to admit that this attack was actually performed by 18 individuals who hate the US as a direct result of Bush administration policies in the middle east!
As far as I know, the culprits are already dead, they were on the planes. There's nobody left to kill. It wasn't a 'declaration of war', it was a group of angry individuals doing what they thought was best for their people. The US cannot 'avenge' the dead innocents by killing more. Go home, take your anti-islamic rhetoric off your pickup trucks, and ask your leaders for a more sane approach to the situation.
(See this commentary in the New Yorker and this one in Salon for calls to treat this as a police action.)
I suggest that the best analogy for what we need to do is treat this like the Italian struggle against the Mafia. The crucial step is a cultural change, from the situation where the CD party treated the Mafia as a necessary evil that was just part of the political landscape, to where all of Italian society turned against the Mafia, and magistrates and judges were willing to risk their lives to rid Italy of Mafia control. The Mafia still exists, no doubt, but it no longer has the same insidious grip on the political system.
Here, the crucial step is getting the Arab and Muslim countries to stop treating their radical Islamists as necessary evils who, since they can mobilize the poor, and can kill dissenters, must be tolerated and accepted. Many countries, such as Iran and Syria, have used these groups to fight proxy wars for political control over the Middle East. The best thing that can come out of this tragedy is an alignment of Arab and Muslim contries against their radical elements, and a change in the culture there to stop accepting bloody attacks against civilians as acceptable political tactics.
That's why bombing Kabul, for example, is likely to be counter-productive. As much as we want the Taliban to be out of Afganistan and replaced by some more acceptible government, the likelihood that we will succeed is low, and the likelihood that we will simply piss off the very countries we need to align against these guys is high.
I suspect that what Rumsfeld et al. are talking about by "new kind of war" is making their point on asymetric warfare: the notion that we have gotten so good at fighting conventional wars that no one will send armies and navies against us, but will instead fight with more "terrorist-like" actions. My guess is that internal in the Pentagon this is being used as an "I told you so/wake up call".
"we must be willing to continue our bombing until we have destoryed every work of man in North Vietnam if this is what it takes to win the war"
-Curtis LeMay
General US Air Force
Long Beach CA,
April 1, 1967
"We have dropped twelve tonnes of bombs for every square mile of North and South Vietnam. Whole provinces have been substantially destroyed."
-Robert Kennedy
Senator from New York
Washington DC,
Feb 8, 1968
"You've got to forget about this civilian stuff. Whenever you drop bombs you're going to hit civilians. It's foolish to pretend you're not."
-Barry Goldwater
Senator from Arizona
New York City
January 23, 1967
"It has become increasingly apparent that the US bombing of North and South Vietnam has been one of the most wasteful and expensive hoaxes ever to be put over on the American people."
David M. Shoup
Commadant US Marines Corps
in Atlantic magazine
April 1969
2 1337 4 u!
I am not an Israeli citizen, but spent a few weeks in Israel last october, visiting my brother who was studying at university in jerusalem for a year. So this is just a quick tourist take on your interesting points.
A couple things:
1) You didn't mention it, but I can pretty well guarantee you didn't pass through customs fitting the profile of 'single male arab, travelling alone'. What I mean is, you have a lot of freedoms in this kind if setup, if you don't fit a certain profile.
Point: Look at number of attacks on anyone the local (US) idiots think might be arab (eg my girlfriends jamaican professor was verbally attacked yesterday by someone who thought he was the devil/pakistanian).
2) One thing you may have noticed in Israel was the degree of freedom you had, but one thing I noticed was that while walking from my brothers apt. to his girlfriends place in the Old City (Jerusalem) 3 times in two weeks we were stopped and shielded by local police while they checked out potential bomb threats. 3) Feeling free is nice. But that TINY country spends an INCREDIBLE amount of energy trying to stop terrorist bombings, and they FAIL. How do you think that will work out here? Do you see every other bus you take here in the states having multiple army soldiers on it, let alone multiple undercover intelligence agents?
