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Causing Terror On the Cheap
jhigh writes "Bruce Schneier posts on his blog today about the value of terror with respect to cost-benefit for the terrorists. If you look at terror attacks in terms of what they cost the terrorists to implement, compared with what they cost the economy of the nation that was hit, the reward for terrorists is astronomical. Add in the insane costs of the security measures implemented afterward, particularly in America, and it's easy to see why the terrorists do what they do. Even when they're unsuccessful, they cost us billions in security countermeasures."
Let's face it, I don't know if the Terrorists have "won", but we have surely lost. Terrorists have changed our lives, robbed us of many of our guaranteed rights and freedoms (in the US this has occurred with the aid of our government), and we are paying for it every day (and not just with dollars).
So who benefits financially?
I applaud Bruce for railing against it, and Marcus Ranum too in his even more pointed criticism in his books. But what they are railing against is the military industrial complex, and their complaints have as much power as Eisenhower's at the end of his term, when he cautioned the American people not to let it take over.
Too. Late.
Guys like Richard Clarke write books about the upcoming CyberWar, they are abetted by Chinese BGP attacks that they couldn't be more thrilled about, because they have founded security firms that are already lobbying on K Street. Wake up. This is big business and the Blackwaterization of airports, the internet, the highways, it's begun and it won't stop. Not when the MSNBC poll is running 75-25 in favor of classifying Julian Assante a terrorist.
Poor Daniel Ellsberg, living long enough to see all his pentagon paper work undone in broad brushstrokes. Nixon didn't live to see the American security state flourish, he'd have been flush with joy had he lived. He and Charles Colson would have danced a little jig with Henry Kissinger, the merry assassins of democracy were simply ahead of their time.
The simple answer is to stop wasting money on shit like this. Something that kills less people per year than farm animals is not something to be wasting money on. When the towers fell we should have rebuilt them 10 stories taller, and locked the cockpit door. That should have been the end of that. Instead we waste money on ineffective security and act like a bunch of Nancys.
The goal or Al Queda, is and always was to transform the Islamic world along their fundamentalist ideals. Their best idea of how to do that is convince Muslims they are under attack from a powerful outside enemy, and that Al Queda is leading the resistance. The US has played it's part in this game, from their point of view, perfectly.
Stupid, stupid, stupid US policy to take this bait.
The Cold War is a good example; the US spent a relatively small amount arming the terrorists in Afghanistan, forcing the USSR to spend a lot more to maintain their occupation. Similarly, the Star Wars project (in spite of being a complete failure as a real weapons system) forced the USSR to spend huge amounts on launch capability to be able to be sure of getting missiles past the (nonexistent) shield.
Wars have been won and lost because of economics for a long time though. Napoleon understood this when he said that an army marches on its stomach - the supply chain can lose a war just as easily as enemy action.
One of the examples that's now used when teaching this stuff is a brief engagement from the last Golf War, when an Apache helicopter popped up over a hill, sighted a convoy, and destroyed it. The convoy was made of trucks worth, maybe, $20K each. The missiles that the Apache fired cost upwards of $100K each. Who won the engagement? It really depends on what was in the trucks, but it's most probable that the result was that the US losses were more expensive, in spite of the fact that they destroyed the the enemy and returned home with no casualties.
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I grew up in the UK. In the 70s and 80s there were bombs going off regularly in the UK because of the situation in Northern Ireland but the response seemed to be less significant than the response to the present 'terror'. People seemed to get on with life more back then and seemed to be more pragmatic in their responses.
Anybody know why it seems like we've responded with a much greater response this time round? Because these guys are suicide bombers? People worry more? Or did we respond at about the same level last time round?
I was in London when the truck bomb blew up large parts of Canary Wharf, the people I knew who worked in the area seemed to be more concerned about checking if they should go to work the next day, if the office was still there, more than anything else.
An attack that is attempted but fails costs more than money.
Please note that there have been no failed terrorist attacks in the past 10 years.
Every attack achieved at least one of the objectives. Agreed, most have only achieved one of the objectives, but all have achieved the objective of having various nations make life worse for their own citizens.
Taking guns away is totally worth it. We aren't allowed guns here in the UK and as a result we are completely safe. Apart from the occasional terror attack. And the couple of shootings a week. And the criminals with guns. And not being able to defend yourself or your family.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
...a brief engagement from the last Golf War...
ahhh... I remember when it use to be a peaceful sport.