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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.
Recently we gave G.W. Bush 60 billion dollars to spend how ever he'd like... I'd like to question the wisdom of this. What can we do with 60 billion dollars.
Can we buy hope instead of terror?
With this 60 billion dollars could we start enough "rebuilding" efforts in Afgan, Iraq, and Palestine to turn would-be terriorists into brick-layers?
unless things have changed since what was reported on NPR at 5:30 this morning, they have not actually declared jihad yet, they have just warned the people of Afganistan that a Jihad will be called if the USA attacks.
Slightly different, but makes a huge difference as to how aggressively to respond.
All the old kinds really sucked.
Afghanistan has NOT declared a holy war, but will do so IF they are attacked. Just as any other nation would do. A secular nation would just call it with a different name.
What could this "different kind of war" be:
Shut down the power grid in Kabul immediately before the first bombing.
Interception of secure terrorist communications
Turn their own military technology against them
How can the random hacker help:
Exploit hotmail security holes to monitor for terrorist activity
Execute DoS attacks against Afghani web sites
Target virii at the .af domain space
My favorite - transfer $4 million from Usama bin Laden's bank account to the American Red Cross
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
Is this new war one of information, education, and image?
Technology today gives individuals the power once reserved for entire nation states, and it is appropriate that these powers be judiciously monitered.
In any case, you had zero privacy before any of this started - its virtually impossible for you to have less than you already do.
If we are forced to change our lifestyle, they've won.
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?
Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson:
A society that will trade a little order for a little freedom will lose both, and deserve neither.
Giving credit where due - I rediscovered this quote at Freedom & Liberty Quotes.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
But is this a new kind of war, or is this simply a police manhunt on a massive scale. What bin Laden has done (or what his people have done) are commit crimes against humanity. Yes we've moved against members of Governments to aprehend them for crimes against humanity, and moved against them in a war footing, but bin Laden isn't a member of the Taliban, or any other government faction -- he's one man with his own organization.
Would we send the army in to a country to capture the CEO of a forign corporation and call it war? I hope not.
I don't think this is truly a 'new kind of war', I think that's rhetoric to get the public onside for a long, and likely bloody policing action.
Beware the Whyte Wolf.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...
I submitted an "Ask Slashdot" the other day on this very topic, suggesting that in this war, the battle need not even be fought by the military. If the script kiddies can be coerced to use their "skillz" against a common enemy, the possibilities are boundless.
.af domain space
What could this "different kind of war" be:
Shut down the power grid in Kabul immediately before the first bombing.
Kabul is not the problem, the Russians conquered Kabul. The problem is the hundreds of Taliban living in caves in remote valleys.
Interception of secure terrorist communications
By this you mean the couriers going to Pakistani cybercafes?
Turn their own military technology against them
You mean point their AKs and RPGs at them?
How can the random hacker help:
Exploit hotmail security holes to monitor for terrorist activity
Execute DoS attacks against Afghani web sites
Target virii at the
My favorite - transfer $4 million from Usama bin Laden's bank account to the American Red Cross
You don't understand, Afghanistan has little IT infrastructure, is dirt poor, and is already bombed back to the stone age. Most of their internet activity is done through our new ally Pakistan.
You don't have to break the crypto to get information. Traffic analysis can tell you a lot. Who is talking to who? If person "A" gets lots of messages after an event, but only sends a few, then "A" is probably in charge of the organization being monitored. And if you know where "A" is, you can target him. Thus, you've gotten valuable strategic, and possibly tactical, information from his commo, without having to break his crypto.
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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.
Somehow I don't think diplomacy and economic pressure will matter to these people. Our enemy, in this case, cannot be localized to a single country. Cell infiltration and intelligence gathering will be our bread and butter. Diplomacy, in the sense that we lean on countries that support these cells, won't be effective unless we have the intelligence to discern whether or not they are indeed supporting these cells. Even without a country to back them financially, I don't think they will stop. Their fanatacism, and willingness to trade their lives for their cause, makes them immune to any suffering we could impose on them short of extermination. (Take that how you will...) We won't stop until they're no longer a threat, and we can expect the same from them.
I'm better than herpes.
First off, I think that I actually liked this article.
Nothing scares me worse than the fear of losing freedoms. I don't mind the new restrictions at the airports, or anything like that. Those are things that I don't consider a basic right. I just don't want to have to worry about encrypting all of my email, or even about possesing a strong encryption program without a backdoor.
As far as terrorism is concerned, I think that we need to treat the sickness, not the symptoms. We need to fix our foreign policy, to help stop things like this. We need to not use violence, as it begets more violence. No more innocents or civilians need to die.
I'm all for giving Osama a fair trial, but how is that possible? How do we extradite him from Afghanstan(sp?), and if we manage to, who is going to serve on his jury? I would try to be impartial, but could I, could you?
I know this is sorta off topic, and doesn't even follow any sort of logic. I just felt like rambling.
garc
I have to admit I was astounded that I heard that current US policy was that informants could not have a criminal background, or some such nonsense (anyone know what the standard actually is?). I mean, who the hell expects upstanding citizens in criminal organizations?
I think that is definitely one law that needs to be reviewed.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The word really refers to personal struggles, or an effort put forth toward a valid cause. It has nothing to do with "Let's kill all the white capitalist pigs!"
Got Rhinos?
A quote
BIN LADEN COMES HOME TO ROOST (From MSNBC)
At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback. And the fact that he is viewed as a hero by millions in the Islamic world proves again the old adage: Reap what you sow.
Before you call me naive, let me concede some points. Yes, the West needed Josef Stalin to defeat Hitler. Yes, there were times during the Cold War when supporting one villain (Cambodia's Lon Nol, for instance) would have been better than the alternative (Pol Pot). So yes, there are times when any nation must hold its nose and shake hands with the devil for the long-term good of the planet.
But just as surely, there are times when the United States, faced with such moral dilemmas, should have resisted the temptation to act. Arming a multi-national coalition of Islamic extremists in Afghanistan during the 1980s - well after the destruction of the Marine barracks in Beirut or the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 - was one of those times.
Beginnings
As anyone who has bothered to read this far certainly knows by now, bin Laden is the heir to Saudi construction fortune who, at least since the early 1990s, has used that money to finance countless attacks on U.S. interests and those of its Arab allies around the world.
As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.
What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.
By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan's mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle, but the vast majority of those who fought and died for Afghanistan's freedom - like the Taliban regime that now holds sway over most of that tortured nation - were Afghan nationals.
Yet the CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to "read" than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the "reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.
Intelligent Agencies
Though he has come to represent all that went wrong with the CIA's reckless strategy there, by the end of the Afghan war in 1989, bin Laden was still viewed by the agency as something of a dilettante - a rich Saudi boy gone to war and welcomed home by the Saudi monarchy he so hated as something of a hero.
In fact, while he returned to his family's construction business, bin Laden had split from the relatively conventional MAK in 1988 and established a new group, al-Qaida, that included many of the more extreme MAK members he had met in Afghanistan.
Most of these Afghan vets, or Afghanis, as the Arabs who fought there became known, turned up later behind violent Islamic movements around the world. Among them: the GIA in Algeria, thought responsible for the massacres of tens of thousands of civilians; Egypt's Gamat Ismalia, which has massacred western tourists repeatedly in recent years; Saudi Arabia Shiite militants, responsible for the Khobar Towers and Riyadh bombings of 1996.
Indeed, to this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. "It was worth it," he said. "Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union."
Tunnel Visions
It should be pointed out that the evidence of bin Laden's connection to these activities is mostly classified, though its hard to imagine the CIA rushing to take credit for a Frankenstein's monster like this.
It is also worth acknowledging that it is easier now to oppose the CIA's Afghan adventures than it was when Hatch and company made them in the mid-1980s. After all, in 1998 we now know that far larger elements than Afghanistan were corroding the communist party's grip on power in Moscow.
Even Hatch can't be blamed completely. The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its "mission," had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director William Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual "Soviet Military Power" report right up to 1990.
Given that context, a decision was made to provide America's potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.
That decision is coming home to roost.
I really don't understand why I continue to see comments like this. Are you implying we not increase airport security? Are you implying that we not more closely track foreign terrorist groups? This is absurd. We must learn from this event, and change and adapt to better evolve to a new reality. I would counter that not changing is the true threat.
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?
Somehow I don't think that "evil capitalists" like us could improve their image with terrorists by throwing money at them.
Got Rhinos?
The government has siezed upon this opportunity to knuckle under the average american. Current creations in government policy would not have stopped these terrorists, and neither will they stop the next group.
.orgs than .coms" ~Taco, .org Billionaire.
From the Carnivore installations of Sept. 11 to the law they passed that legitimizes it, our rights and privacy have been absorbed by the big sucking sound. This is having the same effect on individual rights as the Len Bias death had on the War on Drugs.
Perhaps this is the beginning of the end. Perhaps America's Karma has achieved the proper state that someone will wipe us off the map. The Gauls are attacking Rome. (And of course, George W. is playing fiddle.)
Over the past week, I have seen a people manipulated by the media, and blindly walk down the corridor to the slaughterhouse.
Useful Links:
mediafilter.org
essential.org
globalresearch.ca
~Hammy
"You know you're a geek when you visit more
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|
One of the first things that the U.S. Government is going to need to do is to go on an offensive against individuals who are writing virus code and propogating it on the internet.
This type of act is, at it's core, a terrorist act and could contribute to the confusion surrounding other events.
Imagine if a particularly nasty computer virus had been released on September 11th... even if it had nothing to do with the actual attack, it would have contributed greatly to the feeling of helplessness that so many of us experienced that day.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Think about it - almost every gainfully employed adult has a credit card. Right there you have built up an audit trail that describes you enough that most data mining techniques can reasonably predict what you might purchase (any Amazon user knows this).
Most people user their SSN to create bank accounts - once again you are easily tracked and described.
You phone can be easily tapped, as discussion on this site already have indicated.
If you have digital TV, or any TV system requiring a phone jack, your viewing habits are being cataloged.
As for your internet connection - this is probably the easiest to monitor. Just do a google search on your own name, you may get a blast from the past.
You can bemoan the current state of affairs if you want, but the fact is you have already have zero privacy.
While in Israel, my first experience with liberty in that country was in passing through customs. It was actually quite easy to get into the country, compared to leaving. I was asked the purpose of my visit (a standard question) and asked to give a list of places I would be visiting. Since I didn't really know where I would be going yet, I said so. I was greeted with suspicious looks and incredulity, but allowed to pass through. I fit the profile of "single male, travelling alone."
Upon entering the country I immediately took a bus to Ashdod where my girlfriend lived. There were several soldiers on the bus. This seemed odd, but my girlfriend assured me they were there merely as travelers, not guardians. I still felt safer knowing there were several people with assault rifles on the bus.
Over the course of my visit, I was in many busy public places, including restaurants, night clubs, transit centers, malls, etc. In the malls and transit centers I was asked to show the contents of my bag upon entering. I didn't feel violated by this. I felt safer knowing these checks were being made. The people were friendly and expeditious.
Everywhere I went in Israel I saw soldiers. All had rifles; some had rifles with grenade launchers. You actually get used to this after a while. I was only there a month, but by the end of my visit I hardly noticed anymore.
But the most important thing I noticed in Israel was the degree of freedom I had. I didn't have to pass through checkpoints (except when I went to Bethlehem, which is a Palestinian area, and even then we weren't even stopped, just looked at as we drove through) and was never asked what I was doing or where I was going.
Look people. America has been changed, and not by choice. Security must be enhanced, or we will continue to be blown to small pieces on a whim. I ask people to look at Israel as an example of how to conduct security without impinging unduly on people's liberties. There are necessary steps which must be taken. There is simply no option. But it needn't be an end to liberty. If Israel (a country that clearly has its own governmental problems) can do it, so surely can the United States.
I am hopeful.
Erasing Afghanistan from the face of the Earth won't do you a bit of good. By the time your bombs hit Afghanistan, terrorists will be long gone. Terrorists are everywhere, and they're way more mobile than your bombers or troops. They can easily avoid attacks of this scale.
The only effective way I can see of getting rid of them is infiltrating their organizations, gathering as much intelligence about them as possible, then assasinating them one by one. No fussy and cumbersome war procedures, no large-scale military operations, no pointless delays with diplomatic BS; just a few elite troops of trained assassins, quiet, accurate and deadly.
This is an excerpt from an email my Dad sent me last Tuesday: "People you know and some you care about are probably going to die in terrible ways because of today. There is a time for war, but people should not be lead to die for the wrong reason. We rebuilt Japan and Germany after destroying and defeating them and thereby created powerful friends in the world. I don't know if there is a way to create "friends" from enemies without destroying them as enemies first. When this is over, however you solve it, make sure it's better than the way you found it. "
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Senator Torticelli is the one blamed with this rule, but it doesn't really mean that you can't papy informants that have comminted "human rights violations". It just means that the field officer has to ask permission of the CIA director (all the way up !) to do so.
Many claim this is an unecessary bureocratic step, others say it's necessary so field officers don't go acting like rogue agents.
I think the problem was not so much the law, but the current CIA director. No one on the CIA likes him, and he seems to have shot down many of the field officer proposals.
- sigs are for wimps.
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 FBI has used traffic analysis against the mafia quite effectively.
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Yes.
Jihad means Struggle (more or less). And there are several possible Jihads.
Jihad of the mind. When You have a confussed mind
Jihad of the soul. When you are facing a religious struggle, with all the questions about religion, meaning of life...