And assuming this would work as well as it does in Israel (quite well - they only get bombed bi-weekly instead of daily), how do you think our citizens would react towards arabs or whoever's race they thought might be behind the bi-weekly bombings?
You can look at Israel as an example of how to conduct security without impinging unduly on (insert one race/creed) people's rights, but I look at it as an example of how to exacerbate problems until you're stuck in a situation where everyone wants to kill their neighbors (even though their beliefs are very similar).
This is a political war. It is being fought for the hearts and minds of Islam.
The terrorists did not attack us in order to end curbside check-in. They attacked us so we would become enraged and attack an Islamic country causing the people of Islam to see America as a mortal threat. They hope we will do something stupid with a cruise missle which will lead to Islam uniting in a Jihad with the terrorists as the leaders.
I know it's nutty but that is what they want.
When our top dogs describe this as being different from other wars it is because they see that this war will be won or lost in the shadows, not with large battles, fleets, or bombing campaigns.
This war demands that we are smart, crafty, devious, decepive, brutal, ruthless, and effective all without inflicting mass causalties and while walking through the political minefields of Islam.
The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens.
Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafe.
Winston was listening to the telescreen. At present only music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that at any moment there might be a special bulletin from the Ministry of Peace. The news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme. On and off he had been worrying about it all day. A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward at terrifying speed. The mid-day bulletin had not mentioned any definite area, but it was probable that already the mouth of the Congo was a battlefield. Brazzaville and Leopoldville were in danger. One did not have to look at the map to see what it meant. It was not merely a question of losing Central Africa: for the first time in the whole war, the territory of Oceania itself was menaced.
A violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again. He stopped thinking about the war. In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp. As always, the gin made him shudder and even retch slightly. The stuff was horrible. The cloves and saccharine, themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way, could not disguise the flat oily smell; and what was worst of all was that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night and day, was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those --
He never named them, even in his thoughts, and so far as it was possible he never visualized them. They were something that he was half-aware of, hovering close to his face, a smell that clung to his nostrils. As the gin rose in him he belched through purple lips. He had grown fatter since they released him, and had regained his old colour -- indeed, more than regained it. His features had thickened, the skin on nose and cheekbones was coarsely red, even the bald scalp was too deep a pink. A waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the current issue of The Times, with the page turned down at the chess problem. Then, seeing that Winston's glass was empty, he brought the gin bottle and filled it. There was no need to give orders. They knew his habits. The chessboard was always waiting for him, his corner table was always reserved; even when the place was full he had it to himself, since nobody cared to be seen sitting too close to him. He never even bothered to count his drinks. At irregular intervals they presented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was the bill, but he had the impression that they always undercharged him. It would have made no difference if it had been the other way about. He had always plenty of money nowadays. He even had a job, a sinecure, more highly-paid than his old job had been.
The music from the telescreen stopped and a voice took over. Winston raised his head to listen. No bulletins from the front, however. It was merely a brief announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding quarter, it appeared, the Tenth Three-Year Plan's quota for bootlaces had been over-fulfilled by 98 per cent.
He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'White to play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates.
The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a different and much graver tone: 'You are warned to stand by for an important announcement at fifteen-thirty. Fifteen-thirty! This is news of the highest importance. Take care not to miss it. Fifteen-thirty!' The tinking music struck up again.
Winston's heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was coming. All day, with little spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had been in and out of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarming across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his mind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. There was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he saw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear, cutting their comunications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he was bringing that other force into existence. But it was necessary to act quickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had airfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley of feeling -- but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive layers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost -- struggled inside him.
The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its place, but for the moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem. His thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the table:
2+2=
'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside you. 'What happens to you here is for ever,' O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover. Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.
He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it. He knew as though instinctively that they now took almost no interest in his doings. He could have arranged to meet her a second time if either of them had wanted to. Actually it was by chance that they had met. It was in the Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like iron and all the grass seemed dead and there was not a bud anywhere except a few crocuses which had pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He was hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not ten metres away from him. It struck him at once that she had changed in some ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without a sign, then he turned and followed her, not very eagerly. He knew that there was no danger, nobody would take any interest in him. She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to resign herself to having him at her side. Presently they were in among a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for concealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was vilely cold. The wind whistled through the twigs and fretted the occasional, dirty-looking crocuses. He put his arm round her waist.
