Sci-fi Writers Join War on Terror

yoyoq writes "Homeland Security is looking for suggestions from sci-fi writers. "Looking to prevent the next terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of self-described "deviant" thinkers: science-fiction writers." Here's a suggestion: 9-11 could have been prevented with locks on the cockpit door."

Comments

Idea!!!

[TheRealMindChild]

Put a Terminator on every plane. What could go wrong?

Re:Idea!!!

[Holmwood]

Ha!

Leaving aside the Terminator suggestion, the SF writer involvement in suggesting government policy isn't actually quite as crazy (or as unprecedented) as it sounds.

One of the requirements for this group is that the individual has to have a PhD in a technical area (physics, engineering, etc.). These aren't just random writers off the street.

As TFA notes, the 9/11 commission said the attacks were a result, in part, of the government's "failure of imagination". SF writers, unlike some beltway bureaucrats and politicians, aren't lacking in that, at least.

As for precedent, both Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (coauthors of Footfall, and the Mote in God's Eye amongst other works) were a significant part of the push in the 80's to develop what is now National Missile Defense.

(Of course, that may or may not be a good program, but it's certainly an example of educated SF writers influencing public policy).

Holmwood

Re:Idea!!!

[gbobeck]

Put a Terminator on every plane. What could go wrong?

Did you ever see Terminator 3?

Besides, having your security device being confused with the Govenator of California isn't exactly the most ideal situation in the world.

Personally, I think it would be better to put a Dalek on every plane. Cold. Efficient. Deadly accurate with their gun and sucker. Not able to be reprogrammed by the terrorists. Hell, they can even be considered multi-functional, as they can even use their built-in plunger to fix a stoppage in the lav.

Re:Idea!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Failure of imagination" is just dumb. There's always another threat.

The way to improve security is to have well-trained guards in vulnerable places, looking for anything out of the ordinary, combined with investing far more heavily in recovery and response. As Schneier notes, this is generally beneficial as it helps with natural disasters and other unforeseen events as well as terrorist attacks.

Of course, the real way to stop terrorism is to get everyone to watch videos like this one.

Re:Idea!!!

[polar red]

as always, the suggestions given here are solutions to symptoms, not the desease.

Re:Idea!!!

[polar red]

you're still not focusing on the disease, and that's fundamental inequality and slavery in this world.

Re:Idea!!!

[jimicus]

Yes, but it's a lot easier to declare war on a concept that (more or less by definition) you can't beat by shooting at than it is to solve world hunger and abolish inequality over the entire planet.

Or, to put it another way (for those who still think the US is doing well in Iraq): Think of terrorism like a vicious, unpredictable animal that wants to attack you. That's easy enough. But there's a twist: it gets stronger every time you shoot at it, bomb it or do anything violent towards it. Why are you still shooting at it?

Re:Idea!!!

[garoo]

AFAIK, Larry Niven doesn't actually have a PhD in a technical area. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics. I believe that Washburn eventually got round to awarding him an honorary doctorate in Letters, but the point stands that had the 80s group worked according to the rules given for this particular group, he would presumably have been rejected as a random writer off the street.

Maybe the PhD isn't the best identifying mark of a fertile imagination...

Re:Idea!!!

[ocbwilg]

As TFA notes, the 9/11 commission said the attacks were a result, in part, of the government's "failure of imagination". SF writers, unlike some beltway bureaucrats and politicians, aren't lacking in that, at least.

I think that comment very often gets taken out of context in order to justify exotic anti-terrorism schemes. It wasn't a "failure of imagination" in the sense that nobody in their wildest dreams thought that it could happen. I mean, let's face it, there's nothing far fetched about smuggling weapons onto a plane. That's why they have metal detectors at the gates. There's nothing far fetched about hijacking a plane. That's happened dozens, if not hundreds of times, in the past 30-40 years. There's nothing far-fetched about suicide bombers. They blow themselves up on a daily basis in the middle east. There's nothing far fetched about attacking the WTC. That had already happened once. The only "failure in imagination" is the failure to believe that terrorists would combine their most effective and well-known tactics into a single act.

But the worst part is that the "failure of imagination" wasn't the reason that 9/11 happened. It was the failure to prevent people from smuggling weapons onto planes and hijacking them that allowed 9/11 to happen, and those are threats that have been around for a very long time.

It's like Bruce Schneier has said many times, if you're spending time and effort in trying to prevent hollywood movie-style terrorist attacks instead of the routine, more effective (and much more likely) types of attacks, then you're probably wasting your time and resources. We're far more likely to end up with car bombs blowing up bridges or suicide bombers blowing themselves up at shopping malls than we are to end up with some exotic antrhax-infected mutant sharks with laserbeams. Hell, a handful of Beslan-style school attacks executed simultaneously across the US would probably have as big of an impact as 9/11 (look what happened with the relatively minor Virginia Tech incident), and it would probably be easier to implement too.

Re:Idea!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...But there's a twist: it gets stronger every time you shoot at it, bomb it or do anything violent towards it. Why are you still shooting at it?..."

Very simple! Our jobs depend on there being a vicious animal that wants to attack us. This was fine during the 60s, 70s and 80s, and we had good job prospects. We got lots of established government funds.

Then, in the 90s, our vicious animal suddenly died on us. We were stuck. We weren't just going to quietly retire. We tried to invent drug barons, organised crime, and minor foreign countries as a new vicious animal, but it wasn't the same.

Now we have Islam! If we had been clever, we could have encouraged this ourselves, and paid Osama to crash those planes. We probably didn't, not because we wouldn't, but because we didn't have the foresight. But now it's happened, we're back in clover.

And we're damn well not going to mess this one up. It's going to last a long time, just like the Russian animal. Have you noticed how we insist that speeches are made stressing that this willl be a 'long haul'? Too right. We're not stupid. Everyone told us that invading Iraq would make things worse. Why do you think we did it?

Re:Idea!!!

[Holmwood]

The way to improve security is to have well-trained guards in vulnerable places

Well, this is certainly a good brute-force approach. The problem, of course, is that there are a lot of vulnerable places. Schools, shopping malls, stadia, airplanes, hospitals, large buildings, bridges, factories, food processing plants, ports, power plants, electrical grid, network control centers... and the list goes on. So that means millions of guards. Possibly tens of millions. Assuming you're actually going to protect vulnerable places with well-trained guards. In a modern technological densely-populated society, that's a lot of places to protect.

Now if you want well-trained, highly competent guards, you're going to have to pay them more than the typical rent-a-cop rates. That'll be expensive. You'll have to arm them (with at least non-lethal weapons).

Let's say you only need 2.5 million guards in North America. (well under 1% of the population). Of course, they only work 40 hours a week, so you're looking at just over 4 shifts. OK, 10 million guards. Well-trained, highly competent, so you'll probably have salaries of around 50k, and support infrastructure and overhead that doubles that. 100k/year. That's a trillion dollars a year.

Is that really the best way to improve security? I can think of a lot of ways other than spending a trillion dollars on 'well trained guards in [all] vulnerable places'.

And you'll have something much closer to a police state -- either they'll be government guards or corporate guards.

And if you miss just one vulnerable place, then the approach fails. No, I'd rather apply intellect and thought to the problem rather than try and brute force it. I'm not sure the SF writers are the way to go, but I think it's a lot better than going the police state road and spending a trillion a year for the privilege.

-Holmwood

Re:Idea!!!

[garlicbready]

when I read that all of a sudden an image popped into my head

A darlek slowly trundling down the aisle carrying a tray with a few sorted goods
ANY DRINKS OR REFRESHMENTS
I SAID ANY DRINKS OR RE-FRESH-MENTS (much louder this time)

a guy the next seat over starts to panic and quickly orders an orange juice

Re:Idea!!!

[Simon Garlick]

I can see the terrorist running up into First Class and yelling down "Yeah, stairs motherfucker!"

Re:Idea!!!

[fbjon]

An even better idea!:

Surah Al-An`aam (6:151) says: "Do not even go near lewdness - whether overt or covert"

Therefore, simply hang hard-core porn on the cockpit door. Unfortunately, this might be an issue with pilots of Emirates Airline, and it doesn't stop atheist terrorists either. Damn those uncontrollable atheists!

</politically anticorrect>

Re:Idea!!!

[Speare]

As for precedent, both Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (coauthors of Footfall, amongst other works) were a significant part of the push in the 80's to develop what is now National Missile Defense.

As for precedent, both Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven wrote actual scenes into some of their books (including Footfall), where the hapless government rounded up a bunch of balding geek-a-zoid sci-fi writers as non-traditional "technical experts" to help strategy and intel efforts against an unusual threat.

Re:Idea!!!

[iocat]

The fact that the dominant power structure in this country does better for itself when there's an outside threat doesn't in turn mean that all outside threats are created by that power structure, or that all outside threats are actually harmless.

Put more simply: The president may be a tool, but that doesn't mean that the people he's railing against aren't also tools, or even much worse than he is. That's the biggest problem I have with "progressives" in this country -- they think evil or incompetence is a kind of zero sum game. If the president of the US is bad, his enemies can't *really* be all that bad, which is totally untrue.

Re:Idea!!!

[KKlaus]

This is an overly simplistic view. The people that orchestrated the war in Iraq were not doing it out of any fear of job security. Obviously neither the position of Secretary of Defense, Vice president, or Deputy Secretary of Defense are going to go away if we aren't locked in a state of ever present war. It may be true that corporations in the defense and arms business have a vested interest in fomenting world conflict, but to imply that Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz et al led us to war out of some perceived fear that they would become useless organs of government is ludicrous.

They went to war because they thought they could win easily, and it would be a good idea. They were wrong, on a number of levels, but that doesn't mean they're happy about or moreover intended the current situation over there, and to imply anything else, like I said, is pretty ridiculous.

Re:Idea!!!

[Charcharodon]

I love kid's skewed view of things. They think everything was invented just a few years ago. Now this "new vicious" animal, aka Islam terrorist/jihadists, that is part of the whole military-industrial conspiracy that the United States has just now "recently" provoked, has been on the warpath for over thirteen centuries now, that's 1300 years kidos. That's more than 1000 years longer than the US has even been around. Just because you, Hollywood, and 90% of Congress took till the late nineties to figure it out, doesn't make it new. Even the "current" mess in the middle east started before all of this during WW I after the British and the French divide up the spoils. Before them the Ottomans had it and before them the Persians. All through history, the locals have been rebelling and every single group in power has thrown troops at the problem. There is no conspiracy going on here. The only thing the US government is guilty of is ignoring history and being overly optimistic on the ability of Democracy/Republic style of governments being the solution to the problem.

Re:Idea!!!

[morgan_greywolf]

Bingo! Why do you suppose Bush is proposing South Korea as a model for Iraq? We've had troops in South Korea since the early 1950s. That's right. Almost 60 years. Terrorism is the new bogeyman. Nevermind that we don't actually need one with Iran, North Korea and China all ready to push the nuke button at us. It's just that unlike Iran, North Korea and China, terrorism is easy to put a face to for the American public: Osama bin Laden. Let's face it: the idea that another 9/11 could occur scares the crap out of us. Now I don't know that the government didn't pay Osama to crash those planes (Bush isn't that bright, but there are those in the CIA and NSA who are). But I don't know that they did. What I do know is that the government has been using 9/11 to take away all of our Constitutional rights, to garner public support for massive amounts of military and intelligence spending, and to basically keep us all afraid so that it appears that we have no choice but to trust that the government will protect us. Which maybe they can't. And that's what you should be afraid of.

Re:Idea!!!

[Ranten_N_Raven]

"Good science fiction writers...?"

You must not be familiar with Niven and Pournelle!

As for "a bunch of wild directions" both are grounded in their science. SCIENCE, not wild ideas. Both are adept at looking at on-the-edge break throughs and figuring out the impact it could have on society. For instance, there has been increasing news reports about the sale of the organs of political prisoners in China. Rich people can get whatever they need for a few tens of thousands of dollars. Of course it's all illegal but that is no problem when there are corrupt officials. All of this is no surprise to those of us who read Niven's work in the 1970s. He called them "Organ-leggers."

Oh, and Pournelle has also been a successful computer columnist for many years. His "Chaos Manor" column was one of the best things in Byte magazine. Do check out his Chaos Manor Reviews at http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/ and his Chaos Manor Musings at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/index.html.

Re:Idea!!!

[squiggleslash]

I'd say that saying "fundamental inequality and slavery is the cause of all terrorism" is as simplistic as saying "They hate us because of our freedom."

Let me go off on a minor tangent here, bear with me: The direct purpose of terrorism is to exact a response. The indirect purpose is to use the results of that response, where the results could be any number of things. In the case of 9/11, the clear purpose of the attacks was to cause America to react - nobody could possibly be so stupid as to think the most powerful country on Earth would just ignore thousands of its civilians being killed on its home turf. The only place America was likely to react was the Middle East. Therefore, very likely the purpose of 9/11 was to get the most powerful country on Earth to do a bull-in-a-china-shop act in the Middle East.

Why would OBL want that? OBL's direct aim is not to bring peace and prosperity to Palestine. It's not to ensure oppressed Muslims in Saudi Arabia worship on their own terms rather than the Saudi Royal Family's. It's not to make Afghanistan a modern, wealthy, state able to take care of its citizens. OBL's aim, as expressed repeatedly, is to create an Arab superstate, overthrowing the local governments there, and creating instead a single Islamic nation.

What does any of that have to do with inequality and slavery? Not a great deal. It's all about power, and it's a power struggle between the entrenched incumbent elite and a body that disagrees with them. But the disagreement isn't over the relatively lack of equality, it's a disagreement over an entirely different issue of religious and political significance. Insofar as equality is a factor, OBL feels obliged to use terrorism to achieve his aims because he doesn't have an army.

But if he had an army, he'd use that instead. Equality wouldn't prevent the war, it would just change how its fought. Which isn't really what, I think, you meant.

It's very tempting to look at terrorism as being purely a last resort of the oppressed, but it doesn't always work like that. Terrorism is frequently merely the first resort of those who want power over others, but do not have it yet.

Re:Idea!!!

[bkr1_2k]

While I don't disagree with your point that the enemy is bad, even if the President is an idiot, there are plenty of places in this world that are in far worse shape than Iraq was under Saddam Hussein. You've heard of Sudan right? The President just made some sort of speech about it, several years after we learned about the problem and over a year after his administration claimed they would do something proactive about it.

And lets not get into Indonesia and all the problems there that we could have helped with, or Tibet, or Nepal. You do know there was essentially a civil war in Nepal for the last 10 years right? Oh, and the monarch disolved the parliament and basically imposed martial law on the place. What about Thailand, and the military coup that just occured?

Yes, Saddam Hussein was a bad man doing bad things. The point is, however, he was an "evil" we understood how to deal with. He was essentially no threat to anyone but himself and his own people. Yes that's bad, but his conflict wasn't causing issues any different than the others that have been going on at the same time. We did however decide to put on our big boy shoes and step in his playground to pick a fight with him as opposed to others. Why? Because it was a name people recognized (so even if it was the wrong choice at least some people would support it on name recognition alone), it was a profitable place to pick a fight, and it was during a period of economic "recession", which always calls for war. It's the great economic provider for the USA, and has been for a very long time. I won't even speculate at the personal economic gains of the administration, which others probably have far more information about.

Re:Idea!!!

[martin-boundary]

Well, if you want crazy advisors in office, Jerry Pournelle is probably a good choice, since he believes that America actually won the Viet Nam war. It's a bit long to read, so I'll give you the gist of it: he believes that America won in Viet Nam, and then the Evil Democrats decided to go home early just when an extra surge or two more would have... well, you can imagine the rest.

Don't get me wrong, I liked The Mote In God's Eye, but I wish he'd write more SF and less political analysis.

Re:Idea!!!

[dave420]

Even if that idea were a success, it only takes a few of those guards to be working with "the bad guys", and all hell's going to break loose. The "bad guys" aren't stupid - they don't spend all their money on tanks to drive at armoured columns in hopes of beating them - they spend them on IEDs, RPGs, and suicide belts, and get far more bang for their buck, literally.

The only way to stop this is to not be a target. Don't do stuff to others you wouldn't like done to you. Listen. Talk to folks so they don't have to blow up stuff you like to get your attention. For example: the Brits spoke to the IRA, even after the IRA were terrorists, and now the IRA isn't blowing up trucks full of explosives in London. It's not as if terrorists don't have stated goals - Al Qaida have said a million times what's pissing them off, and yet we don't do a damned thing about it. Americans would be pissed off if, say, China put a shitload of Chinese troops in America during a brief spat with Canada, and then didn't take them away afterwards, yet we expect Al Qaida to roll over and just take it when we do it to them. I'm not supporting any kind of violence towards anyone - that's doomed to fail. Talking is the way forward - it's what people are good at, and it fuckin' WORKS.

Re:Idea!!!

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Tell me this Slashdot: is it any more pathetic to believe in a ridiculous government conspiracy theory than to accuse the government of intention to commit a conspiracy if only they had thought of it?

Re:Idea!!!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The people that orchestrated the war in Iraq were not doing it out of any fear of job security. That all depends on your definition of "job security." After reading many of the position papers at www.newamericancentury.org - homebase of the neo-cons - I've come to the conclusion that these guys have a very simple philosophy. They think that with the rise of china and other world powers, the USA will be in decline for most of the rest of this century. Believing that decline to be inevitable, they want to "get while the getting is good." They don't really seem to care how screwed up they leave things in the long run, because they believe that in the long run the USA is screwed anyways.

They went to war because they thought they could win easily, and it would be a good idea. They were wrong, on a number of levels, but that doesn't mean they're happy about or moreover intended the current situation over there, and to imply anything else, like I said, is pretty ridiculous. For them, going over the top now was the best way to, "get while the getting is good," regardless of the ultimate consquences. And in keeping with that attitude they don't seem all that broken up about the state of things now. More so that they've lost political credibility than that they've really damaged the USA's credibility both domestic and foreign.

Re:Idea!!!

[itlurksbeneath]

But there's a twist: it gets stronger every time you shoot at it, bomb it or do anything violent towards it. Why are you still shooting at it? Yes.. In the Sci-Fi movies, when the hero stops shooting at it, it withers and dies. I think the problem with terrorists is that when you stop shooting at them, turn your back and announce that you are not afraid of them, they take that opportunity to stab you in the back.

Re:Idea!!!

[prgrmr]

being overly optimistic on the ability of Democracy/Republic style of governments being the solution to the problem.

The representative form of government is the best solution for the problem; the sticking point in Iraq is the implementation, because the vast majority of the locals have to really want it--and want it at almost any cost--if it's never been in place before. Look at every nation, from the birth of the United States to former Soviet republics now trying a representative government that is more democracy than rubber stamp. The rich, the poor, the working class, the business owners, everyone has to want to make it work. And a key component to that is one thing that you will rarely, if ever, read or hear about in the popular news media: cultural integrity.

One of the major problems in Iraq is the simple fact that the cultural bias is to never be 100% honest, because recent history shows that will more likely get you killed or your family killed than not. Until we find a way to not only encourage but to actually get the leaders in Irag at every level of government to be as close to 100% honest, as close to 100% of the time about their intentions as well as their actions in order to be role models for the Iraqis (and Iranians and Syrians and Turks and Kurds and every other local ethnic and political group with an interest in Iraq), democracy is never going to "thrive" on a scale comparable to any given Western government.

Re:Idea!!!

[rbanffy]

Really?

How much would it cost to eradicate poverty?

How much would it cost to feed and give health care to every human being that is starving? To educate every child? To nurture healthy economies where there are none or where corrupt governments ruined it?

Compare that with the cost of one week of Iraq occupation. How much money is being wasted in a war that gives nothing in return but a general feeling Americans are evil?

My grand mother went to tears every time she told me the story of how American troops shared their supplies with local refugees in the devastated Europe towards the end of the war. She never mentioned the government, invasions, nazis, politics or the reasons for the war - she remembered how generous they in helping her and her husband (along with hundreds of refugees) to feed their children in times of extreme hardship.

This is a good way to win lifetime loyalty - to help people. Not to bomb them back into stone-age and then invade, overthrow a bad and corrupt government for no better reason than to outdo a former president who couldn't (or didn't really want to) get rid of him and then push the country in the chaos of a virtual civil war and pave the way to a theocracy. Not to endorse corrupt and blood-thirsty dictators just because they oppose anyone to the left of the most far right extremists.

I do not blame people for the actions of their government, but not everyone is as enlightened. You can't expect to be popular, or safe, with a foreign policy like this.

And you don't need a sci-fi writer to figure that out.

Re:Idea!!!

[Captain Splendid]

Put more simply: The president may be a tool, but that doesn't mean that the people he's railing against aren't also tools, or even much worse than he is. That's the biggest problem I have with "progressives" in this country -- they think evil or incompetence is a kind of zero sum game. If the president of the US is bad, his enemies can't *really* be all that bad, which is totally untrue.

Any references for that sweeping generalisation? Let me clue you in. Your average progresssive spends most of his time bitching about Bush and not bitching about, say, Osama Bin Laden, because unless you're a complete retard, it's common knowledge that OBL is a scumfuck of the highest order, whereas Bush is nominally not supposed to invade sovereign countries, spy on his citizens, etc.

That's why it seems to you to be that way.

Re:Idea!!!

[dave420]

The IRA were from Northern Ireland, not Eire. The IRA stopped fighting when they received representation in the discussion that they were trying to take part in. Once that happened, the violence didn't make sense, as they were fighting people who were trying to help them, and they stopped. If you think the conflict was due to food, you are hundreds of years out of date. But nice try.

Re:Idea!!!

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Many progressives wanted the Bush Administration to capture and try Osama bin Laden for the crimes he committed. The Bush Administration, after 9/11, and after Tora Bora, said that getting bin Laden wasn't that important. Yes, bin Laden is what you say he is. Yes, the Bush Administration didn't care.

That he wasn't a serious threat any more. And then the Bush Administration started the war they wanted to fight, and kicked off events that have killed half a million Iraqis. That's pretty scumfuckerisious.

Re:Idea!!!

[lag00natic]

The war in Middle East is entirely about our national interests. Stability in the Middle East is a national interest: reduce the threat of future terrorist attacks and stabilize one of the largest oil producing countries are DEFINITELY in our national interest. The atrocities in all those other regions like Darfur, Indonesia, Thailand, etc are horrible - yes - but do not affect our nations ability to function or negatively impact our economy.

This is the brutal truth. Our government has to choose it's battles and it will only get involved in conflicts that are in our best national interest.

Re:Idea!!!

[Rei]

Wow, really? I thought he was a big supporter of the poor.

If he's out there killing poor people, I better not vote for the guy after all.

Re:Idea!!!

[Maxo-Texas]

Hhehe.

Aye, vote for Obama bin ladin.... such are the typos that make baby jesus cry.

So... obviously, i meant Osama bin Ladin. And lots of other rich, powerful people who stir up crap and get people killed because they enjoy it, it gives purpose to their life.

People can be poor and very happy. People can be rich and miserable. People who are really not that bad off can be stirred up to think things are horrible by the powers that be.

The fact is that if most of the middle east would just let go of the jewish issue and stop attacking them, they would outbreed isreal out of existence in 20 to 50 years. But no.. they have to keep stirring up crap and killing teenagers because of something that happened 60 YEARS ago (three generations). It's over-- let it go and move on.

Re:Idea!!!

[buxton2k]

I actually agree with your analysis. Almost completely. But you're missing a key aspect by focusing on Osama bin Laden. ObL is a leader, and this may describe his position - but it doesn't describe the position of the suicide bombers, the foot soldiers, the 9/11 hijackers themselves. In other words, why does anyone listen to ObL (or any similar person - why does anyone listen to Bush for that matter?).

The simple fact is that life for the lower classes in most of the world varies from difficult to an insane hell. This includes presumably advanced nations like the U.S. where it may be merely difficult compared to Saudi Arabia, but its still not something people would choose on its own merits. People have been looking for solutions for a long time, and some of those solutions have had mitigating effects on poverty and oppression, but certainly have not eliminated the deep problems that come with being on the bottom. The worse life on the bottom of the food chain becomes, the more desparate people get, and the more they want to lash out - moreover, the worse things get, the less they have to lose.

There's a passage in the movie Syriana that sums up what I think is going on for a lot of lower and middle class youths in the most oppressive nations - I'm just paraphrasing because I have a horrible memory for detailed quotations:

Communism has failed, capitalism and liberalism have failed. None of the ideologies have lived up to their promises that they would make a better life for us and our families. Things continue to get worse. We must understand we have always had the solution - the Koran tells us what to do, how to live in such a way as to make life better. But we have abandoned our faith. Only by going back to the old ways, the ways of faith, will things improve.

This is (again paraphrased) spoken by a terrorist recruiter roping in teenage boys. ObL, Bush or any other leader can scream all they want, and no one will go fight if the people themselves are convinced that the external threat is threatening them or keeping them from a better life in some way. Most of the terrorist/insurgent/what have you foot soldiers, I suspect, are not engaged in high-level thought about caliphates and theocratic political models. What they are is pissed off that they and their friends are oppressed and dying because of the local tyrant or his foreign allies, and someone has offered them an answer. When the U.S. comes along (whatever the leaders intentions) and bombs the hell out of their town, or soldiers kick their doors in an treat them like criminals, that answer starts to look increasingly correct - at least, its an option that gives them something they can do.

Genius yoyoq!!!

[spazoid12]

Here's a suggestion: 9-11 could have been prevented with locks on the cockpit door.

Everyone's a snide little clever genius after the fact.

Here's a suggestion: no, it could not have been prevented with locks on the cockpit door. It would have likely been a somewhat different attack, but it still would have happened.

Meanwhile, people still catch colds despite having a supply of tissue in the house.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[QuantumG]

No. You're wrong. Everyone knows that locks are impossible to get around.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Snarl]

Yeah really. There's always a way. If the door was locked, how long would it take for the pilot to open the door if the terrorist started executing one passanger a minute until the door was opened?

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[91degrees]

The same reason that they ban knittign needles. It makes things appear safer.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[EvanED]

If the door was locked, how long would it take for the pilot to open the door if the terrorist started executing one passanger a minute until the door was opened?

On the flip side, how many of those executions would it take before the passengers turned *all* the flights into flight 93?

Then it's just a race to see whether the passengers react or the pilot caves first. My suggestion: with the terrorists with knives instead of guns, the passengers.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[yotto]

Before 9/11, if your plane got hijacked, you'd likely have to fly to Cuba or somewhere, unload the terrorists, and then sit around until someone negotiated you out of there. So, sitting there flying the plane while they execute passengers would be dumb.

After 9/11, hijacking = you crash into a building. So, sitting there flying the plane while they execute passengers is the smartest thing you can do.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[dbIII]

Everyone's a snide little clever genius after the fact.

People worldwide had been saying for year that US airport security was worthless - paticularly when stuck in line behind a US tourist abroad complaining long and loud that as an American they never should have to put up with having their bag searched. Now it has swung to another extreme with security theatre that is often mindless, inflexible and carried out by the pooorly trained due to the need to take on a lot of staff suddenly (I would really hate to be old or disabled and have to deal with a random bit of security theatre).

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[phayes]

Then why do we now have locks on the doors?

Because, ignorant one, before 9/11 the threat was different. Prior to 9/11 every single instance where control was violently seized from the pilots it was to hijack the plane & take the passengers hostage. Pilots were trained to go along with any threat that they judged placed the life of one of their passengers in jeopardy because in the long run even if they blew up the plane as they did in Beirut, passenger safety was primordial. When the 9/11 terrorists showed that they were willing to die with everyone else on the plane, the threat (& thus techniques for mitigating it) changed.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[growse]

Didn't one airline (may have been Israeli) suggest that they actually build a bulkhead between the cockpit and the passenger compartment? The pilot/copilot would then have their own external door to enter/exit the plane. They theorised that hijackings would reduce, because there's no way of moving from the passenger area to the cockpit whilst the plane is in flight without structurally damaging the airframe. Seems a good, if expensive, idea to me...

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Threni]

> If the door was locked, how long would it take for the pilot to open the door if the terrorist started executing one passanger a
> minute until the door was opened?

Who cares? There weren't 3000 people in the plane.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Ihlosi]

Didn't one airline (may have been Israeli) suggest that they actually build a bulkhead between the cockpit and the passenger compartment?

And then, both pilots die from food poisoning and a whole plane full of retired pilots crashes since no once could actually get into the cockpit to land the darn thing.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Professor_UNIX]

And then, both pilots die from food poisoning and a whole plane full of retired pilots crashes since no once could actually get into the cockpit to land the darn thing.

In the event of a hijacking or loss of the flight crew the plane would just revert automatically to autopilot and only take commands from the ground. The autopilot can easily be made to land a jumbo jet these days, it's just cocky pilots don't want to sit around and do nothing while the plane flies itself.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Ihlosi]

Still, an instrumentation downlink from the plane to the ground is enough to land the damn thing by remote control anyways.

It's also good enough to fly the plane into the nearest skyscraper, once you disable/disrupt/jam/take over the legitimate transmitter and know the protocol and encryption keys.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

With knitting needles someone could knit an Afghan.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[jimicus]

Further to that, prior to 9/11, 99% of hijackings resulted in one of two things:

1. Hijacker is arrested the moment they get off the plane and spends a nice long time in prison.
2. Hijacker is shot the moment they get off the plane and spends a nice long time dead.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[bolek_b]

I think unless there is a serious flaw on the side of airport security, the equipment advantage of the bad guys is not so big. The ONLY weapons which caused 911 were surprise and bad assumptions. The terrorists were allowed into cockpit with the assumption that it is just one of "routine hijackings" (scenario: land somewhere, demand something, negotiate, release hostages). The incorectness of the assumption was the moment of surprise and I truly believe that all pilots since then have to consider a 911 scenario as well.

Let us now think about those executions of passengers. We may not prevent them, but we can reduce the casualties. Assume that there are approx. 6 bad guys armed with improvised cold weapons, therefore effective attack range of each member is cca 1 meter. What are tactical options of passengers?

• They have vast numeric advantage. Say at least 50 men and don't forget about capabilities of many angry women.
• They may create improvised weapons and shields as well. Trays, belts, blankets...
• The cramped space onboard in my opinion favors the defense. The movement of attackers can be obstructed by improvised barricades (luggage)

As long as the cockpit is not penetrated, the pilots may help with another effective countermeasures (but they would require a tactically skilled flight attendant coordinating the actions, or some kind of CCTV in the cabin):

• Perform sudden maneuvers (rapid descent, steep banking) to incapacitate attackers; they won't probably wear belts during the incident
• Change parameters of cabin environment: temperature, light, sound -- anything which may disrupt focus and coordination of the attacking group
• Decompress the cabin and therefore restrict the movement of all passengers
• I personally can think of merits of equipping flight attendants with tasers, sticky foam, pepper spray (or even stun grenades)

In this mental exercise are some assumptions as well. The foremost is that only cold weapons are available to terrorists. Here we have to rely on the integrity and skill of airport personnel, but even with handguns I believe passengers with improvised shields would stand a chance. When it comes to bombs, well, bad luck, BUT: the bad guys can destroy the plane, but they will not control it.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[Richard_at_work]

I suggest you take a look into the Air France flight 8969 hijacking in December 24th, 1994. The purpose of that hijacking was to fly the aircraft to Paris and blow it up at a very low altitude, possibly with the Eiffle Tower as a target.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[thefirelane]

just revert automatically to autopilot and only take commands from the ground Genius, now the terrorists just attack the control tower.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[phayes]

I've met a few members of the GIGN team that assaulted the plane, so I'm well aware of the circumstances. None believed at the time that the GIA intended to die in a mass suicide. Much of the reasoning that 8969 was a suicide mission is from the fact that one of their main demands was for a fully fueled plane. Post 9/11, many outsiders have reinterpreted that it was so that they could crash the plane in Paris, yet at the time everyone believed that it was so that the plane could fly to Beirut to make good their escape. Another difference between 9/11 & 8969 (bringing the thread back to the original point) is that on 8969, the terrorists boarded before the flight took off when the cabin was open and had firearms. Placing locks on the cabin doors could not have helped on 8969 so there was no pressure to do so after it's resolution.

Re:Genius yoyoq!!!

[bolek_b]

Good point. As Schneier's essay published on his blog today states, from the point of view of terrorists it's just a choice of tactic in order to reach the goal: to terrorize. In another words, perform some spectacular violent act which will attract a lot of media coverage. One day, it is an airplane used as a guided missile. Another day, it may have been completely different plot (hijacking and blowing up a supertanker; sniper hidden in the car cruising the country...).

And we need to remember that so far most of the attacks were quite unsofisticated and only crudely coordinated. Despite this they were considered as a success. I don't want to know what would happen if someone skilled in psychology and urban warfare was to plan a blow to the society. Imagine for example this IMO easy to execute (for dedicated terrorists with some training) plan:

1. A small decoy bombs are blown in several subway stations, preferably geografically near. Casualties ~ virtually zero, the purpose is to ignite panic.
2. As scared mass of people tries to evacuate, detonate much bigger bombs near to exits from the stations. Not necessarily very lethal, but...
3. Now you have many instances of hysteric, panicked crowd in a small space (as subway exits tend to be). As was noticed many times during for example fire accidents, such crowd is very lethal thing.
4. In older times, you would have to consider how to ensure proper access for news crews. It has changed, the victims will without doubt provide their own coverage via phones, and it has the necessary "feel" of authenticity.

Just remember how much fear generated one single guy equipped with a gun. And there you will have multiphase attack simultaneously in several places. Next week, the target could be an armed assault on nearest TV station, with a live broadcast of murders etc. The options for terrorists' goal are virtually endless. So our defense should go deeper and mitigate tactical advantages of terrorists: Media coverage - why? (If nobody in terrorist's tribe knows about his deed, would they celebrate him as a hero? I doubt it.)

I do not have a proper reference (and I'm unable to verify), but I remember somebody to claim that during IRA bombings in UK, the media coverage was inversely proportional to human losses. Sounds plausible to me and logical as well. If you deny access to the media, those terrorists will become just criminals. But here we come across an interesting find: terrorists and media live in a strange symbiosis. Media equation: more terror = more revenue for media. Terrorist's equation: more media coverage - more fear in society. In both cases, the objective is reached. Tough luck for the victims who happen to stay between these two parties.

And though I'm from different country, my memories of IRA times tell me something was fundamentally different: the people were not being scared by their own government. The response was more similar to police investigation than to full-scale military response. But these days no, we are so soft that we even bow down when some unimportant people don't like a sheet of caricatures.

Stupid

[CmdrGravy]

Here's an idea, why not stop wasting time on this sort of, headline grabbing, nonsense and sort out the existing agencies who are supposed to be responsible for this sort of thing so they can gain some actual intelligence about what the terrorists are actually planning and actually do something to stop that.

If Homeland Security really are trying to think of more innovative solutions they might consider putting a stop to some of the activities the US is or has been involved in which tend to increase the number of available terrorists wanting to attack it. This might involve stopping the CIA kidnapping people and taking them off to be tortured, stop starting pointless wars and stop interfering in other countries in order to install regimes that suit your own purposes.

Re:Stupid

[Opportunist]

Are you nuts? That could actually work, how the heck do you want to push more laws towards the police state goal when there's no threat anymore?

You'll never be a good politician, stay with your honest daytime job.

Re:Stupid

[giorgiofr]

Pointless wars?
1. Your latest war on Iraq has guaranteed that no sane country will as much as *think* of switching to the PetrolEuro ever again. HUGE economic advantage for you. 2. It has also set the grounds for convenient exploitation of oil wells in Southern Iraq. Considerable economic advantage. 3. It also managed to get a few terrorists killed. Smallish morale gain. 4. It allowed your gov't to gain more power. Again, huge advantage (ok, this only benefits them and not you).
So in what way was that all POINTLESS again? You can claim it's good/bad/expensive/whathaveyou but there is no way in hell is was pointless.

They're going about this wrong

[simong]

They should get a science fiction writer to create a religion to create an alternative to Islam. Oh.

Re:They're going about this wrong

[ghmh]

They should get a science fiction writer to create a religion to create an alternative to Islam. Oh.

Xenu is watching you

am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[misanthrope101]

I'm sick of it taking up every waking moment of our intellectual lives. About 3000 people were killed in 9/11, and that was how many years ago? The flu kills about 15000 Americans each year. The flu. Let's not even go into cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and all the rest of the diseases that kill us off by the hundreds of thousands. Worldwide, cholera and other diseases that could be remedied by clean water kill vastly more than terrorism.

Our sense of risk is so badly out of whack that we're just being ridiculous--it isn't even hysteria anymore, not after this many years. We're being suckered by a sensationalistic media working in cohorts with government, which always, always wants more power. I'd say it was shocking if I could even muster any surprize at how stupid we're being over this.

Re:am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[jmv]

About 3000 people were killed in 9/11, and that was how many years ago? The flu kills about 15000 Americans each year. The flu.

Sure, but which one do you think works best when you want to restrict civic liberties?
- We declare war on terrorism, so we need to tap everyone's phone in case they're terrorists.
or
- We declare war on flu, so we need to tap everyone's phone in case they've got the flu.

Re:am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[Opportunist]

Why go that far? Car accidents? Household accidents? So far, I don't see people avoiding cars like the plague and envy homeless people for their safe lifestyle.

But it gets better. The craze went over to countries that haven't EVER been the target for any kind of organised terrorism whatsoever (aside of domestic terrorism, when some nut decided it's fun to blow up a few pipes). How the heck can you explain that?

Re:am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[misanthrope101]

Yes, that is my very objection. Would-be totalitarians have a ratchet-like mechanism. They want more power, so they wait for something to happen. Something happens, and they ratchet away a little on civil liberties. Now this new, lower, level of freedom becomes normal. Something else will happen eventually, so one more click of civil liberties are in the past. The new, yet lower, level becomes normal, and so on. Sometimes something big happens like 9/11, and we get a few whole turns of the wrench, so we end up with military tribunals, warrantless surveillance, torture, secret prisons, the whole bit.

We don't go all the way to gulags, not right away, at least not on US soil, because people won't stand for it--yet. But once something else happens--and it always does, eventually, with or without an agent provocateur--the current level of freedom will seem excessive, and we get a few more clicks towards totalitarianism.

There are already feelers out investigating exactly what conditions would have to exist for elections to be suspended and the current President to be just "in charge." Will it happen? No, I don't think it will, even in my most paranoid moods. The population won't stand for it--yet. But if there is a big attack, at least by someone with brown/olive skin, it would be easy to temporarily "put off" the election. An attack by a white supremacist or Christian Identity group wouldn't cut it (and probably would barely make the news), but one by Muslims would be center stage on all the networks, around the clock.

Would we see death camps and Stalinesque tactics? No, I don't think so. Michael Moore and Rosie wouldn't be rounded up and imprisoned, much less shot, Ann Coulter's book sales notwithstanding. But a "unitary Executive" or whatever his lawyers are calling him this week, in charge of the entire federal government, exempted (de facto, if not de jure) from oversight or checks/balances by the legislative and judicial branches, who can suspend elections at will--what else do you really need? As long as there wasn't any slaughter or mass imprisonment, which there wouldn't be, would people really take to the streets for democracy? I wonder.

Re:am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[Tickletaint]

You know, I used to work in a building directly across West Street from the WTC. Two people from the floor below mine were trapped in an elevator and killed as the building was consumed by fire. And contrary to what you'd apparently expect, I agree with your parent post, and what's more so do most of my friends and colleagues, and probably most people in my city.

So next time you presume to speak for those affected by terrorism, how about you shut your fucking trap? Or at least tone it down with the hysteria. Most of my city wanted Bush out of office in 2004 because we understand his policies are making us less safe; if you ask me in a less guarded moment, I'm apt to say I think flyover country, in that election, aided the terrorists by ignoring our very real security concerns and reelecting a global menace.

By the way, I hear my old office building's been turned into a high-end condo development. Lesson being that life goes on; the world hasn't turned on end; what was sensible before 9/11 is sensible still, particularly OP's suggestion of helping to ensure peace and stability at home by doing less to make people around the world feel insecure.

Re:am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[Rick17JJ]

That trend makes me uncomfortable with the recent directive that Bush issued on May 9 signed that grants near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president. I am surprised that directive has not yet received much discussion in the press or by Congress.

National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD-51 and HSPD-20

Re:am I the only one who is tired of terrorism?

[markbt73]

Sure, I'd take to the streets.

Of Canada.

That fucker serves ONE DAY past January 20, 2009, and we aren't the USA anymore. And it's just not worth fighting for at that point.

Then attack would be carried out differently

[iamacat]

Pilots would be blackmailed into opening cockpit doors at the threat of killing everyone in the cabin. Terrorists would learn lock picking. WTC would be brought down by a big truck with explosives instead of planes. Al-Quida would carry out a chemical or biological attack. Let's face it, targets are endless and internal security is only a small part of preventing terrorism. Withdrawing from Israeli-Palestinian conflict on one hand and refusing to do any business with Islamic countries on the other would deprive terrorists of both recruits and resources and have a much bigger effect on new attacks. We can also distinguish religious freedom from calls for violence against everyone and deport or deny visas to extremists of every faith - muslim, christian, scientology, falun gong...

Lemme see...

[Moraelin]

Lemme see...

- train your stormtroopers so they can hit a man sized target at 100 ft distance

- don't have your war droids depend on a centralized node that, when destroyed, would disable the whole army

- make sure there are no vents leading directly to your death star's reactor, no matter how hard or unlikely to hit they are

- fun as it may be, and sure as you may be that he's a complete bastard, don't send a father to torture his daughter and duel his son. They might end up working together against you. Also, if you've decided to replace him with his son, don't tell it to his face.

- don't make yourself hated by whole populations in the first place. Destroying whole planets just to show you can, is actually pretty bad PR. It's bad for your tax income too. Noone will rise in rebellion or send suicide bombers against you for just treating them right and creating employment.

- make sure the doors, especially prison doors or doors to critical command rooms, can't be opened by shooting the control panel. And generally, security means everything should fail in the way that is the least of a security problem. Losing electricity should cause the door bolts to lock the door (e.g., they're on springs that push them to the locked state, and you need current to pull them open), not unlock it.

- for that matter, and according to the same principle, a damaged reactor should tend to shut down, not blow up. There's a reason 20'th century nuclear reactors need current to keep the moderator rods out, and get to shut down if they lose that current

- control consoles don't have much of a reason to explode when the ship takes a hit in some point half a mile away. You may need that console again, and trained specialist officers that operate them are expensive to replace too

- invest in some shielding technology, or at least armour. The Mitsubishi A6M Zero fared poorer than you'd think with only speed and maneuverability as its only defenses, and got shot by airplanes which could take a whole clip and keep flying. The TIE fighter is just repeating an existing mistake. Don't do it.

And generally, read the evil overlord's list already.

Re:Lemme see...

[davevr]

Sure, this is all obvious in retrospect, but you are forgetting that Star Wars took place A LONG TIME AGO!! (in a galaxy far away, no less)

- davevr

You're missing the point.

[Nameless Horror]

The bogus threat of terrorism has been the greatest bonanza for greedy and power-hungry politicians in recent US and world history. So why would they give that up now?

Not SDI again

[MichaelSmith]

It worked in Footfall but the world was being attacked by aliens in that book. Saudi terrorists are not aliens and I don't think Larry and Jerry are the best people to call on unless you want to be told to strike back with an Orion pulse rocket.

Given a more real world scenario I suggest the Homeland Security Department look to people who really were thinking ahead during the 70's and 80's and ask them to think ahead from now.

Forget the safe-bet experts

[Nymz]

This group is a professinal think tank, those in the picture all look over 55, and to be a member you need a technical doctorate degree. How much of a "deviant" thinker or "rebel" can they really be? Aren't people that come up with the most inventive and "crazy" ideas a bit younger? I like the idea of employing think tanks, it shows initiative which is vital, but if they really want some results I think they're going to have to attract a different set of thinkers.

Re:Forget the safe-bet experts

[Jesus_666]

Also, what good is a think tank without tracks and armor? We need motorized brains, dammit! No wonder the terrists keep blowing up stuff (mostly themselves, granted).

Re:here's a crazy idea...

[andr0meda]

I think by then the lady with the 3 screaming kids would have been shot, the pilots forced to jump without parachute because of the rocky stormy weather, the stewardesses raped in the toilets and half the plane actively being recast in an episode of some epic Western hollywood production everyone suddenly remembers..

Remember, everyone has limits to his civilized upbringing. It's hard to get that across to people who like guns and who think themselves as shiny examples of western society. The truth is that they are all terribly and sorrowly mistaken on the day "an accident happened".

now, I have no idea I should whish for that day or not..

More ideas to be ignored.

[Irvu]

Leaving aside the Monday morning quarterbacking there is ample evidence to suggest that the "ideas" of 9-11 from the tactical nature of the attacks to the identities of the attackers was in fact known or knowable. Al-Quaeda was, in fact on the intelligence community's radar screen and warnings about Osama Bin-Laden were prevalent even in Presidential Daily Briefings. Additionally there had been an exercise simulating exactly the kind of attack that occurred. So it wasn't that the idea had not arisen or that noone had suggested things.

Rather, its apparent that the suggestions were ignored. Whether they were ignored because Bush wanted to focus on other things or that the nature of the ideas somehow rendered them ignorable is unclear. What is clear is that they were, in fact, present and had been suggested.

Post 9-11 a great deal of effort has been spent on garnering "ideas" for attack styles on the grounds that "we didn't know". While it is nice to see people expanding their minds it is a little worrisome that they have not done so before. It is also a little worrisome because the new ideas seem to fall into two categories, those that get ignored and those that are overreacted upon.

In the former class we have things such as not throwing children year olds into Guantanamo Bay, and adding armor to protect our troops against IEDs (something that was so badly rejected that the solders were ordered by the White House to remove armor that they had added in the field). A great example of the latter comes from one of Bob Woodward's books on Bush. Some of you may remember that point about a year or so ago when the terror alert levels jumped and new, ominous, warnings came out about Al-Quaeda hijacking trains and filling them with chemicals. It turns out a bunch of guys were sitting around a meeting and one of them said: "You know it would suck if Al-Qaueda stole a train and loaded it with chemicals..." A few days later they lock down all the train stations.

So with all due respect to DHS's desire for new info but I'd like to see them make better use of what they've already got.

Re:More ideas to be ignored.

[Opportunist]

Why it was ignored? Cui bono?

I'm not trying to add more fuel to some oddball conspiracy theories, but seriously: Who benefited the most from the attacks?

So let me get this straight..

[Mystery00]

Homeland Security has invited sci-fi writers...to do their job for them?

They might as well just post the discussion here.

Here's my list:

1. Equip every passenger with anti-terrorist lasers, because of their nature, terrorists will shoot themselves by accident.
2. Shield the entire airplane with a time distortion device, except the cockpit, the passengers will be in "slow-time", so for them the plane would take off and land within seconds, not enough time for any terrorist to do anything.
3. Mother-F%*$ING SNAKES, with mother-F@#(@ING LASERS on their heads put as security guards. No terrorist will dare.
4. Virtual reality helmets for every passenger. Terrorists can act out their evil deeds to their hearts content in the safety of their own virtual plane. Of course every helmet will be recoded, and the terrorists apprehended upon landing.
5. Replace bomb sniffing dogs with jedi knights. Explanation not required.

CiC start reading and complying with alerts?

[ketilwaa]

Wasn't the title of one of the reports presented to Dubya prior to 9-11 "Terrorists plan an attack on American soil with commercial airliners" or something like that? Don't have to be a sci-fi writer to interpret that... So, "reading and complying with warnings" might be a place to start. And for those that think terrorism is an Islamic problem: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518, 476599,00.html (500 Terror Attacks in EU in 2006 - But Only 1 by Islamists)

War on Terror

[franksands]

I think that Michael Moore said it best: You cannot win the war on terror, because you cannot go to war with a noun.

If you don't like locks...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a sane foreign policy? Like cockpit locks, it won't prevent all terrorist attacks, but less bullying and more actual diplomacy will help. It also wouldn't hurt to examine economic policies and disproportionate consumption of resources. America is a colonial power by fiat and as long as that is so, there will continue to be terrorists.

The sci-fi angle is just silliness, in my opinion.

Re:If you don't like locks...

[CmdrGravy]

You think the Iranians are building nuclear weapons in order to carry out a nuclear strike on America. Are you stupid ?

You realise the Iranians are probably perfectly well aware of how many nuclear warheads the US has and what would happen to them if they even thought about launching anything towards America.

No, the Iranians are doing their best to build nuclear weapons because once they have them the US is far less likely to invade them - which is something they the US has been making low level threats to do for quite a while now. If I was Iran I'd want a nuclear capability too.

This isn't too say I'm happy to see the spread of nuclear weapons to somewhat less than well balanced countries, in fact it's really worrying, but perhaps if people weren't afraid they were facing the imminent invasion by US "Freedom Fighters" they wouldn't be so desperate to develop them.

Heres a suggestion.

[supersnail]

Rather than screening people coming into the USA why not screen people leaving the USA.

You could come up with a standardised "AQ" (Asshole Quotent) score and refuse exit to anyone scoring more than 100.

Answering "Yes" to questions like "Do you believe there should be Starbucks outlet in every culturaly important site" gets you five points.

Aswering "Yes" to a question like "Do you believe it is acceptable to shout out 'Does anyone in this joint speak English' when visting a foriegn art gallery" get you ten points.

Answering "Yes" to a question like "Do you believe its wrong to provide condoms to people who are HIV positive" gets you 50 points.

By screening people leaving your country in this way you could promote the illusion that USAians are polite considerate respectfull people and you hatred and bombs would be better directed at Candadians or Swedes.

Also candidates for high office could boast about thier high scores come lection time.

Re:Heres a suggestion.

[TempeTerra]

As an "America-hating Furriner" I'd like to say that I agree with your sentiment. The problem is that the people you describe already stay in their own country, from whence they make their crappy, far reaching decisions. Americans who choose to travel are the open minded, educated, polite ones who know there's actually something worth seeing outside the states.

Re:Heres a suggestion.

[Anon-Admin]

LOL and I am an American...

It is even funnier because of the trip last summer.

The family went to Canada for vacation. So we are up in the Quebec area and standing in line at a restaurant and the people in front of us are speaking French. My brother then says, loud enough for them to here, "They should speak the language before they come to this country." (Add a southern accent. We are from the south.)

I slapped him up side the head and said "You are in there country, now apologize to them in French!"

He just turned red and walked away. I then, in French, asked them to excuse l'idiot and apologized for his behavior. My French is bad but they understood and responded in English.

I will never forget it! I can only hope that it sticks in his mind and he NEVER does it again.

It's been done before..

[Dynamoo]

Reagan famously consulted scifi authors to come up with ideas for SDI (for example, Jerry Pournelle and others. Allegedly, they came up with some of the more interesting ideas which were just plausible enough to gain credibility.. at least for a time. (A strange case of life mirroring art.. or at least mirroring Footfall.

Depending on your interpretation of history, it could be argued that this was one of the things that let to the collapse of the Soviet Union as they couldn't compete with the proposed SDI technologies.

Yeah, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that locks on the doors on 9/11 could have been useful, but really some blue sky thinking will do no harm.

Scare Tactics

[gsslay]

Dear Sci-Fi writers,

We're flat out of fanciful terrorist ideas to scare the public with and need some new ones. Have you got any? Don't worry if they sound totally implausible, once we're finished sprucing them up only the unpatriotic will be laughing at them.

Yours,

Authorities

Re:Actually, here's a better question

[Anspen]

While I agree with your sentiment ( "The terrorist threat is hyped" ), there were these little incidents. Oklahoma, the first WTC bombing, even Beirut in '81 if you count attacks abroad.

Re:Actually, here's a better question

[Opportunist]

Erh... I think there have been a few terrorist attacks, on US embassies for example, before 9/11. Also, the towers were the target of a terror attack before. Not to mention the "domestic terror" that existed before the coordinated attack.

And, quite frankly, if I wanted to conduct a terrorist attack on the US, it would be far from impossible. Maybe a stunt like 9/11 is incredibly hard to pull through today, but small scale attacks akin to those in Israel would be no biggie. If an outsider really wanted to, he could terrorize the US, easily. A bomb in a shopping mall, how would you even want to avoid it?

In reply to the "see?", I think pretty much everyone here will get the hint when I say, I'm willing to sell you a stone...

Re:Place -terrorism in your /. filter then

[misanthrope101]

I'm not upset over there being a Slashdot story on terrorism. I'm upset over our larger cultural obsession with terrorism. Whether or not there is yet another terrorism post on Slashdot is nothing compared to the rest of the wide-ranging effects of our hysteria over this.

The dilution of habeus corpus, the normalization of torture, the normalization of warrantless surveillance, an open-ended war that is making the world more dangerous, the fact that we as a nation are represented by George Bush and the neocons--all of this is what I am upset over, and all is traceable to a fear of terrorism that is vastly disproportionate to the actual risk. If you have a Firefox extension that can deal with all of this, please send me a link. I'm all about installing it.

Then talk to people

[PMBjornerud]

I don't live over there, so I'm not changing anything. But I think some intelligent people over in the US should really start making those very valid points. Talk to your friends and family, and make it clear how utterly irrelevant it is to be worried about terror. Unless terrorists obtain nukes or other WMD's, terror is a complete non-issue for the average joe. Like spending your life fearing that you should be suddenly killed by lightning.

Oh, and if you're taking the global perspective, try these numbers: around 24.000 people die every day due to hunger. Though americans may be annoyed if you take that perspective too far. If disasters were measured solely in terms of human lives lost, 9/11 wouldn't be the headline even on the day it happened.

"It WILL happen again"

[MillionthMonkey]

People are totally innumerate and they overreact to rare, dramatic events. Everyone went nuts over the VT tragedy because it was "the worst school shooting in history" even though it only killed 30+ people. That's less than an average day's worth of gun deaths, or about six hours of car accidents. Now it's almost six years later and people are still overreacting to 9/11. I mean, 3000 deaths in one day and at the same place is impressive, but it still totals to just one month of car accidents. Think of how miserable we've made ourselves since then. Was it worth it?

Asking "whether the next 9/11 can be prevented" is a dumb question to try to answer. It's like "how do we prevent the next car accident?" The sort of questions we should be asking sound cold and calculating, which is unfortunate because it keeps us from asking them:

- Is it possible to reduce the number of terrorist attacks?
- Is it possible to reduce the number of terrorist attacks to zero?
- What is the probability per year that a terrorist act might affect you?
- What is the probability per year that our self-flagellating counterterrorism efforts might affect you?
- Since 9/11, how many additional hours of your life have been spent in airports?
- How many years of your life have been spent as a soldier overseas?
- How many years of your life have been lost as a soldier overseas?
- Is terrorism even something most of us worry about personally anymore?

It's unfortunate that we have created security monsters like TSA that simultaneously don't work and would be political suicide to get rid of.

My own idea for "preventing the next VT tragedy" was to crack down on the manufacturers of doors, not the sellers of handguns. If it were illegal to manufacture doors with closed loops in their handles, the guy wouldn't have been able to chain the door shut.

Re:"It WILL happen again"

[JordanL]

Since 9/11, how many additional hours of your life have been spent in airports?

I have been on no less than 20 round trip flights, 2 international, since 9/11. There is nothing unreasonable and rediculous about them at all. In fact, the only place I ever really waited in line for long was in Denver, and that was situational.

In fact, having flown many times, I actually am concerned about the lack of time many airports spend on security. I was coming back from Tokyo in the San Francisco and due to a malfunction in the baggage return I was delayed 45 minutes on a connecting flight that was only 1:10 after I landed. I was sure that there was no way I could get my bags and get to the connecting gate, in the domestic terminal, in time.

Fortunately for me, customs waved me through without so much as wanding me. Unfortunately, that isn't what customs is supposed to do. I should have missed that flight.

Re:"It WILL happen again"

[DrSkwid]

I did 3 hours in a queue at Heathrow 4 weeks after the stupid liquid nonsense.

"Take your shoes off please."

What did the Swiss do : tell everybody to fly armed !

Re:stop being a racist coward

[supersnail]

I am British and niether racist nor a coward.

We brits have no need to attract terrorists are we are self sufficient in this area
although we don't export that many.

As for the goods thing we do, well, its much the same as your list:-

Invade Afganistan.

Invade Iraq.

Murdoch dominated media.

etc. etc.

Plus a few extras like:-

Inflicting cricket on half the world (technically only the English are culpable for this).
We dont have a national dress anymore as all the world is stuffed into suits and ties -- this surely counts as the most pervasive and uncofrotable example of "cultural imperialism" ever.
The Spice Girls (we are truly sorry about Posh Spice - but very glad she is now living in LA).
etc. etc.

On the other hand:
We nearly always apologetic about invading someones country, sinking thier fleet, bombing thier cities etc. etc.
We accept that foriegners and ex-colonists are inferior so are carefull not to criticise them.
We try to be polite and orderly when in someone elses country (when sober!).
We only pick fights with with people who want to fight and/or the riot police (when drunk!).

In this way we are nearly always welcome back, and, have have the world lining up to take up residense
in our damp miserabl eover priced country.

Go figure.

Re:Actually, here's a better question

[hey!]

Actually, DHS does not seem to be particular effective or efficient at anything it does. It's not just FEMA; what about that guy with TB that got back into the country by flying to Montreal and driving through a border checkpoint?

I've got two words for you:

[QuantumG]

Chuck Norris.

Dude must have a hell of time flying. He's a lethal weapon.

One roundhouse kick and the plane will fall out of the sky.

Not to mention the effect he has on the female cab crew.

Hey Homeland Security!

[MillionthMonkey]

I wonder if a science fiction writer could have come up with a story as screwed up as this one about the tuberculosis guy. A patient with tuberculosis flew to his wedding in Greece and while he was on his honeymoon in Italy he was notified by the CDC that his tuberculosis was a scary drug resistant strain, to avoid travel, and to turn himself in to Italian authorities to be quarantined. They also told him that he had been put on the no-fly list. But damn it, he's on his honeymoon. So what did he do? He flew from Prague to Montreal to successfully avoid the no-fly list, and then he drove across the border into New York State, with no-flying:

Health officials said the man had been advised not to fly and knew he could expose others when he boarded the jets from Atlanta to Paris, and later from Prague to Montreal.
The man, however, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that doctors didn't order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding in Greece. He knew he had a form of tuberculosis and that it was resistant to first-line drugs, but he didn't realize it could be so dangerous, he said.
"We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," said the man, who declined to be identified because of the stigma attached to his diagnosis.
He flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385. While in Europe, health authorities reached him with the news that further tests had revealed his TB was a rare, "extensively drug-resistant" form, far more dangerous than he knew. They ordered him into isolation, saying he should turn himself over to Italian officials.
Instead, the man flew from Prague to Montreal on May 24 aboard Czech Air Flight 0104, then drove into the United States at Champlain, N.Y. He told the newspaper he was afraid that if he didn't get back to the U.S., he wouldn't get the treatment he needed to survive.
...
The man told the Journal-Constitution he was in Rome during his honeymoon when the CDC notified him of the new tests and told him to turn himself in to Italian authorities to be isolated and be treated. The CDC told him he couldn't fly aboard commercial airliners.
"I thought to myself: You're nuts. I wasn't going to do that. They told me I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged," the man said.
He told the newspaper he and his wife decided to sneak back into the U.S. through Canada. He said he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was flown by the CDC to Atlanta.
He is not facing prosecution, health officials said.
"I'm a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person," he told the paper. "This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I've cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."

So what was unfortunately revealed by this episode?

• After six good years of hysteric overspending we still can't track down TB patients on their honeymoons much less bioterrorists
• So we put patients with communicable diseases on our handy terrorist no-fly list
• Handy travel tip for anyone on the no-fly list: fly Czech Air to Canada and enter the U.S. via rental car!
• Tuberculosis causes dementia as is shown here by the illogical desire to get to the U.S. for medical treatment

Re:here's a crazy idea...

[mrjb]

Let everyone onboard with any weapon (firearm) they are legally permitted to carry otherwise.
From my European perspective this is a Bad Idea. More innocent people are shot in the US than anywhere else in the world.
might as well arm the pilots too while we are at it.
Not as crazy as you think. Some people need to carry guns for their occupations (cops, for instance). What might happen is demonstrated by the case of an armed pilot of Garuda, Indonesian airways. Things more or less evolved in the following manner:
Hijacker (as he enters the cockpit): "This plane is hijacked!"
Pilot (shoots the hijacker) : "Not anymore."
Not a single passenger got injured.

Re:here's a crazy idea...

[Ihlosi]

And then you try to fire your gun again, but it won't fucking work without oxygen, you idiot.

I think you need to read up on what makes explosives (including gunpowder) go boom, actually. Hint: They do contain their own oxidizer.

Re:here's a crazy idea...

[vrmlguy]

An explosion is the result of a solid (or sometimes liquid) material being converted into a gas in a confinded volume. In most cases, the conversion has to happen faster than the gas can leak out of an enclosure. Most explosives are comnustable material that's been mixed with an oxidizer so it burn really, really fast. Without the oxidizer, oxygen can't get to the combustion fast enough and the gas escapes, turning the BOOM into a POP. Since there's an oxidizer present, these types of explosives work quite well in total vacumns, and yes, gunpowder falls into that group.

In other words, your gun will fucking work without oxygen, you moron.

it's not a crazy idea to aks writers

[circletimessquare]

the idea of entering cockpits and taking over airplanes and flying them into office towers is straight out of hollywood. stupidly easy to prevent, in terms of logistical hurdles and pre-existing intelligence, but straight out of hollywood nonetheless. in fact, were 9/11 a movie instead of reality, someone in the theatre would compain: "wouldn't they just lock the cockpit door? these hollywood screenwriters are so stupid"

which leads one to conclude 2 things:

1. if terrorists get their ideas from steven seagal/ jean-claude van damme scripts, then homeland security can do two things:
a. watch a lot of old bruce willis/ sylvester stallone movies, and compile a list of possible attack vectors
b. actively feed hollywood retarded movie scripts featuring attack vectors that would never work, and wait for the terrorists to try them

2. screw sci-fi writers. elicit the help of b-grade hollywood action movie writers. who wrote "true lies" with sylvester stallone? who wrote "the pacifier" starring vin diesel? sci-fi writers? ha! tom clancey is our go to man to simulate the imagination of terrorists

Wow, this happens in a scifi book

[trawg]

Heh, a similar thing happens in Niven and Pournelle's book Footfall. Earth is invaded by aliens and the US government calls in the sci-fi writers.

I've got mixed feelings on this..

[Nim82]

On one hand, I really don't know if it's a good idea for politicians to read books at all, let alone speak to writers. Here in the UK someone misread 1984 and took it to be a guide book promoting the merits of the police state, complete with instructions.

On the the other hand though, if the writers really pushed the boat out and highlighted the - ever so real - danger of space based terrorism, who knows, NASA may get funding to build decent spacecraft (maybe even a Star Destroyer). Wouldn't want one of them little rascals redirecting an asteroid to hit N.Y. now would we?

Re:No imagination required.

[mh1997]

Many posts are joking about this, but this is a good thing.

For example, the idea of a commercial plane crashing into a building (the whitehouse) was in Tom Clancey's "Red Storm Rising" published in 1991.

Sadly when asked about 9/11, our government officials said that it never occured to anyone that a commercial plane would be used as a weapon.

Teach security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Teach security at school.

There is only one way to get the point to a American: blow something big up. So if you want to reach the teaching system one has to blow it up.

WW1: A German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania in 1915, with 128 Americans aboard.
WW2: Blow up pearl harbor. 2403 fatalities)
War against terrorism : Blow up a building in New York and kill 2,974

So one should blow up something visible to get US attention. ( 3000 people so something like that)

If someone decides to blow up a school or 2 in the US, US will respond by putting a big fence around every school and applying extreme access control that will make look like north-Korea a place or freedom.

Result:
-Americans spend so much on security they will loose the economic war.
-Children will learn security at all cost is important and privacy or personal life is less important.
-Security firms will earn BILLIONS.

So it is not hard to let the next generation of Americans live their life in fear by just a few well placed attacks.

Diplomacy

[gi.net]

I'm not a Sci-fi writer but here is what I suggest:

• 1) Fire/Execute the morons of your Homeland Security Department for not understanding the problem and suggesting such stupid ideas.
• 2) Fire/Execute your moronic president. Because of him and his father, your country is now the most hated country in the world.
• 3) Try to play nice with all the countries in the world. I know this is difficult, but it is called "Diplomacy".

Hello! We are not in a movie or a video game. We live in The Real World. People realy die, people realy suffer. We can't just rewind the movie or restart the game.

If you don't want someone to hurt you, don't be his enemy.

Lock the cockpit doors?

[PFI_Optix]

Sure, and what happens the first time something goes wrong and the plane crew is incapacitated? Prior to 9/11, it was a far greater worry that the cockpit door would be locked when something went wrong than the idea of someone storming the cockpit with boxcutters.

In hindsight, we also should have trained pilots not to so easily relinquish control of the plane. Instead it was generally thought that hijackers should be allowed to take over the plane because they normally just landed somewhere and made demands.

Experience had taught us to expect completely different circumstances than we had on 9/11.

We need a change of philosophy...

[Firethorn]

Personally, much of my solution to the problem involves a shift in our teaching process. For years we've taught 'let the professionals handle it'. IE the police.

Even the police had been infected with this - during Columbine they secured a perimeter and waited for SWAT. This cost lives. Now standard procedure for many departments is that police go in when they get there. Officer Dan might not be SWAT, but he has a gun he should be competent with, and he's what's there, not what's going to take another 15 minutes(and possibly another 60 dead).

We saw the ultimate failure at Viginia Tech - Students hid under desks and tried to flee - from a single assailant. Far fewer lives would have been lost if they'd done the same thing flight 93 had done - attacked back.

I think that a cultural change to one of resistance, one that venerates the 'one who stood first' would be a good thing, in many ways.

I believe there's a lot of truth to the saying: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

As for using scifi authers, I figure it's brainstorming, and a scifi author is generally both inventive and cheap. I can think of far worse things to spend ~30k on.

Re:We need a change of philosophy...

[mmdog]

I like the way you put that, changing to a culture of resistance.

My own less positive and less politically correct take on things is that we have become a nation of cowards. That was my first impression after the VT shootings and I found myself using exactly those words in more than one conversation.

I can speculate many reasons behind the shift toward cowardice in the U.S. but all that does is create a lot of argument and derision from the people I'd lump in as cowards. I think absentee fathers, a dearth of lawyers willing to sue over anything (combined with a judiciary afraid to slow/stop them) and an educational system based on self-esteem rather than performance are some of the most significant factors.

I think putting sci-fi writers to work in this manner is a great idea. Most of them are fairly innovative thinkers who are going to see things in a different light than the typical 'security' expert. This can only be a good thing and in the grand scheme it's a bargain.

Re:We need a change of philosophy...

[nyclinix]

Your point is right on the money. For years we have lived in a society where bank tellers give up the cash and do not resist, airline crews sumbit to hijacking and police departments try to negoitiate at all costs - even in the face of armed killers. Well, the bank robbers, hijackers, terrorists and killers who want to be on TV before they go out in a blaze of glory read the news and watch the tube and know how their actions will be responded to. I have seen video footage of anti-bank robbery systems in Europe that drop a steel wall down when a teller fears a robbery. I have been locked out of (or in) computer rooms I need to get into (or out of) - would a strong, locked, bullet resistent door on a plane make more sense than letting ANYONE unauthorized in the cabin? Would the VT killer have taken so many lives if the school had a one hour per semester "how to stay alive" seminar - as the previous writer indicated: If 32 students charged the gunman because they were taught that was the best way to stay alive the number of casulties would have been much lower. If that guy had attacked a room full of people convinced that a rush towards him was the best way to stay alive instead of just sitting there - or at least charging him when he had to reload - the results would have been different. I am not in favor of turning everything into a fortress or everyone into a group of avengers but the old idea that we should wait for someone else is obsolete. The Fergueson shooting case on the Long Island railroad several years ago would have been much like the VT case except that the people on the train attacked before he could reload. The wait for the professionals (esp. in light of Flight 93) mentality is still what the airlines and banks want to push because they are afraid of getting sued. Too F'ING bad. The police don't want people to "take the law into their own hands". Well FCUK that idea too, better to get arrested in order to stay alive than get dead to avoid getting arrested. Even the police have a saying to cover when they use too much force: "Better judged by 12 (jurors) than carried by six (pallbearers).

Re:Ever heard of Conceal and Carry?

[uncledrax]

I think he was saying that Flight 93 crashed because the people on board it stood up, realized something was going on, and fought for themselves.. not that they specifically had firearms.

Re:Ever heard of Conceal and Carry?

[Lumpy]

Armed citizens cant be oppressed. Why do you think they want to ban guns everywhere and the propoganda that is all over how guns will kill your children and are unsafe?

If you are armed, it makes it harder to declare martial law. Also a generation of unarmed citizens are far more easy to control as the children never had exposure to guns and therefore are frightened of them and have a higher likeliness to not pick one up to defend themselves.

Re:Ever heard of Conceal and Carry?

[Ihlosi]

Armed citizens cant be oppressed.

Yes they can. Just use an imaginary or real external threat, tell them that any measures are just for their own security, and denounce anyone who doesn't agree with that as "unpatriotic".

Or just bring bigger guns.

SciFi writers don't always paint positive futures

[HikingStick]

They might get some great ideas, but some other undesirable ones as well. A list might look like:

1) Implanted identification chip for every person, worldwide at birth. This (if engineered correctly) would make administering a no-fly list much easier. It would also make it easier to track all fertilizer and ammonia purchases, because the chip would be required for commerce, too.

2) Remote control of the plane, so some RC hobbyist can fly it to the ground. Or, better yet, some child who is playing a flight simulator game (oops, I read Ender's Game recently).

3) Rig all planes for remote auto-destruct. Wait! There's a suspected terrorist on that plane? Blow it up now, so they cannot kill additional people. Then there are public service announcements lauding the innocent passengers who were heros to the motherland.

4) Require all passengers to be put into stasis before flying. Then you can load them in cargo tubes and eliminate the first-class/coach price disparity.

5) Use amusement park style restraints that are locked before take-off and unlocked only when approaching the destination terminal. Built-in porta-pottys would be a must.

6) Clear vast areas of ground as designated fly-way corridors. These would lead to massive airports away form major metropolitan areas and would have massive ground transport hubs. If any plane veers out of the approved flight corridors, they are shot down.

7) Permanently ground domestic flights and force people to take the train. We know terrorists would never successfully pull off an attack on a train, because people might actually converse. It would be relatively easy to spot the non-conversant-I'm-ready-to-die crowd among the other social riders [OK. Inside joke here.]

8) Revisit that implanted chip. It now includes circuitry that can be remotely triggered to induce a major coronary event. Wait! That guy in 16b is acting suspicious! I'm going to trip his chip.

9) Nuke the entire planet. With no people around, there are no terrorists.

10) Make Sesame Street mandatory in-flight viewing for all flights. The colorful, friendly characters and their message of sharing and caring will re-program the minds of all passengers toward a life of increased harmony and peace (especially after the government adds subluminal anti-terror messages every few frames)!

Re:here's a crazy idea...

[halivar]

From my European perspective this is a Bad Idea. More innocent people are shot in the US than anywhere else in the world.

I am simply astonished at the flat wrongness of this assertion:

Murders with firearms (98-2000):
South Africa: 31,918
Colombia: 21,898
Thailand: 20,032
United States: 8,259

When you count murders with firearms per capita, the US falls to #8. When you count all murders, with and without firearms, the US falls to #24.

Money Money Money

[Khammurabi]

They went to war because they thought they could win easily, and it would be a good idea. They were wrong, on a number of levels, but that doesn't mean they're happy about or moreover intended the current situation over there, and to imply anything else, like I said, is pretty ridiculous.

They did win easily. Saddam was toppled in a matter of minutes. But it's becoming blatantly apparent that they were more interested in a prolonged conflict, so they can deluge money on all the defense contractors and other direct supporters of the current administration. Once the money reaches Iraq, there is no legal accountability for anything. If you receive money to build a school, and don't, there's nothing illegal about it as long as you put up a half-assed attempt at trying to build one. (Meaning if you rented a bulldozer and claimed the security for it bankrupted you, you're off the hook.) Heck, 360 tons of cash went missing and the public did nothing about it.

After reading up on how the Department of Homeland Security was basically turned into the equivalent of a government contractor eBay, it seemed to confirm it. I've been told that the standing orders from the people who work there are that the department is not allowed to do anything themselves, they must contract everything out. So again the main focus seems to be funneling money to the contractors.

Contrary to the national media image (which by the way is controlled by their supporters) this administration is not dumb. This administration is quite adept at funneling money from the taxpayers to the contractors. All the rest of what they're doing just seems to support and protect this goal of theirs. As for Gitmo and "getting tough" on terrorists, they just know what show their base wants to see.

Here's an idea.

[UncleRage]

Gene Roddenberry: Strive for equality among humanity, do away with the pursuit of personal wealth as a career choice, dedicate our resources to knowledge and greater understanding instead of developing petty differences into financially successful military endeavors.

Just a thought.

Message from the Real World

[Catbeller]

First, it's SF, or science fiction, not sci-fi. "Sci-fi" was coined by movie reviewers in the '50's to sound cool. No one in science fiction used the term.

Now. I used the term "real world" from Asimov and Greenberg's "Best of [fill in year]" SF short story collections. Asimov's opening essay would sum up what was happening in the world, that Mel Brooks was Melvin Kaminski still. Then he would list what was happening in the Real World of science fiction that year.

We, the children of Asimov, the Real World of SF, respondeth:

In 2007, fearmongers were still pumping the handle on the "terrorist" shibboleth. No one had attacked the US in over six years, yet the citizenry was still being told that an attack was imminent, could come from anywhere (yet still somehow was related to planes), and that the enemy was Islam, though that meme was heavily cloaked in buzz words. Homeland Security, named seemingly by George Orwell himself, was rolling up the country's police and intelligence forces into one incoherent and unmanageable mess. The rightist militias, one member of which had actually blown up a federal building in Oklahoma City, were still marching and conducting drills to take down the government, yet were curiously untouched by the new American police force. We were still attempting to occupy a country that we had been assured was about to attack us at any moment, and we were losing.

Mel Brooks was Mel Brooks.

In the real world, the collected writers of science fiction, addressed as "sci-fi" writers, were asked to come up with ideas to block the immiment attacks against our helpless country. Jerry Pournelle probably leapt to the the defense, while the others in more or less said: There are no terrorists, and there is no such enemy as terrorism. If you are trying to find a way to fend off attacks, first, you cannot. The preeminent architects of the future, we scruffy bunch, will tell you there is no way to prevent an intelligent attacker from finding a way to hurt you, if he or she is willing to die to strike a blow. We spend our lives imagining ways to do the impossible. Yes, in five minutes we can give you a dozen ways around any security protocol you can come up with. If you block those, we will find another dozen. The same attacks can be achieved in any place that is not a military prison. If you wish perfect safety, make your nation into such. And you still will be afraid, for it is not a matter of security, but of perception of security. You grow fear in your people like mold, and you devour that mold as your sustenance. You are making yourselves an army of George Hearsts through selling fear and the antidote for the fear, so assuaging the fear is increasingly out of the question, is it not?

Try instead not to manufacture enemies. You created bin Laden to strike at the Soviets in Afghanistan in the seventies, who claimed they were there to stem the rise of militant Islam. They were right and you were wrong. You invaded Afghanistan to strike at al Queda, even though they left long before you bombed the country. You annihilated Iraq, then turned it into a occupied prison state. You are now surrounding Iran with two carrier groups and tried to add a third, but the Navy refused to cooperate. If you bomb them, 90 million people will take up arms against you, and yes, all the attacks you tell your people to fear will then become very real. Mission Accompished, indeed.

We can't help you. You are your own enemy, and you will never defeat yourself. Try shattering the mirror.

Sample suggestions:

[untaken_name]

1. Vaporize the terrorists with beam weapons
2. Seduce the beautiful but deadly female terrorist leader and turn her to your cause
3. Send the beautiful but tough female noncom to blow them all up without needing one of those stupid 'men' to help (but she does get the sensitive, understanding, but also handsome guy she wants, of course, she just doesn't NEED him)
4. Upload a virus into the terrorists' mothership and bring it down
5. Expose the terrorists to simple bacteria, which their alien metabolisms can't handle
6. Ask for the Big Gun instead of the Good Package

Re:An obvious one

[dave420]

Maybe the first thing to do would be to understand what the word "terrorism" means. Hint: It's not killing soldiers.

Re:Ever heard of Conceal and Carry?

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Bovine Fertilizer. There's plenty of arms in Iraq. Plenty of violence, too.

And I don't see martial law in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, or Canada where there is much stricter regulation of handguns.

Re:Ever heard of Conceal and Carry?

[Lumpy]

the citizens are fighting for their homes. the soldiers are there because they were told to be there. That is a huge difference. If we got our asses out right now, the terrorist groups would be slaughtered in the street. American soldiers are invaders and therefore are solidifying the alliance between the locals and the terrorists. Eliminate the universal enemy and the terrorists would be slaughtered by the locals.