Jihad of the Sword. When you have to "get your sword" and defend yourself (you, your family...). It does not mean Holy War.
I don't remember know what is the forth "jihad". But sure it was not a "let's kill all non-muslims!" thing.
Also, I would like to note that in the Muslim religion, there are different non-believers: The people from the Book and the rest. The People from the Book are all the Christians, Catholics, Jewish... that share fundamental pieces of Holy Writtings (Bible, Torah, ...). And the Al-Coran explicitely says that they are "brothers" and should not be harmed.
And this is all what I remember form my talks with Medieval Historians, so long ago...
Regards, with sadness
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".
OK, well there's two issues here: what are we going to do about Bin Laden and the Taliban, and what are we going to do about future terrorism.
Taliban: they are stacking up some 25000 troops for a possible attack on Pakistan, or to resist an invasion by the US. That is an army folks, no new war here, if they attack, we fight back, and it's a war just like the others. We will send in our planes and our choppers and our cruise missles, and eventually our tanks and troops. Its warfare like we all witnessed on live TV during the gulf war.
Future Terrorism: Bush and others are calling for the collaboration of intelligence agencies from around the world to prevent future terrorism and hunt down all terrorists. This is the new kind of war, and it really is just a reincarnation of the old west with outlaws and bounty hunters, now on a worldwide scale. Instead of getting leads and slowly acting on them and not stepping on anyone's toes (other countries',) investigators are going to have no political lines to worry about and they will be able to pursue terrorists wherever they may go.
All in all, if you're wondering what kind of war we're going to have because of the attacks, rest assured, our military is going to go in and kick some major ass just like we did with Iraq, but this time we will finish the job. In addition, we will wage war on anyone else who attempts, encourages, or harbors terrorism.
~ now you know
First, As noted here, The Russians already bombed Afghanistan back to the stone age. and the Taliban are not the Afghans. The Taliban are a bunch of psychopathic nuts, hated by the majority population.
Some more interesting proposals(only half tongue in cheek) are to builds special monuments to the WTC dead, consisting of cities razed perfectly flat and with enormous amounts of salt to make sure no one lives there again. Some people have objected to this. It is worth discussion.
Another idea is based on historic precident, seen in a letter on this page (towards the bottom). - It is based on the idea that we must use cultural factors as well force to fight the war:
Incidentally this really is from Harry Reddington..."It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"Some companies were at least taking the minimal step of blocking out encrypted e-mails to their networks, said Russ Cooper, surgeon general of TruSecure, a security services provider based in Herndon, Virginia."
How the hell can blocking encrypted e-mails improve a companies security against terrorism?
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
I thought this article at News of the World was interesting. It lists some of the weapons the U.S. could use to fight a modern war: a two-barrelled rifle that shoots shells that "explode in the air over the target and unleash a rain of death"; a helmet with visor that highlights enemies in red and friendlies in green; wrist-mounted keyboards for sending text messages to other soldiers' visors; Robot Swarms; a 2-megawatt, 747-mounted laser that "is so accurate it can pick out and destroy an individual in a crowd 180 miles away without harming people around him".
This has escalated to a personal level for me. The very first time I heard the word "draft" I about had to change my boxers.
This "new" type of war, going after small factions with ground troops... this will have high casualty rates. On top of that, we will have to send in hundreds of men at every target, over and over. We're going to run out of men in a hurry.
Then I, the 18-26 year old in good health, get a call. I am called to active duty so that I, your basic computer nerd, can be taught how to shoot a gun and aim for the head.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I would opt for another solution. Granted this will be tough, but I don't think that more American lives need to be lost over this.
I also agree that Afghanistan is almost already ruined, so there's no use going to war with them. What would we have to gain? The Taliban would seem like hero's for defending the people of Afghanistan...then guess what, suddenly there's a whole new group of people that want to join in the holy war against the U.S.
Bin Laden is a smart guy...he would be dead or in jail if he wasn't. I don't think we have a prayer of getting through this like Desert Storm. People will die if we get cocky and think we'll just toss 'em around like Iraq.
One last thing I'd like to mention is this: When America fought the revolutionary war against England, we were far outnumbered and didn't have a chance. But we were fighting with our hearts, and had a purpose.
By waging a holy war, Afghani's now have that same sort of purpose. They may be far outnumbered and technology inferior, but I'd put my odds on the man fighting with his heart any day of the week.
Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
> What is it good for?
> Absolutely nothing.
[insert obvious WWII statement here about the usefullness of military action against Germany and Japan]
- sigs are for wimps.
UNDERSTANDING BIN LADEN
SOURCE: Iran News
William O. Beeman teaches anthropology at Brown
University in Providence, Rhode Island. A specialist on
Middle East Culture, he has written extensively on
fundamentalism and terrorism. He has worked for the
past four years in Tajikistan, where he has been able
to monitor developments in Afghanistan.
UNDERSTANDING BIN LADEN
The United States risks a severe miscalculation in
dealing with the destruction of the World Trade Center
and the attack on the Pentagon on Tuesday. This event
is not an isolated instance of violence. This is not an
"act of war." It is one symptom of a cancer that
threatens to metastasize. The root cause is not
terrorist activity, as has been widely stated. It is
the relationship between the United States and the
Islamic world. Until this central cancerous problem is
treated, Americans will never be free from fear.
Merely locating and hunting down a single "guilty
party" in this case will not stop future violence: such
an action will not destroy the organization of
terrorist cells already established throughout the
world. Of greater importance, it will do nothing to
alleviate the residual enmity against America that will
remain at large in the world, continuing to motivate
violence. The perpetrators of the original attack on
the World Trade Center in 1993 were caught and
convicted. This did not stop the attack on Tuesday.
The chief suspect is the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden
or his surrogates. He has been mischaracterized as an
anti-American terrorist. He should rather be thought of
as someone who would do anything to protect Islam. Bin
Laden began his career fighting the Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan in 1979 when he was 22 years old. He has
not only resisted the Soviets but also the Serbians in
Yugoslavia. His anger was directed against the United
States primarily because of the U.S. presence in the
Gulf Region, more particularly Saudi Arabia itself, the
site of the most sacred Islamic religious sites.
According to bin Laden, during the Gulf War America
co-opted the rulers of Saudi Arabia to establish a
military presence in order to kill Muslims in Iraq. In
a religious decree issued in 1998, he gave religious
legitimacy to attacks on Americans in order to stop the
United States from "occupying the lands of Islam in the
holiest of places." His decree also extends to
Jerusalem, where the second most sacred Muslim siteâ^À^Ôthe
al-Aqsa Mosque. The depth of his historical vision is
clear when, in his decree, he characterizes Americans
as "crusaders" harkening back to the Medieval Crusades
in which the Holy Lands, then occupied by Muslims, were
captured by European Christians.
He will not cease his opposition until the United
States leaves the region. Paradoxically, his strategy
for convincing the United States to do so seems drawn
from the American foreign policy playbook. When the
United States disapproves of the behavior of another
nation, it "turns up the heat" on that nation through
embargoes, economic sanctions or withdrawal of
diplomatic representation. In the case of Iraq
following the Gulf war, America employed military
action, resulting in the loss of civilian life. The
State Department has theorized that if the people of a
rogue nation experience enough suffering, they will
overthrow their rulers, or compel them to adopt more
sensible behavior. The terrorist actions in New York
and Washington are a clear and ironic implementation of
this strategy against the United States.
Bin Laden takes no credit for actions emanating from
his training camps in Afghanistan. He has no desire for
self-aggrandizement. A true ideologue, he believes that
his mission is sacred, and he wants only to see clear
results. For this reason, the structure of his
organization is essentially tribalâ^À^Ôcellular in modern
political terms. His followers are as fervent and
intense in their belief as he is. They carry out their
actions because they believe in the rightness of their
cause, not because of bin Laden's orders or approval.
Groups are trained in Afghanistan, and then establish
their own centers in places as far-flung as Canada,
Africa and Europe. Each cell is technologically
sophisticated, and may have a different set of
motivations for attacking the United States.
Palestinians members of his group see Americans as
supporters of Israel in the current conflict between
the two nations. In the Palestinian view, Ariel
Sharon's ascendancy to leadership of Israel has
triggered a new era, with U.S. government officials
failing to pressure the Israeli government to end
violence against Palestinians. Palestinian cell members
will not cease their opposition until the United States
changes its relationship with the Israeli state.
The Mujaheddin fighters in Lebanon also direct their
hostility against Israel and the United States. They
also operate against the Maronite Christian community
in their own country, who were supported by the French
from World War I until the end of World War II. They
will not cease their operations until the region is
firmly in Islamic hands.
Above all, Americans need to remember that the rest of
the world has an absolute right to self-determination
that is as defensible as our own. A despicable act of
mayhem such as those committed in New York and
Washington is a measure of the revulsion that others
feel at our actions that seemingly limit those rights.
If we perpetuate a cycle of hate and revenge, this
conflict will escalate into a war that our
great-grandchildren will be fighting.
________________
Copyright 2001 William O. Beeman. This article may be
distributed for any non-commercial purpose.
I've been repeating it over and over, thanks for saying it too.
Bin Laden is primarely upset that we dared set foot on Saudi Arabia, "Holy Land". Ironically as the poster said, it was to his own countries benefit, if not his own fanatical leanings.
Oh, 9 out of 10 dollars in foreign aid to Afghanistan come from the US, last year we sent over 40 million in drought relief.
Yup, no rational action of cause and effect when you are dealing with "Holy Warriors" and Theocratic despotic governments.
- sigs are for wimps.
Reminds me of a saying from a movie not long ago. Wish I could remember which one!
"Yes, you've got the responsibility and authority. Now, what are you going to do with it?"
Assume the U.S. is now in charge of governing Afghanistan. What are you going to do with it?
Even a wounded animal can wreak vengeance. It will take some serious thinking to reconstruct a country in a way that benefits everyone.
For example, bulldozing mosques in Kabul to make way for a video store and a McDonald's may not be the best way to win the hearts and minds of the populace. Recall that ObL used his personal fortune to build houses for the widows and orphans of the struggle years ago. Take a lesson.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Second, we will not be attacking ("offensive"), we will be defending ourselves against terrorism - in a way that European countries already have for years.
Third, before asking for new toys, how about those in charge of this defense started by using the info they already had? See
(According to La Repubblica, this "memo" dates from October 20, 2000. They don't say how they got it -- I couldn't find the complete text online, but another part is in "Jeff"'s guilty plea in "USA v. Ali Mohamed", dated the same day.)
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
full story:
http://www.ridiculopathy.com/news_detail.php?disp
If we invade Arghanistan we will break out back. Don't believe me? Just ask Russia. Or anyone else who has tried to take over Afghanistan (Including the "ruling" Taleban who only controls about 2/3 of the territory).
Defensive perimeters, land mines, etc., have proven historically to be ineffectual in that kind of territory with a motivated enemy. But, as one mujahdeen was quoted, "I do not fear the Russians, but I fear their helicoptors."
Now IANAG (General), but I believe the best way to go about something like this is a long series of directed raids by missile, bomber, helicopter and (most importantly) Special Forces units. They need to be focused though, and directed by good intelligence. Something we have precious little of in that area. We would be well advised to ally ourselves with the Northern Alliance if we are going to have any sort of protracted involvement in the area, because they actually have people who know the terrain and are in contact with the enemy. (This of course assumes that the Taliban will back bin Laden).
In defense of Jon Katz, technology will most certainly play a pivotal role in the intelligence gathering (although I definitely hope we invest more money, time and effort in HUMINT). It will also be big in any kind of attack. A large part of the reason our Special Forces are so effective is their superior helicopters, our planes achieve dominance because of their better technology. Saying that the technological portions of this battle will not be significant would be terribly naive.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Past achievements are no guarantee for success.
The USSR lost in Afghanistan, but that was against a resistance that was united against a common enemy, and very heavily supported in money, modern weapons (stingers!) and advisors.
The US lost in Vietnam, but there it was severely constrained by popular opinion and the disapproving international community, troops with low morale, and faced an enemy that was heavily supported in equipment and advisors by the USSR and China.
The Taleban don't even have the support of the majority of the Afghan population. This time they will have no foreign support at all, no modern equipment, nothing.
This time, the US have no trouble with demoralised troops, popular opinion is heavily in favour of killing as many Afghans as possible, the international community no longer has the slightest influence on American policy, and has no sympathy for the Taleban anyway. Even Pakistan has agreed to help!
I'm no expert in logistics, but imho a war against Afghanistan would be a very one directional bloodbath. The area would never be completely pacified as long as the magical mountain penetrating Kalashnikov detector hasn't been invented yet, but I doubt that an occupation of Afghanistan would need to cost more than a few dozen American lives.
"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!
That is spot on. The majority of the Afghanis are almost certainly just like people anywhere. They are almost certainly decent, hard-working, and kind. The sort of people that you wouldn't mind having for neighbors. Unfortunately, both for us and especially for them, their country is currently being run by madmen who harbor terrorists. Both the Germans and Japanese from World War II show what a devastating effect that can have on a populace. Once the madmen were removed, it was relatively easy to rebuild these countries. But while they were gripped by the insanity of their leaders they were willing to order the massacre of millions in concentration camps, and to send their own sons to their deaths as kamikaze pilots.
Madmen must be opposed. Otherwise there can be no safety, peace, or liberty for any of us. In a perfect world the citizens of Afghanistan would take care of these madmen for us, but if they insist on following their lead, then it will probably take a war to straighten things out.
God help us all.