There was no telescreen, but there must be hidden microphones: besides, they could be seen. It did not matter, nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the ground and done that if they had wanted to. His flesh froze with horror at the thought of it. She made no response whatever to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. He knew now what had changed in her. Her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple; but that was not the change. It was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in a surprising way, had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion of a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and had been astonished not only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which made it seem more like stone than flesh. Her body felt like that. It occurred to him that the texture of her skin would be quite different from what it had once been.
He did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As they walked back across the grass, she looked directly at him for the first time. It was only a momentary glance, full of contempt and dislike. He wondered whether it was a dislike that came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also by his bloated face and the water that the wind kept squeezing from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side but not too close together. He saw that she was about to speak. She moved her clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately crushed a twig. Her feet seemed to have grown broader, he noticed.
'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.
'I betrayed you,' he said.
She gave him another quick look of dislike.
'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something -- something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.'
'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.
'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any longer.'
'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'
There did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind plastered their thin overalls against their bodies. Almost at once it became embarrassing to sit there in silence: besides, it was too cold to keep still. She said something about catching her Tube and stood up to go.
'We must meet again,' he said.
'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again.'
He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace behind her. They did not speak again. She did not actually try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the Tube station, but suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so much to get away from Julia as to get back to the Chestnut Tree Cafe, which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment. He had a nostalgic vision of his corner table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the everflowing gin. Above all, it would be warm in there. The next moment, not altogether by accident, he allowed himself to become separated from her by a small knot of people. He made a half-hearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down, turned, and made off in the opposite direction. When he had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not crowded, but already he could not distinguish her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers. Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable from behind.
'At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean it.' He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered over to the --
Something changed in the music that trickled from the telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came into it. And then -- perhaps it was not happening, perhaps it was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound -- a voice was singing:
'Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me --'
The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.
He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew not less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank. But it had become the element he swam in. It was his life, his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every morning. When he woke, seldom before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids and fiery mouth and a back that seemed to be broken, it would have been impossible even to rise from the horizontal if it had not been for the bottle and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the midday hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, listening to the telescreen. From fifteen to closing-time he was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree. No one cared what he did any longer, no whistle woke him, no telescreen admonished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week, he went to a dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of Truth and did a little work, or what was called work. He had been appointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing with minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were engaged in producing something called an Interim Report, but what it was that they were reporting on he had never definitely found out. It was something to do with the question of whether commas should be placed inside brackets, or outside. There were four others on the committee, all of them persons similar to himself. There were days when they assembled and then promptly dispersed again, frankly admitting to one another that there was not really anything to be done. But there were other days when they settled down to their work almost eagerly, making a tremendous show of entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda which were never finished -- when the argument as to what they were supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over definitions, enormous digressions, quarrels, threats, even, to appeal to higher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out of them and they would sit round the table looking at one another with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow.
The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised his head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely changing the music. He had the map of Africa behind his eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a black arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow horizontally eastward, across the tail of the first. As though for reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face in the portrait. Was it conceivable that the second arrow did not even exist?
His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move. Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because --
Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a candle-lit room with a vast white-counterpaned bed, and himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting opposite him and also laughing.
It must have been about a month before she disappeared. It was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for her had temporarily revived. He remembered the day well, a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane and the light indoors was too dull to read by. The boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscoting until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. In the end his mother said, 'Now be good, and I'Il buy you a toy. A lovely toy -- you'll love it'; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby, and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell of the damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The board was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill-cut that they would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the thing sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a piece of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon he was wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tiddly-winks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came slithering down the snakes again, almost to the starting-point. They played eight games, winning four each. His tiny sister, too young to understand what the game was about, had sat propped up against a bolster, laughing because the others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had all been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.
He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally. They did not matter so long as one knew them for what they were. Some things had happened, others had not happened. He turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white knight again. Almost in the same instant it dropped on to the board with a clatter. He had started as though a pin had run into him.
