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Human Nature Trumps Homeland Security
netbuzz writes "Security expert Bruce Schneier suggests this morning that 'there might not be a solution' to our post-9/11 penchant for making domestic anti-terrorism decisions based on the basic human desire to cover one's backside. He might be right. But shouldn't we at least try to figure out a better way? For example, wouldn't 'Commonsense Homeland Security' be a winning political banner, not a risky one? "
I read a book recently that touched on something similar to this. Part of the argument was if more of our leadership actually had any military experience, they might stop treating the military as a black box they can just throw any problem in and crank out any solution they desired. Also, if more of our leadership (cultural as well as political) had children who served in the military, they might think twice of using the military in some of the ways it's been used in the past decade.
The book was titled AWOL. Pretty interesting book, and while I don't agree with everything in it, it made me think.
-gb
I was thinking about this the other day as I set up a zombie PC as a honeypot:
I wonder if the various agencies do this for would be terrorists? Here on US soil, even over in the big sandbox. I guess the more appropriate term would be sting, but the concept is the same. Setup a weapons depot, or something else the terrorists are interested in and wait for them to come get it, and bust their ass. Remember the old scam where cops sent people with outstanding warrants notices that they won a boar or something, then busted them? I think we need to get creative, and start to be a little more proactive.
Approaching security with "common sense" in a racist, sexist and capitalist society is dangerous at best...
That sounds a lot like the US administration when they try to scare the public by saying that just because we haven't been attacked since 9/11, doesn't mean that the terrorists won't attack tomorrow...
Now, this is just me, and of course I don't approve of this being used politically by Bush&Co to scare people into voting for them, but in a way I think he is right. I think Dick Cheney was right when he said that the Democrats taking control of the country could result in more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
The basic reason is that as of right now there is still no need to attack the U.S. 9/11 got Osama bin Laden just about everything he could have ever dreamed for in response. We not only invaded one Muslim country but two, and think about what great P.R. that makes for his brochures! "U.S. wants to invade Muslim states and destroy them!" is much more convincing when you can point to a T.V. showing American troops occupying a Muslim state, right? "U.S. is full of depraved pyschopaths who hate us!" is much more convincing when you see pictures from abu Ghraib, no? Then there's the fact that we are being bloodied so badly in Iraq. The quagmire there is weakening us, just like Russia's failed occupation of Afghanistan weakened them. Not to mention Iraq is now a fantastic recruiting and training ground for more terrorists, who have grown multiplied faster than we can kill them. No single attack on us could hurt us as badly as what we are doing to ourselves in Iraq.
So as long as the "War on Terror" continues full force, al Qaeda et al don't really need to bother with us directly. The War on Terror is exactly what they want.
Now lets say that a new president comes in and starts rolling back the war on terror, pulls our troops out of Iraq. Well that won't do! Recruiting is a lot tougher when "America wants to kill Muslims!" is merely a hypothetical argument. So what's the obvious thing to do? Poke the tiger again! Another 9/11 so that even the most peacenik Pres of all time would have to bomb the shit out of somebody.
We are vulnerable when we are crazy-scared of terrorism, running around doing stupid things and basically becoming our own worst enemy. So if we stop doing that, I say expect another attack to try to get us riled up and crazy again.
The key thing to note is that this is the reaction they want, and thus it is imperative that we don't do it.
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