As it stands, it was taxation that prompted the American revolution - the highbrow rhetoric about rights and freedoms, important as it was, was just gift wrapping.
No, what? Another ten years where we fight a war against Iraq but make no real effort to win?
I do not have a signature
Arguably this is why WW2 was truly a victory; whereas WW1 (for all the military success) was not.
Survival and then victory in 1945 were only the first stage. The lasting victory was to persuade the Japanese and German peoples to reject, even to condemn the past, and to refocus on a positive future.
The imperative in the present 'war' isn't to reduce a few military training areas to rubble in Afghanistan. That isn't even the main battle. The real war the West must win is to change minds. It will be much harder, and will take much longer. I only hope we can succeed.
The point is, fanatics do not appear spontanously. People with a nice live, food, a house, and a future don't want to blow things up. It takes time for those groups to dissolve, but they can appear quite fast.
Diplomacy will be a key part of this crisis - only diplomacy can prevent new sources of terrorists. Take Pakistan, this situation is putting a lot of stress on the country. A lot of people from Afganistan are fleeing to Pakistan. The country has "accepted" to help the US (not that it had a lot of choice). This has generated a lot of tension both inside the country and with it's neighbours. If Pakistan collapses as a result of this crisis, there will be one more civil war, misery and despair. Guess who gets the bad karma?
It's all about messages, it can be "we try to make things better" or "we kill our enemies and put those who helped us in trouble". If you leave it with the military, the message might well be the second.
However, that makes no sense. Iraq knows by experience that the US can whoop their heinie. Would they really try such a coverup? They would be WELL aware of the risks involved.
I'm partial towards "bin Laden did it", or "someone we don't know yet did it". bin Laden har motive and means to have executed such an act. However, it goes against his pattern in one particular way - AFAIK, he has always struck at the military or government. He even said that striking against civilians is clearly against the Koran in some interview. So the WTC bombing does not sound as much like him as the Pentagon attack. Maybe we are dealing with somebody else?
I've been toying with the idea that some of bin Laden's followers have broken out and started to operate on their own. bin Laden has consistently stated that the assailants did it for "personal reasons". It could very well be a break-out group within his organization.
It could also be Right-wing extremists with shoeshine in their face, or it could be Israel, Egypt, Libya, Palestinians or just a brand new Moslem organization. It could be a bunch of people.
If I were to pull off an attack like that (and I wouldn't consider it), I would certainly attempt to obscure the traces and possibly make them appear to point to someone else. That is called "Covering Your Back 101", and is taught in real life every day.
Anyhow - I've been worried for a few days that the feds are blindly following the wrong path. I hope I'm wrong.
Stop the brainwash
href=http://www-cgsc.army.mil/milrev/English/DecFe b99/bowdish.htm
Psyops is in full force. We are at an extremely high threatcon level. The rage against the machine message board was closed by the Secret Service and there were some credible tactical reasons for doing so, but that shows you where we have went today.
The big radio companys are under orders not to play a huge list of songs and that is really, really wierd, I was just at the page where the list of songs were, I went back to memepool to grab the url it was gone. This goes way beyond extra security checks. This is scaring the shit out of me ten times as much those planes. I'm not even going to try and clean up my post as I'm worried that the first link I posted will disappear as well. Maybe the sky really is falling.
I agree completely. In a CNN interview (here), Powell said that his "defined mission" is "to make sure that nothing like this happens again."
If that's a defined mission, I'm afraid to ask what a "poorly-defined" mission is like...
-Chris
Okay, so we go out and infiltrate terrorist organizations, and then assasinate their leaders. A beautiful plan. Oh wait except that people who aren't afraid to die aren't too concerned about being assasinated and would be happy to be made a martyr. Oh and also, what is a terrorist really? Just a political dissident with a bomb, right? So we better infiltrate dissident groups too. And hey, maybe they say a few things they shouldn't about the government. Wouldn't that be a terrible shame if all the dissenters started having accidents?
*sigh*
Assasination isn't the answer folks. Open trials, clear evidence, long long long prison sentances. Those are the answers. Reveal them for what they are in the stark light of truth and the lock them away.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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.
Digital correspondence can always be buried in noise.
It was mentioned in an earlier article that it is very easy to pass messages through public message boards like Slashdot. For instance posting a meaningless troll which will be moderated down, garrenteeing it will not be read by 80% of the people here. Of course the real message is in the writers sig. Two or more people could easily carry on a conversation using quotes from TV, Movies, Books, Comic Books, poetry, whatever. As long as the context was known, they would not even need a secret decoder ring. The point is if people want to or need to communicate in secret, there will always be a way.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
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.
This will be a completely different type of war than the US has ever ever experience. I imagine most military personnel which have served in a war (as opposed to 'in Texas') probably recognize this. As much as I dislike his policies, GWB knows that he doesn't quite know what to expect, and knows that he has to defer to military personnel. At the same time, he also has to give the American people a sense of justice, and show the world a strong America. All of these things aren't diametrically opposed, but all take on different tactics. Its obvious that we have dubbed Bin Ladden, and the country who protects him, Afghanistan, as the villians, and I assume that has happened from some facts unreleased to the public, as I have not seen any more than circumstancial evidence linking the two at the time. I am, however, all in favor of persuing an extraction of Bin Ladden for *at least* previous terrorist attacks. Anyway below is a list of possible strategies and my vague understanding of their effectiveness against such an enemy.
Nothing: Not an option. The people won't stand for it, and the events will occur again.
Embargos: Um, lets starve the people of a country who are already abused by their government. The people don't have anything, and additional sanctions will only make the situation worse for them. Bin Ladden and the Taliban will still be able to procure goods through other means. Only the people will suffer. However, this is a necessary portion of any conflict as it requires Bin Ladden increase the spending of his infrastructure to get goods which wold otherwise be easier to obtain.
Financial Crackdown: Siezing assets, cracking systems, and otherwise disrupting any high tech aspects of Bin Ladden and Afghanistan will only be partially possible (at least as of now). Part of the problem is - they can't touch him once he is inside the US (of all places) networking system. GWB hopes to change that, that's the part that screams of echelon.
Missle strikes: As shown following Clintion's attempt, do not inspire the american people, do little lasting damage to an already war-torn country, possibly endanger civilians, and otherwise only infuriate and unite a culture against us.
Air strikes add an element of personal involvement, which works in favor of approval raitings with the american people early on in a conflict, but endanger the lives of pilots, and suffer from the same problems of missile strikes. The Taliban does not believe in following the Geneva convention (obviously). Expect any POWs to be horribly mistreated and tortured, and in reality they may be better off dead.
Assasination or extraction: We haven't gotten Bin Ladden yet. He is content to sever communications, live in a bunker, and wage guerilla warfare against us. He's done it in the past and he will do it again. We won't even know which bunker he is in. He uses low-tech means to survive when necessary, and provides the US little to track him with.
Small scale insertions, etc: These will drastically increase the chances that a US soldier will be captured. We may out tech them, but even with the gulf war under our belts, most of our troops would still qualify as highly trained, but green. Afghanistan has been at war for the past 22 or 23 years, they may not have much, but they are highly vetran in regards to guerilla warfare, and they've already beaten the former USSR with that stacked against them. In addition, ground forces will only inspire others to become terrorists. More than likely the terrorists inspired will be from a different country, and more than likely will be able to strike in a similar manner to the WTC (just probably not the same scale of distruction or target).
Full scale assault: The most US lives imaginable will be on frontlines, facing an enemy closer in tactics to vietnam. They will be viewed as a savior for a few, but for many they will be the enemy. The war will be against the people of Afghanistan at that point (in addition to the Taliban). We will inspire a sense of nationalism and fanaticism in them, similar to what we are experiencing now. If we are upset neghboring Islamic countries, who usually side together, we will be faced with more than just Afghanistan as our enemy. Many lives will be lost, and yes, it will require the support of every civilized western country to be won - i.e. world war III. World War III will be viewed as ended when either: the Jihad is called off (an unlikely scenario) but will still inspire some fanatics to continue to perform terrorist actions, tensions will still run high. The US may also choose to withdraw in the Saigon or HoChiMihn City sort of fashion. Terrorist actions will increase as the US is viewed the looser by radical islamic fundamentalists. The third scenario is complete and utter devistation, possibly thermonuclear. Regardless, almost evey man woman and child will have been affected in some way, and how do you tell a terrorist from a refugee in these circumstances? The Western world will either emerge united, or the western world will view the US as having committed one of the worst global vendettas ever seen, and remain in shock and disbelief with relations strained to near breaking points.
Eh, these are just some thoghts...
You say you want a revolution?
Here, read the interview with bin Laden, it's all right there.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/tra nscript_binladen1_990110.html
Not only is bin Laden pissed at the U.S. being mostly Christian, he's pissed because we aren't allowing them to literally exterminate the Jews in Israel. But it goes farther than exterminating the Jews in Israel, he really wants to exterminate all non-Muslims around the world.
And for all the Liberal Europeans blaming U.S. foreign policy on the whole mess, watch out, he doesn't like you much better and wants you dead too.
note: I'm not condoning U.S. foreign policy, there's plenty I don't agree with, however, preventing other middle-eastern countries from taking over Israel and exterminating the Jews is not one of them.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The stated objective for this war is to eradicate terrorism. Not only to catch the people responsible for the attack, but to actually eradicate any terrorism. Bush representatives keep saying that he war will not be over until that is achieved.
It's obvious that such a goal can not possibly be acheived. We're not even talking about the in itself impossible task of catching everyone who has commited terror, but the claimed objective is to somehow stop any terror attacks to even occur, ever.
So what does this mean? Are we entering a state of permanent war until something that will never happen happens?
An other very clear problem with all this is that "terrorism" is a vague and undefined term. One persons terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. There really are no clear lines. So the objective is undefined and arbitrary.
Just based on these two issues alone, I think this may end very badly.
First of all, I've been amazed (and disgusted) by the onslaught of whining about our impending loss of privacy ever since this disaster happened. We've seen the destruction of a national landmark in our greatest city and you people are worried about our very own government reading your email. I think you all take a great many things for granted.
What exactly do you fear? Is there something you all are trying to hide from the government? Is it just the principle of the thing? Having my email filtered or my phone calls monitored seems like a trivial price to pay if it means I can get on a plane this christmas and fly home without worrying about smashing into a skyscraper or having my throat slit with a box cutter. It's YOUR government listening and YOUR security and life being protected. Why oppose these things?
You're probably going to reply to me and say "but the Constitution says...!". Do you honestly mean to tell me that you are construing a document written hundreds of years ago as being directly applicable to this situation? That is suicidal and not realistic in the least. When the Constitution was written, there were no planes, no internet, no skyscrapers, no phones, and there were no terrorist groups committing mass murder. Committing an atrocity on a scale equal to what we witnessed was perhaps impossible. Hell, there werent even Arabs crashing horses into barns!
Certainly the creators of the Constitution never could have forseen the kind of cowardly attacks we faced recently. Do you people even grasp the severity of what happened? The "impenetrable" United States was attacked on its own soil! I believe the Constitution says that our privacy is guaranteed not to be violated "without reason", or something to that affect. Clearly this attack was well beyond reason. In fact, for many of us, it is beyond comprehension.
For those of you claiming that we are "violating" the US Constitution, I propose that it is YOU who wish to violate it. One of our government's greatest strengths is that it is NOT rigid. It must constantly evolve to maintain the balance of liberty while giving due powers to those who must protect us and our way of life. Obviously, when an unseen enemy turns our own modes of communication and transportation into terrible weapons, it is time for an adjustment.
I value my right to privacy, but I value my way of life, my security, and that of my country more.
For those of you who wonder if we are actually at war or not, consider the following definition of war: "A concerted effort or campaign to combat or put an end to something considered injurious". If this is indeed how war is defined, then I sincerely hope that we are very much at war.
Here is my thinking on the subject.
Generation Memory.
WWI, WWII, Vietnam. All these actions left entire generations w/the memory of the destruction that war creates. Desert Storm did not leave this thought w/us due to the little impact it left on our country. It was short, little loss of life, etc. This war is going to be quite different. It will NOT be fought only in Asia (as we have already had the first strike here in the US). There is a GREAT potential for more strikes to occur if we do end up creating a situation over there.
Personally I do NOT feel that this war is a necessity and I do NOT back the government's descision to do this. Bush is spreading pro-war propaganda and it is doing nothing for me but annoying me furthur.
I agree that something needs to be done but sending 1000s of men over there to fight a country b/c they are harboring a single man and his "troops"? How about the fact that we were harboring a good many of those assholes ourselves? We let these people into our country, let them train here, and let them attack here. Why are we not at fault as well?
I am very afraid of the consequences of this war. We are going to be forever impacted by this just as those that lived through WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam were.
I say fuck the war, find some other reasonable means to retaliate but killing more people than already died and creating a generation of seriously affected people is not the answer.
My girlfriend's grandmother randomly said once, "War is a horrific event." and said nothing more. I already know this as does everyone else but do you want to read/hear about it 50 years after it happened or do you want to live it?
I don't.
I think we can safely say this new war, "The War on Terrorism" is going to be fought just like the old war, "The War on Drugs". It is going to cost us hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 20 years, strip us of freedoms and accomplish nothing. If anything it will make it worse.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
It's interesting to note that the countries we have fought and occupied, not just a negotiated peace, not just a withdrawl after a few good kicks, have done extremely well.
;)
Look at Germany: we fought them tooth and nail, clashing on levels not seen before. Yet now they are among the world's most prosperous nations.
The same, and even more so, with Japan. We slagged Tokyo on the scale of Dresden as well as her other cities, and then nuked two more. Now Japan has the world's second largest economy in the world, but the fact is we went in and rebuilt her after WW2.
Perhaps what we really, truly ought to do, even though it will be unpopular in the long run, is to go in, kick ass, take names - baring in mind the xUSSR's experience there and ours in Vietnam - and then...rebuild her.
There are enough volunteers here in the US that would probably be willing to go over and help rebuild. Plenty of patriotic americans that are muslim as well. Send them over as the teachers while the rest of us build roads, factories, and more. Build their economy from nothing to something. Take 10-15 years to do so. Just like in Europe and in Japan.
Then transition things back into their hands like we did before...and leave. well off people rarely rise in revolt.
Let the people who want to die fighting us, do so...those that want to live, live.
Then we can work our 'infamous' reconstruction project and go home. It would be great - and amusing - to see Afghanistan as one of the top 4 economies in the world.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
That's not new. Countries, tribes, and people have been doing it for thousands of years.
Best Slashdot Co
Osama bin Laden is only one of the combatants here. Let's think about who the combatants are in this conflict, which has already been going on for several years:
1) North America, Western Europe, Israel, and supportive other nations (India, Japan, et. al.)
vs.
2) A very loose network of independently-funded, sometimes (but not always) externally-supported terrorists whose agendas differ, but whose means are similar.
There are Basque terrorists in Spain, clamoring for statehood and independence. Palestinian terrorists decry Israel's occupation of their homeland, and fight to remove them from Palestine. Narco-terrorists in Columbia attempt to destabilize the national government so they can make money more easily. Bin Laden directs attacks against the United States and Saudi Arabia because of his rigid fundamentalist view of Islam. The IRA wages war on what it sees as Protestant invaders, fanning flames that the majority of Northern Irish people want extinguished.
All these groups are pursuing different aims, but they all are using the same means - extranational use of force. Groups of armed combatants who do not necessarily represent the views of the majority of the population.
In the days before September 11, 2001, the differences between these groups and older insurrections, such as the Viet Cong, the American Minutemen, and the Russian Communists, may have been hard to discern.
But now the real difference is clear. Those organizations were limited both in means and in goals. Their efforts were focused exclusively on obtaining control of specific geography, for the purpose of governing it themselves. In the main, most terrorists groups still are after that goal (IRA, Hezbullah, Basque separatists, et. al.).
However, the means for terrorists to wage war far beyond ther own borders has been unleashed. In a sense, what we've seen is less like Pearl Harbor than it is like Hiroshima. While the concept of a massive terrorist attack against a far-away nation has been around for a very long time, this is the first time it has been executed.
So now the reality is sinking in. Extranational terrorist groups, which are just small collections of active individuals, are now capable of unleashing the kind of destructive force previously restricted for use by nation-states.
Imagine that you're Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of the UK. Your nation has been fighting IRA terrorism for decades, and now the US endures this massive assault from terrorists. The first thing that enters your mind is: "Perhaps the IRA will attempt something of this magnitude as well."
Repeat the scenario for any number of presidents, prime ministers, and chairmen of nations around the globe. Every nation-state has enemies. They all must now realize to one degree or another, that their enemies have just been shown that massive attacks are possible.
Recall that the United States gained mastery of nuclear weapons in the late 1940s, but by the 1950s, the Soviets had acquired their own. Soon the Chinese, Indians, and Israelis followed. Now there are over a dozen nuclear-capable states.
In the case of nuclear weapons, we've been fortunate enough to avoid any further use of them beyond WWII. But that is because nuclear weapons have been controlled, so far, by national command and control structures. The implications of launching nuclear weapons when you are the leader of a country, responsible for the survival of your own people, is immense.
Terrorists, who have no national sovereignty to defend, do not have such limitations on behavior.
So this is a world-wide conflict between nation-states and independent small groups who now have been shown a new way to press their goals. Alliances have always been a part of warfare, from the Trojan War to the Gulf War. But in the main, alliances have been formed to deal with one easily-identified enemy. For example, in WWII, the Allies banded together to fight the Axis. Though composed of Germany, Italy, and Japan, the components of theAxis were still easily pinpointed on a map.
Now the threat is much more diverse and much more diffuse - nation-states face potential terrorist action at virtually any time, any place.
Beyond the short-term, technical issues of how we fight terrorists, the long-term approach needs to be wholistic. The world is a smaller place now, and actions that impact one nation impact many. One result of this interconnectedness is that internal politics that disenfranchise, alienate, or radicalize people will now be looked at more closely.
A classic example of this is Israel. By assassinating top Intefada leaders, the Israelis are taking care of an immediate security threat, but they are simultaneously helping to create a whole new generation of disenfranchised Palestinian youth with nothing to lose. In short, they are creating terrorists.
The rest of the world, led by the United States, needs to exert more pressure on Israel to come to an equitable agreement with the Palestinian people, because this conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis is now no longer just their problem, it's everyone's problem.
We need also to think beyond military matters when attempting to diffuse conflicts. We're discovering that bin Laden's financial interests are extremely broad and that he has seemingly profited from the market downturn following his attacks. The international monetary system needs to be re-examined from perspective of international security. While financial privacy is important, when someone has been identified as a terrorist, we should be capable of choking off their most immediate air supply, which is money.
Every terrorist organization needs physical space to operate, even if their activities are dispersed and controlled from afar. Terrorist training camps in Libya, for example, have been showing terrorists how to wage war for decades now. Shutting them down is a key means of denying terrorists the ability to perfect their craft and plan their missions. If the international community collectively puts terrorism-supporting nations such as Iraq and Libya on notice, and destroys their ability to defend themselves swiftly and without warning if and when such camps are discovered on their territory, we'll see far less willingness to support terrorism.
Our HUMINT (human intelligence) capabilities were curtailed years ago as part of the "the Cold War is over, we don't need to be involved with nasty people" mentality of the time. We need to get off our high horse and get down in the mud. Human intelligence is vital to infiltrating terrorist cells and stopping violence before it starts.
Finally, our ability to defeat terrorists will not be contingent upon some sort of ballistic missile shiled costing billions of dollars. It will be contingent primarily on our ability to insert special operations forces at the right time and place to execute surgical strikes on terrorist cells. In short, we need to place the terrorists more off-guard than they can place us.
The western world has a wide array of resources in this regard, but the coordination of intelligence, logistics, and operational assets will be complicated. The more coordination, the more chances for over-complication and security leaks. Nonetheless, this must be a multinational effort, sustained over time.
It won't be easy. It won't involve teams of hackers taking down someone's website and winning the war. It will involve skilled, dedicated people risking their lives to kill terrorists. People will die, but it will truly be so that others may live. 21st century Americans hate to admit it, but wars aren't antiseptic, and they're not video games.
This one will be long, difficult, and frustrating, but one thing is certain: the terrorist's days of easy living are over.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
That's the position O'Reilly presented to Torticelli and kind of hammered him with it. He also said leaving the decisions in Washington, where they don't the region being covered locally, is not a good idea.
However, Torticelli said that somebody needed to be accountable for hiring people who may in turn do horrible things, which is a valid point.
The compromise O'Reilly proposed, which I think is a good one is to have the field officer report to whatever their boss is in the local region. And have that person answer for any problems.
- sigs are for wimps.
As for the idea of sending in troops -- uh, you're talking about hilly terrain, an inner-continental climate, and the remnants of the last war fought there.
For all anyone knows, any patch of ground could be the r[e|u]sting-place for an old Soviet minefield. UXBs probably litter the ground like pebbles on a beach. The level of documentation that probably still exists is likely minimal to non-existant, and this is what the Good Ol' Boys are going to be walking over. Oh, goody. Check your life insurance for a stupidity clause, guys.
Then there's what you're going to do, once you've got there. As another poster noted, the terrain favours defence, heavily. And the opponents aren't using 30-year-old pop-guns, either. They're using high-tech US weapons, supplied by the US Government in more politically favourable times.
In fact, because none of that was exactly official and on public-record, is there anyone who can even be 100% sure what these maniacs were given??? Remember, information of this kind tends to accidently fall in the shredder, when it becomes embarassing, as Col. Ollie North showed. (And that's aside from anything they've stolen from any country they've been in contact with.)
In short, a head-on assault might be an effortless stroll. But it could just as easily be a complete fiasco. The battle for Monte Carlos, WW2, comes to mind.
The other thing that a lot of people forget is that we're going against a totally different type of opponent, for whom suicide is a perfectly legit option. The Japanese Kamakaze pilots are about the closest the US has had to tackle fanatisism in the battlefield. The cost was not trivial.
To put it another way, you can't just roll into town and expect them to roll over. What you can expect is ten-year-olds leaping from windows, carrying molotov cocktails. If we go in, by force, then we invite a war that will be over only when one side or the other is utterly exterminated. NO survivors.
Electronic war will just enslave the "free world", putting it in the control of mega-corporations and unaccountable agencies. It will not stop the terror attacks, but it will stop civilization.
A military war can mean one thing, and one thing only. Genocide. Not "attempted genocide", as Milosovich is accused of, but ACTUAL genocide. The complete destruction of an entire people.
I fully, 100%, support any attempt to genuinely prevent terror attacks. I support any Government that wishes to be free of such a menace. But I will NOT support the very actions that our fathers and/or grandfathers risked their lives to oppose, when they challanged the might of Nazi Germany and the evils of the Reich.
There are other options. Find them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Lets jump right in with the first few lines...
As noxious as Washington talk shows generally are, this weekend's were significant. Watching all of the Talking Head shows out of D.C., I struggled to decipher the particular meaning, language and codes of that city's inhabitants.
Jon, incase someone forgot to tell you, the Government is basically saying they don't quite know off-hand how to handle a war of this type. Its being figured out as we go, its blueprint being changed by the hour as countries in the reigon ally themselves for us or against us. Its not a videogame. It involves tying together information from several different countries with several different motives, most of which dont speak the same language, Jon. The rules aren't silkscreened on the glass, and you don't have 3 lives.
George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and others were on the tube all weekend, and they seemed to be sending the same signals and saying something important. They were talking about a "new kind of war," one that re-emphasized human analysis and intelligence gathering, but also offered a central role for many involved in security technology, from electronic ID to surveillance.
Yup, and you should be happy about that. You have nothing to worry about, provided you aren't doing anything illegal, in which case you probably deserve to get busted anyway. I could care less who monitors my telephone calls, government or otherwise. You're a fool if you have ever considered these sorts of communications "private" in the first place. See, the thing is, Jon, alot of sponges and leeches in this country hide under the blanket of "civil liberties". They want to continue committing low-level crimes like software piracy, copyright infringement, and other minor offenses under the auspices of "freedom". What they don't understand is that the notion of "freedom" does not translate to "You are free to rip someone off.". Don't associate yourselves with that crowd. Being sponges and leeches, they don't have the balls to make their way through life legitimately. They prefer to exploit rather than cooperate.
They were not talking about Desert Storm, but something radically different. As usual, the media offered much rhetoric, few details. And there are substantial concerns about privacy and civil liberties
Well, what did you expect, Jon? An hourly schedule of events in the reigon for the next 2 years downloadable to your Palm? For christ's sake, use your head, Jon. In wartime, the idea is, you don't want everyone (particularly the enemy) to know what you're up to.. They are intentionally being vague. Intelligent people realize this--Dumbasses get frustrated at the lack of disclosed detail. They fail to realize that they, their friends, and loved ones are more secure because of it. Loose lips sink ships, Jon.
People are wondering how this new kind of war might work, what it might look like. Some of you might have some ideas.
Alot of us have ideas about what it might look like, Jon. Mine looks like several giant glass craters dotting the landscape of Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Lybia, Jordan, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, each of which measures two miles across. One thing's for sure.. Whatever it is, neither you or I really want to know. I don't wanna know what the military is planning to unleash on these people, because if I know about it, chances are our enemy knows about it too. The more secretive they are, they better off we'll be. They can turn the entire reigon into a parking lot for Disneyworld for all I care. Thats why I pay taxes--So I don't have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off terrified of everything that might happen. Thats one of the nice things about being American. I don't have to voice my own opinion about what I feel should happen, because the consensus of other people, with or without me, will eventually do what is right for all of us as a collective entity. Thats the whole nature of Democracy. Sure, it will be brutal, innocent people have been killed, but guess what--That shit happens, and it happens all the time. The trick is, just make sure it's not you that has to look at the business end of an AR-15.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Feed the poor bastards and then flood 'em with Porn, Beer and American Rock and Roll. A country full of well-fed, drunk Bruce Springsteen fans is not one that is likely to cause us problems in the future.
**>>BELCH
The high brass is looking over options, in what we geeks call the analysis phase. They know that they have a poorly-defined mission, they are working with the President to define it more properly.
Of course they don't know what they're doing; this is a new type of conflict. But they're thinking about it. If they didn't, we'd have gone off to bomb Afghanistan into the stone age, regardless of the fact that they are already in the stone age.
They don't know what they're doing yet, but they're working at it. I have no issue with what the DoD is doing right now. I do have an issue that they didn't predict this sort of conflict and have better antiterrorism and counterterrorism forces in place by now.
--The basis of all love is respect
The reason for the rule is that many in Congress were fed up with the CIA paying the likes of Noriega, Suharto, Saddam etc and supporting regimes that murdered large number of their citizens.
The underlying problem is that the US has for years cried 'wolf' on terrorism. The term was used to provide blanket justification for any policy the government of the day was into. So Cuba and other countries the US happened to have a policy difference with were labelled 'state sponsors of terrorism'. Meanwhile the CIA was funding drug running terrorists such as the Nicaraguan Contras.
A large part of the responsibility for the attack must rest on successive Presidents who abused the CIA and FBI for their own political purposes and not for national defence. The assasination of the democratically elected Lumumba in the Congo and imposition of Mugabwe cost millions of lives. The action was not done to defend democracy but to try to impose a dictator who would be on 'our side'.
In particular Nixon's actions were uniquely corrosive to US democratic institutions. The Reagan/Bush Iran-Contra abuses compounded the problem. Selling arms to the Iranian taleban types and using the proceeds to instigate a proxy war in Nicaragua.
The much maligned ban on assasination was only introduced because the US realised that having engineered the assasination of eight other world leaders it was quite likely that other countries were plotting to assasinate the US president in what they considered to be self defence.
The people running arround complaining that the CIA was handcuffed are by and large the same people whose schemes made the restrictions necessary.
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Re:Mod parent up ! (Score:1)
I'm not entirely sure that he's upset that we "set foot" in his homeland, but that the Western culture is destroying the mid-East culture.
You're not entirely sure because you are civilized and you cannot fathom such a thing.
However, read any of Bin Laden's interviews and bios. He turned against the US when we set foot in the Holy land of Saudi Arabia.
And last time I checked, there were no McDonalds in Afghanistan.
Reading his documentation (thesmokinggun.com), you can also see the primary goal of his org, is to replace all "infidel" govt. with "just" Islamic radical ones like the disgusting Taliban.
So, no he doesn't want Coca Cola to leave, or McDonalds which is not there to never set foot on the wasteland that is Afghanistan, what he wants is for your sister to wear a tunic that covers her all day, he wants you to pray 5 times a day to Allah, and he wants to replace all Democracies with Theocracies that subscribe to his perverted version of Islam.
Just read up on him, trying to rationalize a religious zealot is not going to give you insight into him.
- sigs are for wimps.
I agree with that, however, the current environment has made it impossible to infiltrate groups like the militant Islamic groups.
Obviously the past solution led to abuses, and the current one is not helping our "intelligence", so the point is this is a bug that needs to be patched.
BTW, I escaped Panama and just became a US citizen. For all the fault of the US government of having Noriega as an informant, it was us, the Panamenian citizens that were ultimately to blame for his rise to power. Sometimes the opressed countries also have to take responsibility.
- sigs are for wimps.
That's gonna be a tall order when throughout all of the middle-east countries, their schools teach the children to hate the USA.
In the same vein, we can send the KKK, Aryan Nation, and all of these other racist hate groups over to the middle east to perform acts of terrorism. Then when the middle-eastern countries come and bitch about it to the US, we can say, "Oh? Those are Christian Extremists and have nothing to do with us and we're quite against them."
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Last week, Rumsfeld likened the task of erradicating terrorists to exterminating cock-roaches. When you think about it, this metaphor goes a long way.
Just as burning one's own house down is the wrong approach, so is nuking Afganistan. What the "new warfare" means, at least to me, is if we see them scurrying across the floor, we stomp on them. We set up roach motel like traps to lure them in. We put down boric acid so they take toxins back into their nests.
If war were not so horribly obscene, it might be interesting to see what sort of tactics are going to be employed.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
The army of Iraq was far bigger, better equipped, dug in and actually organised. It was destroyed with negigeable losses.
Perhaps you recall all those opinion articles that predicted that war would last for years and cost thousands of american lives?
The achievements of the soviets in Afghanistan during the 80s just aren't relevant. The situation is completely different this time.
I just learned about some rather surprising information as to why the Taliban will never (willingly) turn over Bin Laden. Rather interesting!
How nice that you give bin Laden et.al. the benefit of western tought and action.
Read This
Perhaps after you understand the religious suicide cult we're up against, you'll understand that this isn't about vengence nor anti-Islamic rhetoric.
It's about dealing with a confederation of hate cults. A network of people who hold in disdain to the lives of those outside their cult. And treat any and all disagreement with violence and jihad.
The purpose of taking bin Laden out, guilty or not will serve two useful purposes. First, it puts a kink in their death-machine-network, both financially and with regards to the adhesion of their confederation (causing internal strife is one sure way to get them off our backs). Second, it conveys to them a message in their preferred language.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Read it here.
Mr. Driver, whoever you are, I salute you. Mr. Katz, you could learn a thing or two from this guy. Actually, we all could.
The differences are of scale and the fact that the IRA did not represent a state or anything close to one. The IRA has consistently failed to gain more than 5% of the vote in elections either side of the border. Bin Laden and his accomplices are in effect sponored by the Taleban which is the effective power in Afghanistan.
The other reason is that such subtle issues are lost on dubyah. The US has declared war on drugs, cancer, why not terrorism? Other unfortunate statements from dubyah were his speech in NYC which began 'America is on its knees (long pause)'. Unfortunately dubyah is not Ronald Reagan. Reagan could make a speech that written on paper was complete nonsense but get across exactly the right message. dubyah does the opposite.
Disgustingly, 12 prisoners were allowed to die from hunger strike (among them, an elected member of parlement, Bobby Sands) because the IRA prisoners wanted to be considered prisoners of war.
Why should the British government give in to a bunch of terrorists just because they threaten to starve themselves? They were all convicted of murder or assisting murder. If they want to cease being a cost to the British taxpayer they should be allowed to do so.
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So anyone who really wants to fight terrorism must fight that fear and that hate. Weapons and the threat of war are the wrong means for that. Careful diplomacy, propaganda and seeking for cooperation are the right means. Also Bush is using the wrong religious references. He shouldn't speak of sending terrorists to hell, thus only helping them to kindle the religious war they so obviously want. Instead he should ask the Leaders, and more importantly the people of that countries, if Allah could have wanted that. He should show those nations not the picture of a lone cowboy seeking revenge (a reference they probably don't understand anyway), but the pictures of the hurt and wrongful death of innocents this attack brought, and make those people understand, what the attack did to people and families very much like them.
If Bush thinks he must bomb afghanistan, he better bomb it with TV-sets and radio broadcasts. If he wants to rely on intelligence he should have his advisors teach him, how to talk to those people, how to show them the moral wrong the terrorists did. The aim must be, not to take revenge on a nation of mostly innocents, or to use those civillians as hostages much like terrorists use civillians as hostages, but to turn the opinion of those people against the terrorists, thus deprieving the terrorists of support.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
They broke away from Iran about 250 years ago if I'm not mistaken. Since then they've never managed to evolve beyond a few mutually exclusive wandering, half-starved and eternally warring tribes. Preserving that sort of 'culture' is best done in the pages of history books. They are stuck in a cesspit of drugs and violence and deserve a chance to join the world at large.
**>>BELCH
I attempt to amuse myself as a diversion from the crushing and opressive mood "the attack" and it's fallout and ramifications has put me into.
I'm not saying that the US somehow masterminded or perpetrated "the attack". (as some have said). I'm sure everyone knew that something like this was inevitable. All the terrorist groups have been trying to do something like this, or wishing they could do something like this for decades.
I think what makes me feel WORST is that when I stand back and look at this attack - it was fucking beautiful. It was brilliant. It could have been executed in a far more deadly fashion.
1. The terrorists could have waited another hour, more people in the buildings than at 8:45.
2. The terrorists could have more carefully coordinated the crashes. They would not have lost the fourth plane.
3. They could have collected cell-phones from the passengers, and prevented them from finding out what was going to happen.
4. If both WTC planes had struck within a closer time-frame, and if both had struck LOWER in the buildings, many, many, many more deaths would have occurred.
5. I don't believe most of what I hear about this on the news, but a later report says that it's possible that 5 or 6 planes were planned, but at least one didn't fly due to a mechanical problem.
This could have been MUCH worse.
6. It could have been coordinated with a biological or chemical attack (killing ALL of the firemen, instead of only half) - or a car-bomb at the base of the tower, hindering the escape of people from the buildings. It could have been coordinated with an attack on the bridges or tunnels leading to/from that area, as people tried to escape.
7. Other tall buildings in other cities could have been involved.
8. Cyberwarfare could have been involved.
- - - - -
I have been wracked with insomnia this past week - thinking these things, how terrible and immoral they are. Yet, to protect yourself from a monster, you sometimes must become like that monster, you must understand that monster.
I grieve for the dead. I am apalled at the evil of the attack. I in no way sympathize with the cause or the people that spawned it. I desperately hope and pray that those responsible for it including those that assisted in any way, including funding, will be found and brought to brutal, bloody, vengeful justice.
Then, after listening to "the other side", hearing all the propaganda, anti-US sentiment, whining and complaining about how we hate arabs, we're out to exterminate muslims, we're a bunch of Zionist puppets. And I think of how the terrorist attack might have played into the hands of US policy, foreign and domestic.
1. The US law enforcement has been clamoring for YEARS to get better wiretap capabilities. Now they have them. We now live in a police state. Welcome to 1984.
2. It may not be obvious what the objective is. It looks like bin Laden, the manufactured villain of the day. But it's not. Whether he's responsible for the Trade Center destruction or not. He's now a very convenient excuse to play out a plan.
3a. What is the #1 scary monster for the US? Nuclear weapons. We've got them, and ever since then, we've been fighting like mad to keep control - make sure we're the only ones who have them, or that the ones who have them are our allies in the "New World Order".
3b. "Missile Defense" justification. Primarily, the goal of the "Military Industrial Complex" is to force consumers to spend as much money on their products as possible (thru taxation) - hence, all the arms sales around the world, etc. "Missile Defense" is a HUGE shot in the arm for sagging defense contractors. As will be the resulting conflict(s), and their consequences. (although, the hole in this deal is that - how does it serve anyone to annihilate stock prices and destroy the economy?)
3c. After reading that very long article (linked on slashdot yesterday) about Afghanistan - I'm quite certain that nobody in the whole world gives a rat's ass about that country, not even it's own people. The only people who care about Afghanistan are Pakistan, and the puppet government Pakistan installed there, the Taliban.
Therefore: Pakistan is the target here. A nuclear power, with a large number of Islamic fundamentalists. The US's worst nightmare. The recent military coup there was driven by what? A MORAL backlash against the previous civilian government. Their president was accused of corruption. This guy was accused of taking bribes and things like that.
You see, the "western way" of capitalism wouldn't be able to get along in a holier-than-thou land like Pakistan. Corruption is an integral part of capitalism. If a Microsoft programmer got his hands chopped off every time the Government thought Microsoft was cheating someone with it's opressive licensing scheme, that wouldn't be good for the industry. Or the economy. Or consumers. Or jobs. Or tax revenues (not that Microsoft pays any taxes, mind you. They don't).
I think that Pakistan will initially cooperate, but they'll change their tune in the middle, and the US will be forced to take action in "self-defense" as Pakistan starts hurling nukes at our troops as they commit "attrocities" in Afghanistan.
India: A very populous nation, on the brink of becoming a world superpower. They have nuclear weapons. They have a huge population of very intelligent, well-educated people. In fact, they figure in VERY importantly into the US economy's future, as a supply for cheap tech labor (H1-B visas, etc.). However, India has problems with internal turmoil and strife amongst minority religious zealots. Islamic fundamentalists, Sikhs, even Buddhists are bombing and slaughtering others in India. What is Pakistan? Essentially a rogue province of India that split-off because of a large percentage of Islamic people who didn't want to be a part of Modern secular India.
So - if this whole thing was playing into some supposed conspiracy's hands; the end-goal is to destabilize the region, possibly resulting in a small-scale nuclear war, and the annexation of Pakistan by India. This will settle Kashmir, for sure. Pakistani radicals will flood into Afghanistan, or Iran, further destabilizing that country.
The US gets a strong(er) economic and military ally in the region in India. The US gets it's own population under control. India gets Pakistan back, and hopefully a more secure Western frontier, Iran becomes a bit less stable and influential in the region. Islam as a whole bites a pillow. And the New World Order is that much more established. All because of those big-bad terrorists.
This conspiracy theory was brought to you by;
No sleep. Lots of caffeine. All the radical wacko web sites I've read in the past 5 years. All the terrorism apologists posting on slashdot in the past week. CNN. The FOX network. And Lockheed (TM), makers of the ExoAtmospheric Kill Vehicle (coming to a theatre near you).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think that's a pretty realistic assessment of the way things are *now*. I mean, domestic terrorism is quite different than international terrorism. Conflicts that are internal in nature generally only show up on everyone else's radar screens when they spill over into the international arena.
One reason for this is that most nation-states have zero interest in airing their dirty laundry in front of the rest of the world. Spain hasn't asked for assistance in combatting the Basques because they don't want to admit that the Basques are even a problem. Why ruin your tourist revenue by talking about Basques running around in the hills killing people?
Essentially what we're talking about are tacit rules of engagement. The long-accepted view of terrorism has been that the best way to deal with it is at home. If you're a particularly weak government, you ask for money from the United States, and you beef up your internal security.
Notice that client states such as the Phillipines get money to combat terrorist movements, but major western powers don't. That's because until now, those powers have felt confident in their ability to either squash the terrorists or at least put up with them, limiting their attacks to a car bomb here, an assasination there.
My guess is that a lot of those more powerful nations will start to re-evaluate their own relationships with their internal enemies. For example, we may see much more scrutiny of financial relationships between terrorist organizations and donors, even for example IRA donors from the United States.
If any real war on terrorism is going to win, that sort of re-examination of the rules of engagement will have to occur.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The World Trade Center specifically, and lower Manhatten in general, is the center of United States economic power. He didn't strike at Capitalism symbolically, he aimmed a plane at its center.
Crippling the economy of your enemy is part of a military act. The FBI supposedly intercepted bombs aimed at the George Washington Bridge (connects New Jersey to NYC) and other bridges. He aimmed to take out New York City.
This was an atteck on the US.
Some of his training manuals, when translated, stated that attacking economic targets are part of a military campaign.
When the US hits a city, realize what we hit.
Step 1: take out the power plants
Step 2: take out the bridges
Well, because of the US power grid, you can't take out the power plants, we'll redirect the power.
There seemed to be a number of different viewpoints coming out of Washington this weekend, each pointing in a different direction.
I found this pull-together and analysis (originally written for the Christian Science Monitor) over at Nando.net . I strongly recommend the full article -- I just hope that she is right in her conclusions, that voices for extreme carefulness are prevailing, in deciding the US response.
PS (OT) Does anyone still use Nando ? It must have been just about the first mainstream news website on the net, and still (IMHO) has an excellent balance of wire stories. But it seemed hardly slashdotted at all a week ago. Does anyone still go there ?this isnt iraq.
in iraq, you can go in, roll your tanks, troops and planes. navy warships were effective ecause they could fire on the country from the water.
there are actual cities, and a fairly easy environment to go find and destroy opposition.
you cant use tanks in the mountains of afghanistan.
you cant use your ships guns to shell them.
bombs arent effective - they just dig deep into their mountains.
which leaves a ground war with troops and little armour support.
ugly.
... hi bingo
... is to execute (in the words of my chinese-american colleague) 9 generations: 3 generations past, 3 generations forward, and 3 generations side-to-side. Yup, that's right: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, first, second, and third cousins. Buh-bye.
The strategy (which was successful for hundreds of years) was simple: eliminate anyone who might wish to avenge or follow in the shoes of the perpetrator, and provide damn good incentive to families to turn in traitors amongst themselves (only in the case of a family member turning in the perp was the family spared).
While harsh and brutal, it sure beats dropping nukes indiscriminantly and would probably prove to be most effective. Imagine the bin-Laden wealth being used to hunt down their own fugutive son/brother, for example (either by the family, or by confiscation following their executions).
As to the notion, "what about when they do that to your family" I would argue the are intending to do exactly just that to my family, indiscrimently and without any reasonable provocation whatsoever. That is what mass attacks like the one last Tuesday are all about, not to mention the future bio/chemical/and nuclear attacks the media is quietly preparing us to endure right now. By adopting harsh measures the danger to me and my family is in no way increased, indeed quite likely the opposite.
This is war. That means harsh measures, harsh actions, and doing whatever is necessary to win, no matter how distasteful. We didn't ask for this and we didn't start it, but by god we're going to finish it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
My opinion is that we're vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of two things:
1) We invested too much in technology and not enough in human intelligence
2) We're strong enough in a conventional military sense there's no way for anyone to attack us that way, so we got complacent...
We're wary now, but it's interesting how much of the talk is centered around technical intelligence again. It's like we can't get over our own obsession with technology. I can agree that some measure of surveillance tech can help analysts do their work better, but my bet is that the real beef we need in law enforcement and intelligence is more and better human informants and analysts. Write your congressmen and encourage them to invest in that.
As for #2... well, it will take some doing, but the US and the world will likely start thinking more closely about what needs to be done to protect civil targets in these kind of situations, and how to affect the cultural change necessary to eliminate terrorism.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
- Disclaimer - I am not an operative or employee of the US Government. They pay people to forget more about this sort of thing than I will ever know. I harbor no sympathy for Bin Laden, hope to see him die painfully, and am not defending his actions.
/. posters are using the term jihad incorrectly, in reference to a holy war. Holy war is a bastardization of the word jihad by the American Government and media. A jihad is actually a purging of dangerous or unclean external influences. The point of a jihad is not to destroy the source of the influence, but to get such influences out of islamic society. An attack against American targets within the USA far oversteps the bounds of jihad.
/. posters who keep stating that the Afghan clerics have declared jihad upon the USA, that is untrue. The Afghans have stated that the will declare a jihad if we invade them, at which point the United States would face the full wrath of the world's greatest guerrilla army, lead by some of the CIA's best students. These people defeated the British three times, and the Soviets once, and anyone who thinks that invading Afghanistan is a good idea needs to realize that such a war would make Vietnam look like a walk in the park.
Did Osama Bin Laden really mastermind the terrorist attacks on New York? While it seems that he has the capability, it does not seem all too likely to me.
First off, this is not Bin Laden's MO. Bin Laden is engaged in a jihad against the USA. Many
Bin laden has refrained from attacking civilians before, and even publicly stated that to do so would be against the tenets of his faith. (Recent reports state that he has encouraged the killings of all Americans, but I have only seen such reports from the mainstream American press and do not put much stock in them.). It seems unlikely that he would suddenly shift stance and do so with an attack that far outstrips all other attacks he has admitted to or is suspected of. Attacks such as this could easily be responsible for a world war with the Afghanistani people, and even the middle east in general as a target. It seems unlikely that even Bin Laden would take such a risk of destroying the land and culture that he holds so dear and has spent so many years "protecting."
It seems to me that the US is likely dealing with something far greater than Bin Laden. His network of terrorists, "Al Quaeda" may be involved, but "Al Quaeda" is actually a network of reportedly 40-50 muslim terrorists groups that Bin Laden funds. The United States has repeatedly stated that another nation, likely Iraq was involved, which seems far more likely, given the obvious madness of Saddam Hussein and the devotion of his followers.
And to the
Terrain is only one factor in a war, and guerilla wars have been successful in practically every type of terrain. The fact that the Soviets and the British were defeated in Afghanistan does not indicate that the terrain is intrinsically impossible to invade, after all the Taleban managed to do so successfully.
There is considerable evidence that the vast bulk of the Afgahn people do not support the Taleban but are prepared to tolerate them as a better alternative to instability. In fact the Taleban are almost exclusively from a single ethnic group that comprises only 35% of the population, there is considerable evidence of widespread attrocities by the Taleban against the other ethnic groups.
The key difference between this war and previous wars is that in all previous guerilla wars the objective of the invading power has been to hold the population centers and territory against the guerillas. In this case however the objective is quite different, the US could care less about controlling Kabul, what it wants to do is to deny Taleban control.
The other point is that most guerilla campaigns fail without the support of a major power that is at least comparable in power to the opponent. In the Spanish peninsular war the Guerillas were supported by the British (and vice versa), but the Guerillas could never have succeeded alone, the Spanish simply could not train troops to meet Napoleon in open battles. Equally the Vietnamese could not have beaten the US without Chineese support.
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Gangsters have tried this sort of defense time and time again. "Gee, your honor, I didn't actually threaten him, I just said something bad might happen to him! I meant he might get a heart attack if he didn't give me money. Honest!"
Sorry, but the real world doesn't work that way. Bin Laden and the Taliban have declared Jihad - holy war - against America, and have openly recruited, trained, harbored, armed, coordinated, and financed their terrorists to make their barbarous attacks against us.
Despite your juvenile sophistry, these are not "THOUGHT CRIMES". They are not "thoughts" but actions. Nor are they even crimes, furtive acts committed by civilians for personal reasons. They are Acts Of War.
In wartime there are no "fair trials" that require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An enemy soldier sitting in a machine gun nest gets no "trial" at all even if he never manages to fire off a shot. Even if he wouldn't have.
War is of course a very scary thing. But the U.S. and its allies did not choose this. The Taliban did.
You sound like a teenager still enamored with how well you could twist your parent's rules into a convenient excuse for something bad you or your friends did. What you may not realize is that your parents weren't fooled by this kind of behavior. They were just waiting for you to grow up. As am I.
If Osama Bin Laden was assasinated tomorrow, what country would be assumed to be responsible? The U.S. of course. Hell, if the Israelis did it we'd still get blamed. The people who think Bin Laden might have a point are just going to get further evidence that maybe he's right after witnessing further agression by the U.S. Furthermore, since it's not like he was even given a trial, we haven't really presented proof that he really is behind this. If he doesn't get a chance to defend himself against accusations, how do we know he isn't just a scape goat?
:).
Political dissidents, you say? Nonsense. We would be going after *known* terrorists, people with quite a few claimed terrorist attacks on their records, not some guy who just opposes his country's government.
We'd be going after *known* terrorists? How do they become *known*? By killing people. So by then it is too late. So then how do we stop them from getting to that point? We have to infiltrate organizations who *might* harbor terrorists. And hey, while we are there, why don't we do a bit to keep them quiet. It's a very slippery slope when the government starts lashing out secretly. If there's no oversight, no judge, what's to stop them from infiltrating more benign organizations?
Well, I guess you *could* try them and put them in prison. But what do you do when, a few months later, 10 guys carrying concealed plastic containers walk into the Empire State building and threaten to release Serin gas (or Anthrax or whatever) all over Manhattan unless you let bin Laden or whoever is currently in jail walk away free? Not much you can do, eh?
So we kill him. And then 10 guys carrying concealed plastic contaners walk into the empire state build and release serin gas (or antrhax or whatever) all over Manhattan. The only way to defuse their fanaticism is to show to the world in a fair way what he has done and how it is truely a blight on humanity. The most fanatical won't be convinced by this, but then shooting him won't convince them either (and it may convince less radical elements that the United States is just a VERY large rogue nation).
No, these guys *must* die. And they must die in such a way as to discourage others from becoming terrorists: quietly and anonymously.
Yes because we all know that people who aren't afraid to die are likey to be afraid that we will kill them.... uh, okay, sure
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Read up on your history of Afghanistan and the wars that have been waged there. The Russians have tried and lost several times. The British have tried and lost. Hundreds of years of history is being ignored here.
Afghanistan is, at this point, dirt and stone. 5 years of drought and famine piled on top of hundreds of years of fighting and infighting have brought the place about as close as you can get to hell while still walking the planet.
Here's the image that keeps flying through my head:
Old-school B-52 bombers appear over Afghanistan
People run for whatever cover is possibly left at this point in Afghanistan's history
Food, clothing and medical supplies start falling, parachuting to the ground.
Vengeance begets vengeance. If only our leaders in America could see objectively how steadfastly they refuse to learn from history. Our presence in the middle east needs to STOP being about war and START being about peace if we EVER expect there to be a cease-fire from the militants that reside there.
IMHO, people who commit crimes out of hatred for groups (not just individuals) are more likely to commit more crimes against them, and to commit more violent crimes.
If we agree that part of the purpose of jail is to protect society from criminals then imposing stiffer penalties for crimes motivated by bigotry makes some sense.
The important part here is that the penalties are still attached to real crimes. Thoughts alone are not a crime. The KKK and other groups still can protest in appropriate ways, without being rounded up for the views they hold.
What someone is thinking goes toward motivation and intent, which I think is an important part of a criminal proceeding. It's not the thoughts alone that are outlawed its how people act on them.
If the CIA believe that they should all be fired. There are over a million arab americans living in the US. There are a million moslems living in the UK. There are a quarter of a billion of them in the neighbouring states to afghanisan.
Given the fractious nature of Islamic politics it should not be beyond the ability of a moderately competent inteligence agency to recruit people to infiltrate.
Turning insiders is also an option, however turned agents are very different from moles. If you don't have the ability to infiltrate a group you are most unlikely to be able to turn someone inside it.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Off the wall -- given their society, I think we should haul the guy to a hospital, give him a sex change and dump him back where he came from.
No messy assasination and he's out of the power picture.
My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
I think firing people on the current CIA hirerarchy is a good start !
...
Here's more on this
Why can't Uncle Sam spy? -
The problem is red tape, turf battles and no spies on the ground, say experts
- sigs are for wimps.
Bin Laden has been known to send couriers with PGP encrypted messages on floppy disks to communicate with terrorist cells. He used to use a satellite phone until he found out the NSA was listening in on his phone calls.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
After the russian were done with Afganistan, there wasn't much left, and the Russians still couldn't conquer them. Bombing poor civilians while they huddle in their homes isn't a war. We need to find a way to get at Osama Bin Laden, his followers, and the Taliban.
After they are gone, it would probably be in our best interest to help rebuild this already devistated country.
The Taliban does NOT have popular support in Afghanistan. They rule by fear, force, & terror.
If that is where we end up attacking (pretty likely IMHO), and we rid Afghanistan of them, it'll be a great opportunity to help the people (possibly thru some of the opposing groups) start a democratic gov't.
New technologies, yes. New enemies, yes. A somewhat different operational environment, yes.
But what is this, really? Low-intensity conflict - a counter-insurgency campaign. We've done it before (against Muslims, too), in the Phillipines. Quite frankly, we won that one. We lost the second time we tried, in Vietnam (actually, we won the counterinsurgency phase, but lost the guerilla/conventional forces phase). Other countries have, too. Militarily, nobody's ever done a good job of running a COIN campaign in Afghanistan - the people, the culture, the terrain, and the environment are more conducive to the insurgents than just about any other place on earth.
Bombing Afghanistan won't do much good, either, for two reasons:
- It leaves us very vulnerable to bad intel. The 1998 cruise missile strikes are a great example of that. It's not well publicized, but that was an intel op that we came out on the wrong end of. We were supposed to be hitting a meeting of terrorist leaders, at least according to intercepted cell phone calls. What we actually hit was a religious retreat of Pakistani physicians. All we accomplished was demonstrating very clearly that we were listening in on cell phone calls.
- There really isn't much left to bomb. The last 22 years of combat in Afghanistan has pretty much destroyed the national infrastructure - there just aren't any good targets left. All bombing would do right now is move the rubble around some.
Want to win this war? Hearts and minds - we're going to have to go in, occupy the area, and change the society.
The Russians sent a bunch of heroin addicts and alcoholic draftees to Afghanistan to fight the CIA-by-proxy. The Russian army today is no better - look at Chechnya.
I'm not saying that Afghanistan would be a cakewalk for the US Army, but the terrain is similar to terrain they train on in the US, and they are a much better equipped and better disciplined force. There is no comparison.
This violates the common precept of equal treatment - which was tossed out of our law decades ago, unfortunately.
They're up the creek without a paddle, since everyone has forgotten about them, and they're sitting right under a bomb site.
Seriously, the mother of one of the american workers asked that the government remember that her daughter was in Kabul before they started bombing it. A voice in the wilderness, I'm afraid.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
The only effective way I can see of getting rid of them is infiltrating their organizations, gathering as much intelligence about them as possible, then assasinating them one by one.
You have a valid point, but this is only part of the job. You can chase after terrorists forever, and more will crawl out from under the rocks of religeous fanatism. The point in going after Afganistan, is to stom them and other countries from providing these terrorists with a safe place to train and finacial resources. If govenments are supporting these terrorist activities, then they need to be stopped.
The problem is that even as we take out one terrorist cell, another will pop up. This could easily end up as unending as the "war on drugs". The real question is why do these people hate the US so much. One reason I've heard a lot lately is that the freedoms that the US stands for fly in the face of their strict religeous beliefs. They see the freedom and democracy that the US preaches as a horrible affront to their morality. They're attacking us because our way of life, and the fact that we are prosperous while living that way, is disolving the strict religeous fanatism of their countries. They see Western influence as being a horrible corruption that they must stamp out before it destroys what they believe in.
I don't see the US changin it's ways. I see us continueing to stick up for individual freedoms. I see us continuing to condem the atrocities like what the Taliban has done to the women of their own country in the name of Islam. This leads us to an impass. They are willing to kill to defend their beliefs, they've proven that. We are being force to kill to protect ours. It's important to note that it's not the religeon of Islam itself. It is the interpretation of it by some fanatics that is incompatible with our way of life. I don't see a peaceful solution when two groups are so diametrically opposed.
Its Gandhi, not Ghandi.
Sorry about that. I'm not the biggest Gandhi fan, but I'll try and spell the name right. :)
You armed the mujahedeen against the former USSR (The CIA did it), and now you have Laden and the Taliban sticking it up your arses.
It's an imperfect world, and hindsite is 20/20. Sometimes you have to take the lessor of the evils of the time (See Iran/Iraq war) and do the best you can. And it's hard to imagine a bigger evil than the former Soviet Union.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Instead, such an act would further fuel the hate that this came from to begin with. If anything, we should investigate where this came from and try to remedy that. Take away the cause, research just *why* this could have happened and try to take away the causes of terrorism instead of just fight the effects.
The main cause of terrorism in this case has already been mouthed by Bin Laden over and over again. He's upset we set foot on Saudi Arabia, and his orginzation is interested in replacing infidel govts like ours with radical Islamic fundamentalism.
The main problem here is radicals that pervert the Islamic religion, and governments that use this religion to opress their citizenry and fund terrorist to do their dirty work.
We might not be dealing with a "traditional army", but if you train, feed, harbor and encourage the terrorist groups that's just another type of army. It's also convienient, because you say "It wasn't me" type of excuses.
If we do not that (and the Bush Administration seems incapable of it) then this is only the beginning, no matter how many countries the US would nuke away for the purpose of retaliation.
Actually, I have all the confidence that they have a good chance of succeding in eliminating at least some of the more dangerous groups.
Bush's team learned from president Clinton, that cruise misseles don't solve the problem at all.
BTW, we're not about to nuke anybody, but feel free to be alarmist and reactionary. Perhaps the studying here should be by you and why don't you place any blame on the Islamic fundamentalist, and at least one of their Theocratic government, which by the way opresses Afghans.
Oh, Afghani foreign policy after we helped them get rid of Russia ? 43 million in drought relief last year, and 9 out of 10 dollars of aid into Afghanistan come from the US.
Maybe the world community , specially Europe should try to help poor countries as well instead of depending on the US to be the one spending all the money ?
- sigs are for wimps.
Good points, from a unique vantage point. Thanks for sharing them. You also confirm my suspicion that we're dealing with a suicide cult here. That and answer one of the questions bothering me, if bin-Laden really cared about Afganistan, then why isn't he using his millions to create industries ?
Your response answers that question, but does raise another one. How does one go about exterminatnig this vermin ? Do we go village-hopping ? That is, we go to a village, offer it prosperity & protection for cooperation and annihlation saying no ?
Do we keep then on the run so much that they can't organize ? Set traps for them ? YOu seem to have a good understanding of the situation, I'd like some more detail of your opinions.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Let's see , what's better for the human race;
Democracy or Theocratic Fundamentalism ?
This one is a no brainer, just ask the Hindus in Afghanistan asked to wear a scarlet letter marking them as non-Muslim.
As the women who got their businesses taken away, and that are not allowed to be educated and have to be covered even with masks.
Ask the people who are sick and tired of tribal warfare, and people making up religious laws that give them no freedom.
Democracy or Theocratic Fundamentalism ?
- sigs are for wimps.
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.
Someone mod this up. This is so on target it's scary.
The reason Bin Laden is waging this war is to start a cultural war. Look back to the Holy Crusades... East vs West, many soldiers died on both sides, and the only thing that came out of it was both sides agreeing to stop fighting. Not much of a victory.
Hammer of Truth
However, we have people running this campaign that learned from vietnam.
We will also have pretty much full approval to commit enough armed forces to achieve our goal(whether its to get Osama Ben dover, or to take down the current government)
Gurella attacks in afgan territory are far easier to detect then in vietnam.
We do have some technology that will help us with this. such as relativly cheap drones that can keep 24 hour survalience.
its easier to control 'taken' territory in afgan.
Logistice, while always a trying task, is something are military can do very well, espcially with the support of neighboring contries.
If the government wont give him up, you apply pressure.
In vietnam, are 'enemy' was supplied by the USSR.
Personally I think they've gotten a little full of themselfs. They seem to forget the reason the drove the USSR out of there country, was because they had the support of World powers. I don't know what the expect to do without any supprt from a major world power.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Great idea.
No thanx. "Wanted dead or dead" is the way to go this time. And let's not forget the lieutenants, suppliers, etc. This is much more than just one guy or one organization. This will be a continuing effort on into the indefinite future. We willl need a permanent Department of Anti-Terrorism, and much of what it does will not be pretty.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
My personal opinion is that this is pure propaganda. It's precisely what politicians and the media would want you to believe. Why? Because this approach leads to an emotional response, rather than a rational one. And we all know how easy it is to manipulate people's emotions. This is an incredible opportunity for politicians to push their own agenda, and stirring up people's emotions is the first step in that direction (if you have trouble believing this, look closely at any statement made by any politician during the last week and notice the abundant use of metaphors and symbols, rather than logical reasoning in their speech). The real reason, IMHO, for this display of hatred towards the USA has to do with how SOME of the Middle-Eastern people perceive the interventions of the US in what they call "their own business". They see the US as a country that uses its superior military power to brutally impose its own selfish interests to anyone who might not agree. Whether this perception is accurate or not, it's beyond the scope of my argument. The fact is that it exists and it's leading to despicable acts of terrorism against innocent people like the one last Tuesday.
Now what US politicians seem to be trying to do is feed a constant stream of propaganda to the population, with the apparent purpose of getting the public to identify Afghanistan as "the enemy" and to believe, exactly like you stated, that these people hate the "American way of life itself", which, logically speaking, is nonsense. These people have probably no idea of how American live and what they believe in. How can they hate something they don't know? They're probably manipulated into mindless hostility towards Americans, the same way Americans seem now manipulated into mindless hostility towards Afghans. THIS CANNOT LEAD TO ANYTHING GOOD.
People, both Eastern and Western, need to wake up and realize there's no point in blindly hating each other. They need to see how their own leaders are turning them against each other, for who knows what reasons, and for once step up and put an end to all this. What the heck would be so wrong in Middle Easterners collaborating with the West in an effort to stop terrorism, and the West revising a couple of items on its foreign policy, especially the ones Arabs find the most sensitive?
Oh well. I'm still allowed to dream, aren't I?
All that you have said is reasonable and will be done. However, one must beware of changing policy as a reaction to a terrorist act. That's exactly the goal and motivation of most acts of terrorism by definition.
...", "You are afraid to die, we are not", etc)
As for Bin Laden, we have no choice but to bring him to justice. Even if that means others come up. Being passive in the face of evil is evil itself and very impractical.
This has nothing to do with revenge or retribution, this has to do with self preservation. And one or two measures are not the solution, a myriad of options need to be considered.
But to say that capturing and bringing the culprit and others with him to justice is not necessary, is ludicrous. Pay attention to the words of the terrorist, they are counting on that same reaction.
And again, I'll say it, instead of only asking what we've done, go read the motivations from the devil's own mouth. He's said it pretty clear, he's told people to kill "Americans" whenever you can, etc.
We also can't go soft like usual with regimes and terrorist. We've been attack by this particular network before many many times, and we did nothing. The last thing we did was an innefective and dumb cruise missile attack, which that did embolden the terrorist and showed them more of our weakness, which is hesitation to act.
BTW, that one can also be shown easily by paying attention to the terrorist own words (Bin Laden's brother, in CBS interview. "You are cowards sending cruise missiles
As for being from another country ? Well at least 63 nationalities were present in that attack, chances are they killed somebody from your country too.
- sigs are for wimps.
Is secret, unending, requires a lot of money, requires a lot of invasive police action, and shows very little results from year to year. Yet it is a great reason to explain why sugar is being rationed and why War is really Peace.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
I was just replying to the notion that since America is a democracy that the civilians DID deserve to be bombed because the civilians were responsible for the policies of their government. Which would be laughable even if we were a democracy.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
their weapons until death
This is no different than the Americans island hopping in WW2 against Japanese soldiers as fanatical as they come, defending their positions until the last man.
Nonetheless, I stick by my statements regarding the Russian army. You simply cannot compare it to any NATO force. During the Afghan invasion this was a draftee force. They did not want to be there, and the incredibly high instances of substance abuse bore that out. The US went through a similar problem with perpetually stoned draftees during Vietnam, which is a key reason why no modern army will field a draftee force if they don't have to.
I agree with you that it is no solution for the terrorist problem. It is a solution to the home front demaning retalliation problem.
I suppose we will see very soon if the US military are capable of planning an operation that results in the death or capture of bin Laden with minimal loss of American life. I think they probably are, unless they insist on rushing it.
People talk about 'assimilating hostile countries' and sometimes that sounds rather disturbing, but this is one context where it makes sense. We have billions dedicated to the cause of beating these terrorists. Let's use some of those billions to dump _lots_ of food and blankets and simple medical supplies, not on the terrorists but on the poor bastards who've been on ground zero for war after war. We _know_ Afghanistan is a wasteland, and we _know_ there are innocents there- and we can also be pretty damned certain that dropping food and blankets isn't going to help the terrorists- _they_ have food, you'd better believe it. They're arranging to get airliner pilot training while the people of Afghanistan starve and die- is it any wonder that there's nobody to boot Bin Laden out? The only ones with food and shelter _are_ the militants.
I hope someone does something with this idea, because it would be so easy, so easy to do.
We will have to remain focussed for quite a long time, maybe even years.
As horrible as it is to say it, in some ways this war will be good for America. Many people have worried that Americans were taking their freedom for granted, they had developed a psychology of complaint and victimization, they had stopped voting, they had become physically unfit and, in general, withdrawn from the political life of their country to watch game shows on television.
Usually the people who harped on these points had dubious motives themselves and were appealing to the same resentment and victimization that they decried.
However, surely one of the things that motivated the terrorists must have been the perception that Americans were soft and too attached to creature comforts to respond. What would they have seen during the many months they trained in the United States to disabuse them?
To defeat the terrorists we may have to become better people, at least in the sense of being willing to put aside our comforts for liberty.
War is absolutely the worst way to have your greatness tested. It brings out the worst in a nation as well as the best. However, no one doubts that America emerged from World War II stronger than ever, with a devotion to its institutions and a realistic appreciation of its international responsibilities that only sacrifice can bring.
If this war is a new kind that is fought not only by soldiers in uniform but by every citizen, then so much the better.
It's a bit long, about 29K of HTML, but I spent a fair amount of time since Saturday editing it, so it shouldn't be too difficult a read.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
Scanning the Middle East Wire, I ran across this juicy nugget of wisdom.
...
Brute Force or Smart Pressure?
Middle East News Online
Ian Urbina, editor at Middle East Report
Posted Tuesday September 18, 2001 - 05:03:23 PM EDT
Colin Powell has two rules in foreign policy: respond with overwhelming force and always maintain a clear exit strategy. The problem with terrorism is that overwhelming force removes all exit strategies. The more forceful the US military reaction, the greater the increase in enemies, the less the opportunity for withdrawal. Indeed, this is a different type of war. It will be lost with brute force or won with smart pressure.