A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bulletin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call preceded the news. A sort of electric drill ran through the cafe. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their ears.
The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the telescreen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was issuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all happened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the white arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: 'Vast strategic manoeuvre -- perfect co-ordination -- utter rout -- half a million prisoners -- complete demoralization -- control of the whole of Africa -- bring the war within measurable distance of its end victory -- greatest victory in human history -- victory, victory, victory!'
Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive movements. He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind he was running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world! The rock against which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain! He thought how ten minutes ago -- yes, only ten minutes -- there had still been equivocation in his heart as he wondered whether the news from the front would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Eurasian army that had perished! Much had changed in him since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the final, indispensable, healing change had never happened, until this moment.
The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Ever heard of the War on Drugs?
So merely being accused of a crime is sufficient to strip your rights down to the status of something near a murderer? Sorry but if any system like this is going to be implemented, they need to stand by the rule of "innocent until proven guilty".
>which leaves a ground war with troops and little armour support
---
And mines; lots of mines.
In the gulf once we broke through the initial Iraqi defensive lines our tanks (and trucks, and armored personel carries, and artillery, etc) were manuvering though open desert with no real mine hazard.
In Afganistan we would be involved in a prolonged fight, mainly infantry, who would have to be supplied by air or by truck down very narrow winding mountain roads. The soviets discovered how easy it is to run into an ambush on those road, which allows an entire convoy to be wiped out by RPGs. And the Afgan fighters are or were heavily supplies with US man portable surface to air missiles to deal with russian attack and transport helicoptors; those missile will be just as effective at shooting down US aircraft.
Which leads you fighting a nebulus enemy who blends into the local population, is hightly motivated, has excelent knowlege of the local terrain and skill in setting ambushes. Also uses small easily transportable personal weapons to fight and run, not easily spotted armored vehicles.
Sounds a lot more like Vietnam than Desert Storm.
I think this is the long war that Bush is talking about. Yeah, there likely will be some overt operations, hopefully something that helps destroy some of the terrorist's resources, but the REAL battle will be spy vs. spy. It will be a long war because infiltration takes time. You need to be trusted enough first to be let in to a terrorist network, then you have to work you way up. You'll have to gain more trust to work your way up the organization - by *being* a terrorist. Think about all that implies in the 'new' war.
One thing is for certain - if the States and the rest of the world are serious about suppressing terrorism (you can't stop it entirely) you will have to pay the price in human lives: On the ground to take out a government that continues to shelter terrorists; as an assasin willing to die to take out an important individual in a terrorist network; as a spy having to kill innocents in order to get high enough in the terrorist chain of command to get the information the assasins and soldiers will need.
This nuke/missle/bomb thing is a bunch of crap - we need information to target them! That particular operation is NOT glamorous, does NOT satisfy people's desire for revenge, and does NOT make for good political browning points as your voter will not know what was done until long after the operations have happened.
Oh, and it doesn't help that the USA is in a terrible state right now for it's overseas intelegence operations. It will improve, but I think it will take ten years at least to get any real indications as to if they will do any of what I'm describing with enough resources to make a difference.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
Are box cutters and red boxes really that expensive? Why wouldn't a person planning and willing to die for a cause be willing to get together with like-minded cohorts and spend his/her money on getting a commercial pilots license, an airplane ticket and a box cutter or red box for the effort? What else would they be saving their life earnings for? Flowers?
I apologize if anyone takes this the wrong way - I do not mean it to make light of the situation. On the contrary I was devastated by everything about these terrorist attacks, have not recovered yet and won't anytime soon. Probably Bin Laden is responsible (maybe), but none-the-less if you believe in freedom and doing the right thing, then it is your duty to question anything and everything when it comes to decisions by anyone (and thus by all of us in the USA) to kill others. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, but unless someone proves it to me I don't take life or death decisions for granted.
Any attempts to squelch free speech and to take away basic freedoms such as the right to privacy for which we have (supposedly) fought and died for - and, worse, to do so at a time in which so many of us feel fearful and thus are vulnerable - that is an attack against us too.
If America
1) Removes troops from Saudi Arabia
2) Is more even handed in the Palestine conflict
3) Lifts sanctions on Iraq
then terrorism would drop significantly.
The United States just doesn't get it.
Is a war on Afghanistan really the answer???
The people who committed the disgraceful acts at the WTC consider their actions to be retribution for America's actions in the Middle East. Do not forget that America has enforced economic sanctions against much of the Muslim world. These people see America as the evil in the world, and their own actions to be just. If America goes into Afghanistan in the way in which it appears they will, this will only ensure that more terrorist actions will ensue. Didnt the WTC teach us that there really is no defense againt this form of asynchronous warfare? Additionally, if America attacks the Afghanis, all they will do is polarise the Muslim nations. Do you think that the Pakistani people are really pleased about being used as a staging point for these pending attacks? I personally think that more American lives will be at risk just being based in Pakistan than being inside Afghanistan itself. The leaders of Afghanistan are simply acquiesing to America's demands. They know full well that to resist would only result in sanctions (or worse) to their country but the people of Pakistan dont necessarily see it this way. Many will go out of their way to hinder America's actions.
Attacking Afghanistan is not the answer. Counter-terrorist measures are far more useful, and by that I dont mean intelligence gathering and infiltration of other nations. The actions of the CIA around the world have been the cause of far more bloodshed and misery than the attack on the WTC. (Dont forget that the CIA was the main reason that the Taliban is currently in power today, rather than the Russians)
The counter-terrorist measures that I think are necessary are the ones that will make the terrorist not want to commit these acts such as;
1) Totally reorganise the UN so that every nation has one equal vote. America proclaims itself the bastion of democracy and yet perpetuates the imbalance of the UN where only 6 nations really have any say. If every nation was equal, the actions of the UN would be truly democratic. This is one of the main gripes of terrorist forces. They perceive (and perhaps rightly) that the Americans are the driving force behind the actions of the UN. If every nation had an equal say, the actions of the UN would at least represent the wishes of the Global community. I mean wWhy the hell should one nation have more of a say than any other?
2) Lift the economic sanctions on the Muslim nations. Surely anyone can see that the sanctions only hurt the innocent of these nations, while the leaders take all that is left. Does Saddam Hussein appear to be suffering from the sanctions on Iraq? ONE of his personal estates is larger than the whole city of Paris (the one in France), has water and sewage treatment plants and is totally self sufficient. Meanwhile, millions of innocent people starve.
These are just 2 acts that would do something to help prevent future terrorist acts.
The answer to violence is never to commit more violence.
(Before you go thinking that I am anti American and have no thought for the people killed in the WTC. I personally lost a very close friend in the collapse of the second tower. He would have agreed with me that further violence is not the answer.)
In what way is this a "new kind of war"? Several countries in the World, including my own (the UK) have been fighting this kind of war against terrorists for decades. Perhaps the USA can learn some lessons from other people's fights.
Firstly, it's going to be a long hard fight. The British Government's fight against the Provisional IRA lasted more than 30 years and although the British had the upper hand when the IRA declared a ceasfire, they were certainly not defeated at that point. Also, the British had home advantage. That is, the IRA's bases were in British territory or in the Republic of Ireland next door. The Republic, while in sympathy with the aims of the IRA definitely disapproved of its methods. The people in the IRA are culturally similar to the people fighting them (i.e. Western European Christian background). This makes it much easier to infiltrate their organisation.
Secondly, traditional military action has to be used very carefully if at all. Any highly publicised military action can be twisted by the terrorists to turn people merely sympathetic to their cause into new recruits.
Thirdly, intelligence is the key, agents on the ground in particular. It's all very well to have satellite surveillance, but how do you tell a suburban house containing a group of dangerous terrorists from a suburban house containing an all-American family with a satellite? Terrists use ordinary society as their cover. You have to get among them.
This is not a new kind of war. Lots of the US's friends have an idea of how it works and what it might look like and I'm sure the US government is talking to them right now.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe