Slashdot Mirror
Making a Case For Cyberwar Against Syria
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Jason Healey writes at Defense One that if the Obama administration conducts military strikes against Syria, as now seems likely, it should use military cyber weapons at the earliest possible moment to show 'that cyber operations are not evil witchcraft but can be humanitarian.' Cyber capabilities could first disrupt Syrian air defenses directly or confuse military command and control, allowing air strikes to proceed unchallenged. A cyber strike might also disable dual-use Syrian critical infrastructure (such as electrical power) that aids the regime's military but with no long-term destruction as would be caused by traditional bombs. Last, it is possible the U.S. military has cyber capabilities to directly disrupt the operations of Syria's chemical troops. Healy writes that one cyberweapon that should not be used is covert cyber operations against Bashar Assad's finances. 'Both of his immediate predecessors declined such attacks and the world economy and financial sector are already in a perilous state.' Before the American-led strikes against Libya in 2011, the Obama administration debated whether to conduct a cyberoffensive to disrupt the Qaddafi government's air-defense system, but balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China, to carry out such offensives of their own. This time should be different in Healey's view. 'By sparing the lives of Syrian troops and nearby civilians, an opening cyber operation against Syria could demonstrate exactly how such capabilities can be compliant with international humanitarian law,' writes Healey. 'America should take this chance to demystify these weapons to show the world they, and the U.S. military in general, can be used on the battlefield in line with humanitarian principles.'"
Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones...
Especially not at people who live in much less glassy houses and still have plenty of stones... Seriously, unless the world of SCADA systems, consumer operating systems, and assorted web infrastructure, and such is far less of a clusterfuck than is routinely reported at security conferences, do we really want to encourage any more hackery than already goes on?
(Attempting to use the 'humanitarian' bullshit is doubly foolish: 'humanitarian' is always an object of politicized cynisism, and wouldn't it arguably be 'humanitarian' to discourage US military activities by turning out the lights in DC for a few days every time somebody gets cruise-missiled?)
Apparently we should use 'cyber' weapons; but not against the finances of the guy we accuse of killing ~100k people; because the poor, poor, banks might get weepy or something. What kind of bullshit is this? Sure, target the Syrian electrical grid (it's "dual use"!) but don't touch the financial markets, they have feelings too(and apparently financial markets aren't "dual use" much to the confusion of money launderers, mercenaries, and plundering kleptocrats worldwide?)
No kidding! This "justification" for "war" is sounding like a broken record.
Wasting money to kill others (who disagree with you) is spiritually retarded.
When are people going to demand that violence is NOT the solution -- it is precisely part of the problem in the first place!
I'm reminded of MLK Jr's speech who said it a little more eloquently:
* Full transcript & audio of the brilliant speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm