I would like to point out that this weekend the head of the FBI didn't ask for script kiddies to apply to his agency. He asked that people with a proficency in Arabic and Pharsi try to join the FBI. Though people call this a new war, the types of "technology" being used are ancient: terrosits use complex social organization. What is needed are laws that allow tracking along social lines - not along the lines of technology. The open need for people familiar with the Arab world is an example of this. Who better to understand the organization of a largely Arab terrorist organization than people from the same culture? Being able to decrypt all the email in the world won't neccessarily stop terrorism - people have thwarted similar measures by governents since time immemorial. What is primarily needed is a knowledge of the types of social organization these groups employ. This type of information can be more efficiently gleaned through old fashioned human to human contact. Increasing electronic monitoring isn't even half of the problem - using the same monitoring capabilities that our government has now with laws that allow for a more fluid, dynamic, context dependent tracking of people will, in my opinion, solve our intelligence problem. Why give a carte blanche to the FBI and CIA to inspect all of our private transmissions? If they don't have the human capacity, or the specialized cultural knowledge, to sift through it we will all lose our liberty, and gain nothing in increased knowledge of possible terrorists.
Yeah let's "give it to 'em" Jesus, do you have any idea what is IN afghanistan?! Nothing! They've been at war for about 20 consecutive years. Imagine a region with the climate like the american southwest, with the arab equivalent to Mormons in control of everything they could wrap their fundamentalist fingers around. Who are we going to give it too? Starving goat herders? Disease ridden children in the streets? Why would a people like this have to resort to "terrorism"? Because they are too damn poor and economically unimportant for places like America to listen to as we trample all over them in our desire extend our imperialist domain in the middle east.
All this b.s. patriotism is borderline fascist mindf**king. When we firebombed north Iraq, could that not be considered an "act of terrorism" against the Iraqi people? This whole give 'em all we got attitude doesn't win wars, and more importantly it doesn't ever offer a way to end them. Wasn't WWI a big enough lesson for the west?
Before we decide to slaughter a tiny country's civilians, maybe we ought to consider why things have gotten so out of hand that they want to blow all of us up in the first place. I guarantee it's not because we are a "...beacon of freedom." (G.W.Bush).
There is a larger historical context surrounding all of this. If Americans could, impossible as it may sound, step back a little bit and try and find out what is REALLY going on around them maybe we wouldn't need to wage a "new kind of war".
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I would like to point out that this weekend the head of the FBI didn't ask for script kiddies to apply to his agency. He asked that people with a proficency in Arabic and Pharsi try to join the FBI. Though people call this a new war, the types of "technology" being used are ancient: terrosits use complex social organization. What is needed are laws that allow tracking along social lines - not along the lines of technology. The open need for people familiar with the Arab world is an example of this. Who better to understand the organization of a largely Arab terrorist organization than people from the same culture? Being able to decrypt all the email in the world won't neccessarily stop terrorism - people have thwarted similar measures by governents since time immemorial. What is primarily needed is a knowledge of the types of social organization these groups employ. This type of information can be more efficiently gleaned through old fashioned human to human contact. Increasing electronic monitoring isn't even half of the problem - using the same monitoring capabilities that our government has now with laws that allow for a more fluid, dynamic, context dependent tracking of people will, in my opinion, solve our intelligence problem. Why give a carte blanche to the FBI and CIA to inspect all of our private transmissions? If they don't have the human capacity, or the specialized cultural knowledge, to sift through it we will all lose our liberty, and gain nothing in increased knowledge of possible terrorists.
Yeah let's "give it to 'em" Jesus, do you have any idea what is IN afghanistan?! Nothing! They've been at war for about 20 consecutive years. Imagine a region with the climate like the american southwest, with the arab equivalent to Mormons in control of everything they could wrap their fundamentalist fingers around. Who are we going to give it too? Starving goat herders? Disease ridden children in the streets? Why would a people like this have to resort to "terrorism"? Because they are too damn poor and economically unimportant for places like America to listen to as we trample all over them in our desire extend our imperialist domain in the middle east.
All this b.s. patriotism is borderline fascist mindf**king. When we firebombed north Iraq, could that not be considered an "act of terrorism" against the Iraqi people? This whole give 'em all we got attitude doesn't win wars, and more importantly it doesn't ever offer a way to end them. Wasn't WWI a big enough lesson for the west?
Before we decide to slaughter a tiny country's civilians, maybe we ought to consider why things have gotten so out of hand that they want to blow all of us up in the first place. I guarantee it's not because we are a "...beacon of freedom." (G.W.Bush).
There is a larger historical context surrounding all of this. If Americans could, impossible as it may sound, step back a little bit and try and find out what is REALLY going on around them maybe we wouldn't need to wage a "new kind of war".