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Bruce Schneier Blasts Politicians, Media
An anonymous reader writes, "In his latest newsletter, security author Bruce Schneier delivered a scathing critique of politicians and the media for promoting fear and ultimately doing exactly what the terrorists want. Citing several cases of false alarms, Schneier writes: 'Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat... Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance
political careers or increase a television show's viewership.' Are the terrorists laughing at us?"
Dissent gets stifled using anti-terror legislation... government fuck-ups get buried beneath terror headlines... people are given an enemy, and a reason to be obedient. Terrorism makes it easy for politicians to get their own way. Considering the mind-bogglingly small impact of terrorism, why wouldn't they want to encourage it?
I mean, remember the ban on LIQUIDS and GELS on US aircraft? Despite all the improvised explosives experts stating how freakin' hard it would be to succssfully hide and then deploy explosives packaged in a tube of hair gel or other consumer packing?
Yeah, they're probably laughing. As we slowly give up our freedoms and rights bit by bit for some safety that nobody can prove we actually have.
I can quantify the infringements on my rights and freedom...can you quantify how much safer we are?
Blar.
The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.
I'm more afraid of the politicians than I am of the terrorists. I can't refuse to be terrorized by them, however.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Are the terrorists laughing at us? Yes they are. 9/11 was a tragedy but it killed only few thousands, what happened after (and its not over yet) killed freedoms of entire nation. By far the most damaging was what 'happened after'.
When the bad guys pull off an attack and kill a lot of people, we demand that the government "share more information with us." When the bad guys don't pull off such an attack for a few years and all we have is warnings, we demand that the government "stop trying to scare us." We can't have it both ways.
Frankly, hearing about plots and arrests and suspects every week doesn't scare me. Just the opposite. It makes me feel like at least somebody's still doing their goddamned job. Maybe that's false security, but I'll take it. It's better than the alternative of burying our heads in the sand and pretending there are no bad guys, as Schneier evidently suggests.
He's naive if he thinks that the politicians don't realize that. Fear mongering serves politicians' interests as well -- especially if you'd like to exert more control over the public.
The owls are not what they seem
Here's what the terrorists care about:
1) they don't want the US to have such economic and political power over their countries
2) they are pretty miffed that the US supports Israel
3) some of them want Islam to be the dominant religion all over the world
4) they don't like the US propping up regimes that suppress their brand of religion
5) they don't like the US propping up regimes that treat their citizens inhumanely
6) they want to be taken seriously
7) they want to act on equal terms with the West
They don't care whether or not we are squandering our freedoms. That is a cop-out and jingoism that makes it seem like there are all these external forces that are causing us to give up our freedoms. It's a way of appealing to our nationalist nature instead of our patriotic nature.
We are losing our freedoms because we are letting it happen. Period. This has nothing to do with terrorism or terrorist wishes except that politicians on both sides use appeals to our emotions to take those freedoms away on the one hand and to lamely protest their usurpation on the other.
I have no analogy for this. It doesn't need one. So why do all these pundits keep spouting these hackneyed bad analogies? Because they don't think you're any smarter than that.
I think you're smart enough to see through it. It is my fervent hope that we (the true intellectual elite) can move this country forward without jingoism and without nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance.
"Are the terrorists laughing at us?"
Have they bothered attacking us in the last 5 years or so? Not really. They attacked some airplanes in other countries that were headed here, but that's about it.
I think that in itself tells us something. Either they are Running Scared, or Pleased As Punch.
They believe it is their duty to terrorize us, so I seriously doubt they are scared at all.
No, I think they are probably tremendously happy at how they've made us all cower in fear and totally redirected the majority of our President's efforts towards a completely unfruitful campaign against them and a huge backlash on us denying us the very freedoms we are supposed to be fighting for.
Go us! Whoo! -sigh-
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Bruce has hit the nail on the head.
... no eye drops, no hair gel, slip-on shoes .. it's going to be great. If the terrorist want to drag us back to the middle ages, I guess this is a small step in the right direction.
Just the other day I went to Ausatralia Post to send a small packet. The postal folk wanted me to show them some photo id before they couold sent it. No, they didn't copy it or anything, just looked at it.
How absurd is this? Do they seriouosly beleiove any self respecting terrorist would not have some sort of photo id - even, just possibly, fake? And what in heck was mildly annoying millions of people sending parcels going to achieve?
The mind boggles.
I'm flying to London next week. Let me see
"Cats like plain crisps"
. . .when did slashdot start covering terrorism issues? This isn't even close to news for nerds, or my rights online.
Somebody hasn't been paying attention.
KFG
From the article... "Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.'"
what rock has this guy been under? I have never EVER met a journalist that was not out to further themselves at the expense of others. Every interview I have given or was with a friend or co-worker that was interviewed had their words rearranged and mis-quoted to "crank up" the drama.
Journalism has been pretty scummy for a long time, I guess that comes from the fact that if it's not sensational it does not get published.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
People like Bruce are the canary. As long as people like him can say things like this, there's hope that no matter how bad it is at that moment, it can still be fixed. When he's shut down, however, we're in far deeper than we can get back out of.
What surprises me is that more people aren't speaking up like Schneier. It seems to me that the role of the press and politicians in promoting terror is very much like that of oxygen and fuel in promoting fire.
If you don't feed the spark, it goes out.
If you doubt this, look at other, more important issues (affecting much more than a few thousand people) that routinely die out in the press because they're ignored.
Not to hijack the thread, I'll give a tiny sample, and ask politely that you don't reply to the examples, just to the general principle
* Voting machine irregularities and bad faith at Diebold
* Retraction of whistleblower protections in the US Federal Government
* Increasing exemptions to the US FOIA
* FCC regulation changes making it possible for 2 media giants to completely control any given local market.
The impact of these little stories is far more interesting than which 10 or 100 people will be killed by a terrorist attack someday. As someone just recently put it, more people are killed every year by peanut allergies than by global terrorism.
The War on Peanuts awaits.
Come on seriously????
Your analogy is flawed and not only wrong, but abhorrent.
You smoke cigars by Choice. No one is holding a box cutter to your throat and forcing you to buy a pack of Camels...
You chose death over life... then you DO deserve it.
I hate all this millions of settlements against tobacco companies now.
When the surgeons and doctors were shouting hoarse in 1970s, people ignored them as fools and continued smoking.. and now they sue the companies for supplying them in first place.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
It's not that we're aiding and abetting the terrorist's fear mongering agenda by spreading fear. Perhaps he's saying that the spread of fear is totally intended, and that the effect has been welcomed...although not by most of society. Fear is control. It's also a great method of cover in case we start questioning things.
The reason the fear tactic keeps getting brought up is because there is something to be gained by keeping everyone fearful. The trick is to follow that intent and then maybe we can clearly see where we're being taken.
"Much of our counterterrorist efforts are nothing more than security theater: ineffectual measures that look good"
No kidding. 6 months after 9/11, I accidentally left a box cutter in my jacket pocket on a flight to LA. Jacket went through the airport X-Ray scanners - it had nothing else at all in it. I left the airport, reached in think I had may wallet in that pocket, and found my box cutter. But, then again, I'm white.
The more you panic, the less effective you are. Thanks to fear-mongering politicians, our society is in a state of constant muted panic.
That whole "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" is actually right.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
What I find fascinating is how I've read posts from people in other stories that live in England or other countries that have endured regular and frequent terrorism before 9/11. They didn't give up all of their freedoms and stop going to pubs and other places that were being bombed. They would rather keep doing the things they want, rather than let the terrorists win.
Here in America we just seem to roll over now and give up every bit of freedom we have. I mean, the airport screening officials even tried to get J.K. Rowling to put her only copy of the manuscript to the final Harry Potter book in checked luggage. Imagine if they 'lost' that or it ended up getting leaked out early? At least she stood up to the security people in the US at the airport, but she is not American and a celebrity, so she isn't the best example. Why doesn't anyone stand up to these things today in our country? What on earth is happening to this country?
Blasting the hell out of Manhattan is much more disruptive to society than snuffing out pensioners a tad early with their own consent is ever likely to be.
Also, using military force against RJ Reynolds is unnecessary as the US already have military control of that area, and they only need to dispatch lightly armed police to shut them down. The army is for violence outside of the country, and the police for violence inside the country. Of course, if RJ Reynolds attempts an armed rebellion, that is likely to change.
Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither.
Spoken like someone who doesn't fly internationally for a living.
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
We have followed this advice in USENET for quite some time. Don't feed the troll, it's what they want. (Terrorists are just real world trolls if you think about it)
Instead, those involved have simply left us so messed up in the head that we end up terrorizing ourselves. We've become obsessed with finding an enemy we can't see, turning over every rock on the ground, just in case. We see monsters in our closets and under our beds, when they're really nothing more than shadows that make us feel a little uneasy in the dark.
The best way the terrorists can win, is to simply not show up ever again. As long as there is no closure... no justification for our own irrational behavior, we'll continue to degrade ourselves until there is nothing left to defend.
People just need to get over it and accept that they can be wrong. The terrorists got the best of us, and our instinct is to take on a "never again" attitude. Until we lose this mindset, we'll just continue to scare ourselves into submission.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I fly internationally about 4 times a year (US-UK routes) and i still agree with that statement. Some security is common sence, like locked cockpit doors and no obvious wep's (inconceivable for anyone in Europe that these were not enforced in the US before 9/11) but there is a huge difference between common sence security and what pass's for "security" these days, especially as all these extra measures don't really add any extra security, just a load of aggrovation for 10's of millions of people
If they're not, I am. As others have said, every time we go apoplectic whenever someone leaves their briefcase lying around an airport or someone gets antsy because because the guy next to them doesn't have white skin and looks funny, I just shake my head.