The US must bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice and take their support networks out of operation permanently. The exact opposite will be achieved by a military response. Bombing or sending in troops may help restore the nation's self- confidence. But it will also increase Bin Laden's recruitment by arming him with images of American aircraft attacking Arab states and killing civilians. At the root of anti- Americanism is the perception of the US as a global bully. The US does what it wants because it can. Bombing or invading will only prove this perception correct, thereby creating more militants willing to sacrifice their lives to show that even the strongest nation in the world can not act without impunity.
The alternative is to employ smart pressure. That means acting through the law not above it. Bring forward the evidence, which surely exists, and indict bin Laden as a mass murderer. As Michael Klare, Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, has pointed out, using global law enforcement collaboration plus moral and religious leverage is an approach with twice the effectiveness and half the blowback.
Pursuing the problem as an international criminal investigation, as with other terrorists, will lend the US the ethical and legal credibility it needs to remove Bin Laden rather than merely drive him underground where he will thrive.
If the US drops its war rhetoric, governments in the Middle East will be much more inclined to cooperate with requests for assistance in tracking down and arresting bin Laden and his associates. The deliberate murder of innocents is as much a crime and an abomination in Muslim societies as it is in Christian societies. It would be foolish to forget that it is only a fringe element of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims which has seized upon violence to address their grievances. Unfortunately, the unilateralist rhetoric of the US is quickly alienating many countries in Middle East.
Using military might to intimidate world leaders into unequivocally backing US decisions will only sow instability and popular resentment. Even the Taliban initially stated that they would hand over bin Laden if there was proof of his role. But as the US grew more forceful in its threats, the Taliban became more entrenched in its defensiveness. Now, many Afghani's in the region who have stated that they despise the Taliban are also saying that they will return to fight if the Americans continue their aggressive course.
To win the fight against terrorism, the US must stop approaching it as a war and begin attacking it as a crime.
Ian Urbina is an editor at Middle East Report and is based at the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a foreign policy think tank in Washington DC.
True enough, although most folks have never heard of that.
Just observing the phenomena
Most folks first got an idea as to how gruesome war can be by seeing actual battle footage on the Nightly News. Their reactions and protests were natural as far as not wanting things to be so gruesome. Also in this regard, alot of folks grow up never really making a connection between the meat in the supermarkets and the limbs and bodies of creatures they see on the farm.
So there has beren a lot on insulation from reality, not wanting to see what is there.
The reality check just bounced
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Say it again!
;-)
Afganistan is mostly just people living in rubble anyway.
I guess you could kill lots of people, I don't think they'll hate america any less for that.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
It's an imperfect world, and hindsite is 20/20.
That's a complete copout. It was known at the time that the people who were getting the money (e.g., Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) were the most bloodthirsty fanatics in the country, and not even the best fighters (Massoud was).
The stupidity was compounded by supporting the Taliban, which seemed liked a good idea to who? Not to me. We're talking at the time, this was obvious. U.S. foreign policy seems to be to support whoever looks like the biggest strongman with the fewest moral inhibitions. It's a theme that's been played out over and over again. Please, lets not have any more of those stupid "hindsight" platitudes, lets get it right this time. The only people worth supporting are those whose aims are a free, democratic society.
Sometimes you have to take the lessor of the evils of the time (See Iran/Iraq war) and do the best you can. And it's hard to imagine a bigger evil than the former Soviet Union.
So why exactly was it necessary to support the Taliban? The soviet union was already out of the picture by that time. Whose bright idea was it. Sorry, this "lessor evil" thing is just used to justify policies that are nothing less than evil. I give you Saddam. Why is he there? To counter Iran. Never mind that Iran is slowly coming to its senses by itself, but Saddam isn't.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
There's a NYTimes article that I read yesterday that pretty much blows holes in that idea. Here's the link. I apparently have a login cookie at work, but not at home, so I'm gonna have to quote from memory.
The author asked a bunch of young militant "Muslim" seminary students if they'd belive that Osama bin Laden was an evil man if the author showed them video of him doing evil acts. Their answer: "Everybody knows Americans can make fake pictures and movies, so we wouldn't believe it."
I'm afraid that they've got that angle covered.
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I heard a stat earlier tonight that something like 99% of the Afghani people are opposed to the Taliban. In other words bombing the country rather than targeting a few individuals is just killing more innocents.
Read the 1998 ABC News interview. What part of doesn't scare you shitless?
Don't forget to say 'hi' to Neville Chamberlain. His head is in the next ostrich-hole over from you.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
So why exactly was it necessary to support the Taliban?
Here's a novel answer for Slashdot: I don't know. And I wager, you don't either. I don't have all the intelligence reports from the time. I don't know all the factors that went into the decision. I know the overall goal was preventing Soviet expansionism.
lets not have any more of those stupid "hindsight" platitudes, lets get it right this time.
And here's another guarantee: We will make mistakes this time, also. You don't seem to have come to grips with the fact that foreign policy -- particularly in the middle east -- is an inexact science. I think it's somewhat naive to think that government has some sort of crystal ball that tells you the best course of action.
The only people worth supporting are those whose aims are a free, democratic society.
I agree, but tell me who those people are. Sometimes you have to take the long view, and take small steps toward freedom. Lets face it -- the middle east is not ready to convert to democracy. It's probably going to take another 50 to 100 years before the region moves in that direction. And who knows how many bloody conflicts. So given that, what can we do in the meantime? Do our best, and support the lessor-of-evil of the time. Even a lessor-of-evil is still less evil, particularly when there are no other options.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Really? There are stories of Japanese soldiers cut off from civilization protecting their positions for years after the war was done.
The Japanese were also clearly gearing up to defend their mainland if called upon. Only the surrender signal from the Emperor himself could call them off.
*sigh* you illustrate my point about emotional language perfectly. You see, what for you is "complete destruction of Israel" for Arabs is "regaining our homeland"; what you think is "preventing Iraq from using Kuwait's oil fields to gather the $$$ to build a nuclear capability" they see as "greedy Americans invading our country so that they can have cheap gas for their huge disgusting SUVs" and so on. This only leads to pointless hatred. THIS is how you ended up hating them for bringing death and destruction to your homeland, and this is how they ended up hating you for pretty much the same reason.
The way you want it, the US should probably just erase everyone in the Middle East who "hates the American way of life" from the face of the Earth (along with whoever gets in the way, innocent or not) and be done with it. That would all be fine and dandy, except for the devastating effect it would have on the US society itself. You've already witnessed the racial hatred ignited by the WTC disaster, with Arab-Americans being the targets of violence simply because they look Arabic. If you think people will accept the idea that "Arabs living in the Middle East are bad, but Arab-Americans are good" you're dead wrong. Declaring all-out war on Arabs, or even "some" Arabs is going to unleash a wave of racism in America like you've never seen before. Violence begets violence, people always seem to forget that...
I guess what my whole rant is about is that before being Arabs, Americans, Indians etc. we're all people. And the Arab civilians who have been killed by American bullets and bombs are no less innocent than the Americans who lost their lives in the WTC terrorist attack. If you ignore that, you'll become the victim of your own violence.
Real power is not adversarial:
What Should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
I keep hearing people talking about bombing Afghanistan to the stone age and sending in ground troops to find Bin Laden and take him out. Sounds great on paper but:
Afghanistan is not our enemy. The Taliban is. Your ordinary Afghan is poor, starving, and no enemy of ours. The Taliban has abused them, starved them, raped them. Unfortunately, the Taliban aren't in a building we can bomb. They're hidden, just like Bin Laden.
We're in a position much like Vietnam, if we send in ground forces. Who is the enemy? What does he or she look like? Are we just going to go in and shoot all the Afghanis? I hope not. At the same time, if we go in, we're going to be dealing with people who will drive trucks full of explosives into our bases/camps and kill themselves to kill more of us.
We're really looking at a war unlike any other, unless we take this course. If we take this course, then we're looking at another Vietnam. I hope we're not condemned to repeat history.
We must find a way to defeat the enemy, and how to do that, I can't say. What I can do is offer some ideas on what not to do, which is probably more important.
I really hope people here don't hold bad feelings against Arabs or Muslibs. Islam is a religion of love and understanding, just like any other religion. Let's not forget the Inquisition. Let's not forget the crusades.
Speaking of the crusades, Bush was stupid enough to use the word "crusade" in one of his speeches. The crusades were religion against religion, and let's just say the Christians didn't fare too well, so I don't think it would be (as his father says) "prudent" to use that word in comparison.
I don't know how things will be in the future. I don't think any of us really knows. It's all a scary and it's going to be a brand new lifestyle for us in the States. It will change slowly, but make no mistake, it will change. Since it will be a slow change, I think we'll all learn to adjust, just as many of our allies who have long been victims of terrorism have.
God Bless America!
The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
Can you really say that "violence against noncombatant targets" is someone's definition of freedom fighting?
You are right though... it is all about perspective.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Of course somebody will say that "crypto with a permit will be okay". Well, that's nice, until you realize that North America is ridden with insecure hosts just waiting to be taken over. Why? Because it's still difficult to make strong cryptography an integral part of any software system -- it's always an add-on. Why is it critical that a bunch of unrelated, unimportant machines, usually owned by universities, home users and corporations, be secured? Distributed Denial of Service Attacks, and Data Theft.
DDoS is an obvious threat. It can take out a anyone on the internet, and there's not much a victim can do to stop it. CodeRed is harmless compared to what a major, well-funded group could create (e.g. as part of a war).
Data theft is another problem, particular when that data is someone's identity. Try locating someone who used a stolen credit card number and a stolen name and a several forged passports to book flights to several major U.S. cities. How did the person get this info? From a student logging into a company machine from a NCD X terminal (no crypto, of course) at the university which is ony flat bridged (i.e. very sniffable) ethernet, rather than using Kerberos . . .
Anyway, I don't have time to finish this argument, but I'm sure other people here can add to it. Feel free to discuss this 'pro-crypto for security' argument and bring up some good points about it. In a few days (weeks?) I'm going to draft a solid case for crypto and security (and submit it for limited review to some newsgroups), then put up a web page and post the link to a bunch of public forums (no, I won't spam or over-cross-post or anything).
Or, if some more-qualified (i.e. more credable in the eyes of the public) security expert (or expert group!) wants to lead this, please let me know so I don't dilute the effort.
And here's another guarantee: We will make mistakes this time, also. You don't seem to have come to grips with the fact that foreign policy -- particularly in the middle east -- is an inexact science. I think it's somewhat naive to think that government has some sort of crystal ball that tells you the best course of action.
You don't seem to have come to grip with the fact that supporting the Taliban was just a cynical money grab, since some U.S. Oil company wanted to build a pipeline through the country and wanted somebody strong and central to negotiate with. So it was nothing but greed, and those chickens came home to roost.
Like I said, this is a common theme in U.S. foreign policy. Look at the history of South America. It's time for you to stop denying that this happens and start recognizing that the only way to have a safe, secure world is to stop this shit.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
We are going to start a serious war that IMHO will have very little effect on stopping future terrorism from happening again on American soil. Take out Bin Laden and who is left? Tons more...
I read an article by Tamim Ansary where he stated "I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish."
I encourage everyone to read this essay in order to gain some perspective. We need to implement some sort of "marshall plan" to make sure we rebuild Afghanistan and replace the Taliban with a just government, much like we did with Japan in WW2. The Northern Alliance comes to mind as they have been fighting the Taliban for quite some time now. If we don't do this, we are going to create an environment where new terrorists will inevitably grow.
We cannot and should not look at this as a short term solution. We have to work with countries that may not be in our best interests financially. Kuwait made sense financially, but Afghanistan does not, however, we are now seeing the effect of such an environment. If the US government is wise, it will be working out a plan while the conflict is ensuing. We must follow through and rebuild, educate, finance, and empower the Afghan people to be more than drug dealers or victims of the Taliban oppression.
Maybe we should just go back to caves and kill each other with bone clubs eh ?
- sigs are for wimps.
Like I said, this is a common theme [money] in U.S. foreign policy.
No duh. It's called the "National Interest". One national interest was preventing Soviet Expansionism. And another national interest is making sure we get free flow of oil. I don't know about Afghanistan, but here's another "news flash": That's one of the main reasons we defended Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq.
And yes, often another indirect national interest is helping struggling democracies.
People really need to clue in that economic freedom is at least as important, if not MORE important, than other freedoms. I like this quote, don't know who said it: "Without economic freedom, all other freedoms are just an intellectual exercise". The economic freedom we enjoy in the US is unbelievably taken for granted.
There are two ways you can look at it: that everything is "greed", and we're living in a "corporate state" (as Katz would probably say), or that oil is the fuel of the economy, and it's damn important for it to flow freely.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Funny that everyone who replied to my posts assumed I am American, and that I support the idea of invading Afghanistan.
I'm not in the least bit American, and in my opinion destroying Afghanistan because a terrorist is hiding there is like blowing up Boston because a serial killer lives there.
I just happen to believe brute force works when it is not constrained by popular opinion, there are no reporters present at ground zero, and even if they were, the viewers at home would howl and cheer at the sight of dead or exploding Afghans.
I'm also of the opinion that Afghanistan is in such a sorry shape that it can't defend itself. Certainly not the way they handled the Soviet invasion.
So you're saying that in the case, the desire to build a pipeline across Afghanistan justified supporting two groups (Gullbuddin Hekmatyar and Taleban) that everybody knew were a gang of bloodthirty murderers (the first) and delusional fundamentalists (the second)? I'm really curious, are you going to plead ignorance or "National Interest"?
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.