It's one thing to be vigilant and try to prevent attacks. But when you force herds of people into lines waiting to pass through the metal detectors, you're just giving anyone whow wants to cause havoc a juicy target to hit. Forget the planes. I'd be worried about someone around Thanksgiving strapping themselves with explosives and standing in line with me.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Quote: Our job is to think critically and rationally... Isn't this an oxymoron for the media and government?
...). It's a tool that can't be controlled from the top nearly as easily as the centrally-managed mass media. We should be using our expertise with this tool to get the details of their shenanigans into the minds of the general population.
Perhaps for the politicians. But not for security analysts like Bruce, or for the many people with security-related jobs inside the government.
And it shouldn't be for a gang of high-tech "nerds" like us. Instead of the usual political flameage, we should be behaving like the geeks we claim to be. We should be discussing how we can use our high tech to expose and interfere with both the terrorists and the politicians who are trying to take advantage of it and push us back into authoritarian societies with them in charge.
With the Internet, we have the best tool yet for tracking and exposing the people like bin Laden, Bush and Blair (and Cheney and Rumsfeld and
The growing importance of the political blogs is a good sign. But they're mostly journalist types; they really could use the help of us techie nerd types to develop tools for exposing the political and religious types, and for blocking their attempts to control our communications.
So get to work out there. For a few fun reads on the topic, google for "sousveillance".
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It may just be me, but never in any news report have I ever heard presented the rough size of these groups. For all I know Hezbollah is 50 crazies that want to launch rockets at Israel because 3000 years ago someone stole a goat. I think the biggest tactic our government employs is overstating the number of people that wish us harm. It's very easy to just assume that everyone hates you, and then you get the nice American response of "kill 'em all, let G-d sort them out."
But there have always been crazy people, they have always sought eachother out, and they have always caused harm. Why are we fighting this war with guns, when clearly it could be won with education. Cultural intolerance is a very familiar and very old beast, and genocide isn't the answer to what amounts to overblown racism. I imagine these "Islamofacist" groups really aren't any different than the "Hitler Youth" or "Shultzstaffel" of 60 years ago, and they are motivated by the same thing, they feel they're making a positive change in their condition. It can be argued differently I'm sure, but people that have success and are happy generally don't go around killing other people. Maybe if we fixed the problems of poverty and extreme wealth disparity (for example compare the Saudi royal family to the average working person in Saudi Arabia) then maybe we can all get along.
There are muslims that live and work and have families in America, so America can't possibly be so counter-Islam that having a society similar to ours (or even to the one that has developed in India in areas where America is outsourced) would be impossible because of their faith. A few radicals listening to a misinterpreted book, being told to do things by a misguided leader because they're poor and feel we're trying to destroy them and their way of life, because we support a nation that took the land they lived on.
I guess the point is don't just assume that they're doing all this because they hate you, they hate how they're living.
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither.
Yet it's amazing how often those of us who think this way get called "pussies" or worse by conservatives who themselves are hiding under their beds trembling in fear, begging Daddy Government to please take all of our rights and liberties if that's what it takes to keep the Boogie Man at bay for one more night.
Makes you wonder who the real "pussies" are...
At least not directly (i.e. politicians and terrorists plotting together for the next big stunt), but terrorist attacks further the goals of both groups. Terrorists want to spread terror (hence the name) and get "revenge" on those who they deem as the enemy, spread fear and force us to invest into security, thus weaken our economy because we can't spend on other things that we'd need.
Politicians get the agreement on otherwise unpopular restrictions on civil liberties and freedom, in other words, control.
It's a win-win situation. With us as the loosers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Be reasonable.
Consider how many flights take off daily. Now compare that to the flights that get blown up by terrorists (include those that were allegedly foiled, to at least get more than THREE in the last 5 years).
And now answer me why you still cross the road without first making your will. Your chances to die are so incredibly higher that you should be afraid to even dare thinking of crossing roads. And we even allow our children to do that! Would someone PLEASE think of the children?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It is not burying your head int he sand and pretending there are no bad guys by treating damage done to lives and property as a result of terrorism as no different than damage done and lives lost to other sources. Nice straw man, though.
I don't think it is so much that terrorists are laughing at us as they are pleased that the United States makes them relevant. We are the enabler.
Terrorist groups want to affect foreign policy, but that's not always about "do what we want or I'll blow myself up in a crowd of people." Much of it seems to be long-term thinking, which is to say that terrorist attacks even if they don't result in a change of policy at least result in the issue terrorists consider to be important staying in the news. In order to stay relevant, it is absolutely critical to terrorists that we treat damage and death caused by terrorism as disproportionaly mroe important than other types of tragedy.
If (a) the United States curtailed its neo-colonial economic protectionist foreign policy (which actually cares little or nothing about citizens of the world as long as its economic interests are protected) and (b) we treated death or damage from terrorism proportionate to its actual risk, we would be much better off as a country. We could free up tax money to return to people, or at least stem the damage we're doing to the future economy when the bill for all our current actions comes due.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
To give a more complete answer to your rant, terrorism related, or rather "anti"-terrorism related news has become news for nerds. As technicially competant educated people, with not a small sprinkling of intellectual, Slashdotters are more likely to be aware of and engaged in the civil liberties debate, especially when it concerns technology being used to "save us".
1984 crops up in discussions a lot. That's because a lot of people on these boards have actually read the book. There's not a lot of internet forums you can say that about. Slashdotters are interested in what is happening to free society in the wake of the twin towers' collapse, even if you are not. To cap it all off, Bruce Schneier is a computer security super geek. His words carry weight.
As an aside, I'm willing to bet that a big factor in Slashdotters interest and in general opposition to anti-terrorism legislation, is the fact that many here had a hard time in secondary education and would rather not be stamped on again in the emerging neo-facist society. Once you've tasted the lash, you won't be so eager for flogging as others.
May the Maths Be with you!
- How many Americans died from terrorist attacks in 2001?
- How many Americans died from natural disasters in 2001?
- Where did the government spend more money keeping us safe?
If you want some help answering these questions, see this article.I'm not trying to lessen the seriousness of 9/11. It was a very serious attack that demanded our attention. However, there are lots of other serious issues that also demand our attention.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Oh, please. Schneier is a well-known expert on cryptography, he wrote the "bible" for introductory cryptography, he founded an MSSP...he doesn't need the speaking gigs to have a comfortable income. Ad hominem attacks do nothing to weaken the strength of his arguments.
US politicians lost their boogey man when the Iron Curtain crumbled. They have found that terrorists make a dandy substitute.
I point the responsibility towards the people who are succumbing to these notions of fear and submitting their rights to the government in exchange for peace of mind. I was having dinner with my parents the other night, and my mother, who had MSNBC on in the background, was preaching GWB and how the war on terrorism was going to work and bring democracy to Iraq.
I suggested to my mother that Iraq might very well be the victim of a strong power vaccuum once (or if) the US ever removes its presence completely from the region. My mother countered by saying that wont happen if we set up their democracy correctly. I asked her why we're setting up their democracy for them. She said it was because they deserved it. I said that may be well and true, but you can not lead someone who lacks their own motivation into a battle and then leave. The will and effort to change the government has to come from the people oppressed by that government, not someone else egging them on for change. That is not a true foundation for that people's government.
Also its my mothers belief that democracy will eradicate all terrorist activity. She said once all countries have a democracy that everything would be harmonic and peaceful. I countered by asking about countries with democracies that chose not to go to Iraq with the US and she countered by saying those countries didn't know any better. I then suggested that a government such as ours and a democratic but Muslim-faith-based government may never see eye-to-eye. She retracted to her previous point of democracy being able to eliminate all internal terrorism. I then name-dropped Tim McVeigh as proof of that theory.
My mom is one of many people who believe warrantless wire-tapping is fine. She says she has nothing to hide. I asked her to tell me her current checking account balance. She got angry and told me no. I asked why she would give me that information and she replied it was none of my business. Then I asked her to tell me about all the phone calls she made last month to anyone who wasn't in our family. She told me again it was none of my business. I asked her why it was none of my business yet she had no problem letting the government know all of that information?
She got this nasty look on her face and told me GWB is going to save this country.
Yay.
1 ticket to Canada, please.
Apologies for spelling and grammar.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
From Canada, and certainly from publiations from Britain and Europe, it certainly appears that the terrorists have terrified the "United States".
That doesn't necessarily mean my american cousins, but it certainly does mean the government and press...
I fear more than the terrorist are laughing: friends and enemies both have lost respect for the US. Not a good thing.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
We played right into their hands. Al Qaeda even endorsed Bush for the 2004 elections.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I fly a lot, mostly inside the US but often internationally.
Despite flying a lot I am not at all afraid. Not in flight and not on the ground. Not of terrorism anyway, what I'm actually most afraid of is that I'll slip up when packing, which I sometimes have to do in a hurry, and a screener will find a prohibited item in my bag. My face would be plastered all over the news alongside stories of my other transgressions and depravities. I read hacker websites under an assumed named that mentions hijacking. I eat at asian restaurants a lot. An interview of some guy who once met me at a party will reveal that I offered him an illegal cigar imported from a communist dictatorship.
Or even worse, a fellow passenger will get the idea that I'm going to do something bad and I'll end up with a fat guy sitting on me for the duration of our F16 escorted rerouting. I'll be fired the next day because my company doesn't support terrorism and wants to issue a swift response. A few weeks later it will be revealed that I was just trying to stifle a yawn rather than upchuck a previously ingested explosive device, which was proposed as one possible way terrorists would try to kill us. But they don't hold press conferences for yawn stifling.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Anyone who is cited or charged for voiceing his or her belives in a nonviolent fashion is a bigger patriot than all those who drive around with a "Support our troops" sticker irregardles of the belives.
Forgive me if I seem obtuse, but what is so patriotic about voicing an opinion? I thought that patriotism was definined by a love and support of one's country/culture. If an opinion could conceivably be a contempt and disdain for one's country/culture (which many people certainly display), then how can that still be considered "patriotic"? I'm sorry, but I don't see the same sacred value is "voiceing his or her believes" that you do.
What if someone voiced the opinion that blacks were "mud people"? Would that person be a bigger patriot than the one who drives around with a "support our troops" sticker?
As for being afraid I agree with you - though much younger, I thank god that I do not live in America.
I don't believe in gods, but I am glad that I, a gay man, live in America opposed to living in Europe. The editor of the gay newspaper where I live (in the ultra-conservative, racist, gay-bashing South) was recently gay-bashed. No, he was NOT gay-bashed by Christian Republicans in Cobb County, Georgia. He was gay bashed by muslims in tolerant, progressive Amsterdam.
Bruce Bawer was a gay man who lived in the United States and decided to move to more tolerant, progressive Europe to escape from Christian Fundamentalists. What he found was that Europe has its own Fundamentalists, yet they are Muslims and they are worse in every way than America's Fundamentalists. He wrote a book about it called While Europe Slept. You can find out about it at http://www.brucebawer.com/. Is it safe to be gay in Europe? In many places, the answer has become not "no", but "hell no", and that is due largely to the influence of muslims who resoundingly believe that gay people are worthy of death.
While I do not support anything Bush has done (except for the tax cuts -- he's even waging the "war on terror" with a deliberately militant blind eye to the reality of jihad and Islam), I fear that the Europe that I know and love is going to be turned into an utter craphole by the regressive, anti-liberal, and fundamentliast muslim colonists who live there and are tolerated under the hideous canard of "multiculturalism". And I feel this is happening because far too many Europeans feel disdain and contempt for their own country/culture. "If Shari'a rules Europe, then who cares? Europe doesn't have a culture worth preserving anyway." I soundly disagree with that assessment, and I hope that more Europeans may find their sense of patriotism before muslims do to the beloved Mont Saint Michel what they did to the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
A few years ago, the US Dept of Homeland Security was advising people to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal their houses against chemical weapons.
I'm a Canadian who works in the US. I'm also a former Regular Force soldier who is now a Reservist. Part of my baliwick at one point was unit Chemical Warfare Officer.
So I come to work the day after that particular announcement was made, and I find a group of my co-workers discussing a plan for the one guy who owns a pickup truck to stop off at Home Depot and stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape. The plan was to buy in bulk, and they were working out the details for how much to buy, how to deliver it, etc etc.
I wound up delivering a little ad-hoc class on the properties of chemical weapons to about 30 people, the high points of which were:
1) Yes, modern chemical weapons are ludicrously lethal. Exposure to as little as a pinhead-sized drop of certain nerve agents can kill you, which means that a litre of agent has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
2) The *reason* that these agents are so stupidly toxic is that **DELIVERY** of agent is really serious problem. It is so difficult to arrange exposure of soldiers to agent AT ALL that you need tiny exposures to be incapacitiating or the stuff just doesn't work. If you have (say) 300,000 lethal doses in a litre of agent, try getting a lethal dose of that agent to 300,000 people - it's a nontrivial problem.
3) The people who invested most heavily in this equipment (the USSR and the USA) had access to MONSTER delivery systems, and the targets were expected to be densely packed. We're talking hundreds of tubes of artillery, and aircraft-based delivery systems that for all intents and purposes were giant crop dusters. We're not talking a couple of litres of agent here; we're talking about tanker-truck quantities.
4) The primary military objective of chemical weapons isn't to kill the enemy; they are a nucience and area denial weapon. As soon as you deliver a chemical strike, you force everybody in the area to get into their protective gear - bunny suit, gas mask, "Boots, Rubber, Clumsy" which is a serious pain in the ass and interferes with combat effectiveness. A chemical strike can channel the enemy, slow him down, induce fatigue and stress, forces him to take time to decomtaminate - but it rarely inflicts serious casulties.
5) The golden example of this is the Sarin attack on the Japanese subway a few years ago. Of all the places in the world to do a chemical strike, that's the best - stupid high population density maximizes the exposure pur unit volume of agent, limited ventallation reduces the amount of agent burned off, few exits maximizes the time the target is spent exposed to agent, and the agent itself was reasonably modern.
It SHOULD have been a slaughterhouse, according to conventional wisdom. But in reality, the amount of casulties due to agent was tiny; they inflicted more casulties through panic and stampeding than due to agent exposure.
Chemical weapons JUST DON'T WORK unless delivered in huge volumes - and the ability to deliver in huge volumes is limited to large, well-equipped state armies. A chemical strike is well down the list of potential threats to the civillian populace.
A skilled and motivated sniper is far, far more dangerous than a dozen nutballs with a litre of VX.
The fact that the Department of Homeland Security was advising people to buy plastic sheeting to protect themselves against chemical attack is completely ludicrous... and while I have a hard time buying into anybodies' tinfoil-hat conspriracy theories (never assume malevolance where stupidity will serve) that sure looks like fear-mongering to me.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I am not saying your post is false, but you forget a lot of terrorist : the intern one like mc veigh, IRA, separatist corse, separatist bask, tchecheyn (some of them at least have used arguably terrorist way, remmember the russian school), red army faction for the older one of us, etc...etc...
All those could not care less shit about "islam", "US support to Israel" and a few of your other points.
What I want to say is that because in the last 5 years the US was only attacked once by some ismlamist, you forget that terrorism is a world wide problem and people using islam as a pretext for terrorism is only a part of it. By ignoring this fact you weaken a rethoric which would otherwise stand of its own.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
And I hope the voters teach these low-life scumbags a lesson in November. It disgusts me every time I hear some liar like Dick Cheney saying if we pull out of Iraq, we're going to find terrorists in our supermarkets.
Mostly by virtue of their having existed longer.
You of course realize that that was general commentary on how humanity tends to settle differences of opinion. The 'founding fathers' part just fit the 'true blue' of the original I replied to.
For the thick: Change a few of the nouns around and you'll describe nearly every nation on earth, matters of scale aside.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
This is meant partially serious, and for the most part sarcastic. Let's look at a couple of numbers:
c tion.htm)
I'm unable to find a reliable source on terrorist-attack related deaths, but I think guestimating it at a couple thousand a year is (2001 excepted) more than high enough.
Each year 1.2M people get killed in automobile accidents, generally because either party isn't paying enough attention. A fair number of these deaths are caused by driving under influence. What do we need to wage war on? Alcohol? Carmanufacturers? Causes for sleep deprevation? (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_accident)
Why aren't we waging war against certain factions in Sudan? And estimated 70K+ people have been killed there in the 'recent' (read 3 years) past of genocidal behaviour. Nothing gets done about that, either. (Source: http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/fs/2005/45105.htm)
In 2005 due to natural disasters, more than 70,000 people lost their lives, so where is our War on Nature! (Oh hang on... We've already been doing that for centuries haven't we?) (Source: http://www.unisdr.org/disaster-statistics/introdu
The War on Terror doesn't exist. What does exist is random reactions to events that seem to shock people. What does exist is the ability to find excuses to spend more money. What does exist is the instillment of fear amongst a population (what you should really be scared of is crossing the road).
The War on Terror is played out in the media, not on a battlefield, and so far, as far as I'm concerned, the terrorists are winning. Even if it were just for the fact they've managed to seriously disturb people's lives (gotten into a plane recently?), managed to give politicians a way to curtail even more of 'our' freedom and cause considerable economic damages. Compare this to the actual amount of people directly impacted by terrorist attacks, and they've managed to score great result with fairly minimal use of force.
Splut.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
A majority of Americans elected Bush and the current Congress. If you elect a politician like Bush, this is the predictable result. Bush was already using FUD extensively during his campaign with pushbutton issues like crime, defense, safety, religion, and morality. Furthermore, because he obviously didn't have much of a political agenda besides funnelling as much public money as possible to his buddies in industry, so when the terrorism issue landed in his lap, it was ideal for spreading further FUD.
American voters evidently like to be scared, and Bush is delivering. Boring politicians that merely want to take sensible defense measures, fix budget deficits, deliver health care, fit into the international community, and do not too much damage to the environment don't stand a chance in comparison.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Shoot pool, not people. Drop pants, not bombs. Make love, not war.
:(){
Someone should tell that to the people of El Cajon and Pearl Mississippi.
Granite Hills grads honor hero:
Wikipedia: Luke Woodham:
And that's just the first two I found in three minutes of googling. Note that I didn't take a position here. I just thought we should have the facts straight before drawing conclusions.
Nope, no sig
by Robert Blumen
We are living in Brazil. The future as foretold by Terry Gilliam's 1985 rich and multi-layered film masterpiece Brazil is upon us. First released fifteen years ago, Terry Gilliam's Brazil was astonishingly accurate in forecasting political trends. In a previous essay, I examined the film as a critique of socialist central planning. In this piece, I will discuss how Brazil portends Bush's War on Terror.
The world of Brazil shows a totalitarian society in which freedom has been forfeited for a false promise of protection from terrorist attacks. Gilliam shows how the threat of terrorism is manipulated by the state as a means of political control over the population. The threat of terror is created by the internal security police in order to generate public acceptance of totalitarian police powers.
Gilliam's exposition raises some important questions: Is the terror created by the power of the state in the alleged pursuit of terrorism worse than the terrorism itself? And are they really any different?
The ministers of state in Brazil have succeeded in creating a society organized around a continuous response to the threat of terrorism. Random bombings occur regularly. The protagonist Sam and his mother must go through a security check in order to enter a restaurant. And then during their meal a large explosion blows out the back of the dining room; they continue eating while bodies are dragged away.
As in modern America, there is some doubt about whether Brazil's "War on Terrorism" is really working. At the opening of the film Minister Helpmann, the Deputy Minister of information (the internal security agency), appears on TV immediately after a bombing takes place:
INTERVIEWER: Do you think that the government is winning the battle against terrorists?
HELPMANN: Oh yes. Our morale is much higher than theirs, we're fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I'd say they're nearly out of the game.
INTERVIEWER: But the bombing campaign is now in its thirteenth year.
HELPMANN: Beginner's luck.
Now in the US, we are told by the Bush administration that the war on terrorism will become a more or less permanent state of affairs.
U.S. war may last decades
Military pushed to think broadly
By KAREN MASTERSON
WASHINGTON - The U.S. war on terrorism may rage for decades and has forced Pentagon strategists to think more broadly than they've had to since World War II, a top military official said Sunday.
"The fact that it could last several years, or many years, or maybe our lifetimes would not surprise me," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday on ABC's This Week.
The film has been reissued on DVD with commentary by the director in which he states that it was his intention to convey that there were so many government plants, double agents, agents provocateurs, moles, infiltrators, etc. that at some point even the government did not know for sure whether there were any real terrorists or whether all of the terror was fabricated by the police as part of their anti-terror campaign.
In a conversation between Sam and Ministry of Information office Jack Lint, Lint reveals how he - as a key member of the internal security department - understands the events that are taking place:
SAM: You don't really think Tuttle and the g
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
again, I have to state the NH state motto (its a whole lot more serious and relevant than, say, idaho who has 'famous potatos!' as their license plate motto) ;)
we americans have lost the VALUE of freedom. freedom USED to be worth dying for. that's the heart of the NH motto and also to the heart of what made america the SYMBOL of freedom across the world.
now, we are cowards who are afraid of our own shadows. and liquid substances.
we are also afraid of cameras! I am a photographer and I follow all the new 'restrictions' that the figures of authority have (decided on their own) to place on us. no more taking pictures of bridges or trains or buildings. "you could give info to the terrorists" is their reply. tell me - what can my photo give that google-earth doesn't already give?
I just don't accept the fact that taking pictures on public property (which is STILL technically legal) is 'helping the other side'.
anyway, it has to be said - a life lived in fear is no life at all. its NOT what america used to stand for.
there have always been risks in everything you do. you could get hit by a car if you cross the road. if the republicans had their way, they'd have road.nannies at every intersection "to keep us all super-safe". how much invasion in our lives do we need for the government to be a life.nanny for us all? can't we just assume the world is a very dangerous place (always has been!) and just deal with that as a fact of the modern world?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
People were really pissed off about the twin towers because of the symbolism, not the loss of life. I am not saying that Americans don't care about loss of life, just that the fact that 5000 people died isn't enough to really send them into a rage. If you were to chart American deaths per year, the year of 9/11 wouldn't even blip. 5000 deaths is a drop in the bucket next to more mundane things like heart attacks and cancer. So, the issue wasn't loss of life. It wasn't even financial. Sure, the twin towers held a lot of financial 'stuff', but most of it had backups and in the grand scheme of things it was just a financial pinprick against the titan that is the US economy.
What it really boiled down to was symbolism. The symbolism of 9/11 for most Americans was that they knocked down two ugly yet famous buildings. It wasn't really the buildings, it was more that the attack was very visible and successful that really sent Americans into a rage. As the world saw, once poke the bear enough to wake it up, it tends to go on a tearing rampage looking for a head to rip off.
Now, if the knocking over the twin towers can provoke the toppling of two nations, I would REALLY hate to see what knocking over t he Statue of Liberty would do. You need to remember that what sends Americans into a rage is the symbolism, not the real loss of life. Knocking over the Statue of Liberty would be the absolute most potent target you could possibly hit. If you flew a plane into the White House and killed the president, you would have an enraged America on your hands, but a sizable minority wouldn't really be all that pissed because they either dislike government (far right) or dislike the man in the house (far left). Knocking over Statue of Liberty on the other hand is attacking a symbol that has its own special positive meaning to everyone. You could effectively unite the Americans into a collective rage that would make 9/11 look like pocket change. Nations would fall.
Now you need to ask yourself why you might want to do this. This is the heart of terrorists' question. What is the point of terrorism? If the point is vengeance or pseudo-religious ritualistic suicide (i.e. it has no rational goal), then the consequences of such an attack probably are not a big deal. If on the other hand your attack is trying to achieve a political goal, then the next question is "what goal".
If the goal is to make the Americans surrender and leave the Islamic world alone, knocking out the Statue of Liberty or any other non-military target is a complete waste of time and utterly counterproductive. The American response will almost assuredly be the exact opposite of what you want. The Spanish might have seen the terrorist attack against them as punishment and seek to change their behavior by pulling out of Iraq to avoid future pain, but the Americans will almost assuredly do the opposite regardless of the party controlling the government. The more devastating the symbolism of the attack, the more violent the response. If you want to make the Americans leave some place, you are far better off to achieve a steady attrition of their soldiers stationed in a foreign land. The loss of American soldiers can make the Americans want to leave a place, but attacks upon their homeland are far more likely to achieve the exact opposite response.
So why attack such symbolic targets instead of military targets that might actually break the American will to continue fighting? Why reinvigorate and intensify the American will to lash out and fight? The reason is simple. If you get the Americans to lash out, they might very well lash out in a way that benefits you. The Americans can easily destroy any non-nuclear government that they please, but as they have shown with Iraq and Afghanistan, they are far less effective at setting up a stable replacement government. If your goal is to make more radical Islamist, provoking the Americans might be the exactly right thing to do. The Americans can stomp out existing Islamist hosti
I thought this was a relatively poor article and was not well thought out.
First of all, it starts off listing various events where planes were diverted or passengers forced to disembark. This means to imply that it is an overreaction to the bombing threat. However what it ignores is the media tendency to report on stories that have a news hook. Remember a few years back all we heard about was shark attacks, when in fact shark attacks were not any worse than at other times. In the same way, airline disruptions due to security threats are routine and happen all the time. It was just that they were being reported that week when otherwise they tend to get ignored. So right off the bat we are exposed to a false premise in this article.
Then we have his claim that by adding scrutiny at airports we are helping terrorists to win. Others here have debunked that well. The idea that a terrorist would think he is pleasing Allah by making Westerners take off their shoes unnecessarily is not only ludicrous, but actually insulting to terrorists.
This leads to this utterly bizarre claim:
Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up ten planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that's basically what's happening right now.
To compare what is happening now to what would be happening if ten planes had been blown up is beyond comprehension. If that attack had happened we would see a reaction commensurate with what happened after 9/11. The disruption and effects would be 10 or 100 times worse than what we see today. People would be rounded up and arrested all over the world. New legislation would be passed that would make the Patriot act look like it was sponsored by the ACLU. President Bush would get his secret prisons, his torture laws, his secret police, his NSA surveillance. The world would be unrecognizably different from what it is today, just as much as things changed after 9/11. Suggesting that basically the same thing is happening now shows a total lack of appreciation of the magnitude of such an attack.
I'll mention one other issue. He says it's "doubtful their plan would have succeeded." But in the very next essay, he writes, "However, the threat was real. And it seems pretty clear that it would have bypassed all existing airport security systems." So which is it? Was it a real threat that would have bypassed airport security? Or is it doubtful that the plan would have succeeded? It seems that he shifts his position as needed to make his political points.
>new Pearl Harbor.
In 1941 our national leader was someone who had already declared that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. His message was not to be afraid and turn over our lives to him, his message was to enlist, to build Liberty ships, and to conserve gasoline.
We won that war, fighting suicide bombers (kamikazes) who had an entire nation behind them, in three years and eight months. We turned military victories into stable, free, and friendly societies. That's what Americans can do when you appeal to their courage and resolve instead of preying on their fears.
>1984 crops up in discussions a lot. That's because a lot of people on these boards have actually read the book.
"Animal Farm" sometimes seems more apropos. The real villains weren't the pigs, the ones who brought that society down were the sheep. What's the difference between "Four legs good, two legs baaad" and "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists"?
what threat from the actions of terrorists?? there is no real threat.
I dont have the exact statistics at hand but the chances of you or anyone else suffering from the actions of 'terrorists' are vanishingly small. You know this and I know this, ie more chance of dying driving to work in the morning,etc.
Al qaeda is nothing in the scheme of real threats that you face in your day to day life. People only believe that there is a threat becos there has been systemic mass media fear-mongering.
"Saying that the main objective of this fight is to not get scared is like saying that if you have to fight a grizzly bear, the only thing to worry about is not getting eaten. Not panicking is a great idea, but you might want to also figure out how to avoid getting eaten."
Before the events of september 11 there were perfectly adequate governmental methods to "avoid getting eaten". The only thing that changed was that Bush/Cheney/Rove et al chose to ignore the advice given to them by the people/organisations who handle these threats, ie the intelligence agencies.
So in conclusion: your dichotomy is false and the problem really does lie with Bush/Cheney et al and the corporate media.