Net and Terrorism.

[snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>]

I took a few days to think about this stuff, and I am replying to these
in bulk rather than seperately.

T.C. May wrote:

Can anything be done? To stop the likely effects of lots more
surface-to-air missiles, lots more nerve gas available on the black market,
and so on?

In a word, "no."
/*
     I disagree. Terrorism, political terrorism is fear. There are ways to
protect military targets that are quite cost effective, unfortunately they
are politically unpopular. (What just happend in Saudi is on my mind.
STUPID military commanders getting the same pie in the face time and time
again. There is NOTHING so unchanging as the military mind set.)

Civilian targets are harder to protect, but certain steps can be
taken to lessen chances of a sucessful attack.

Another method, and this would be very unpopular (and
hypocritical of the US) would be simply to announce that we (the Country)
are going to hold the _manufacturing_ nation responcible for the use of
weapons of mass destruction. So if Soviet Nerve Gas is used, we gas a
city in the Soviet Union. MAD carried to a lower level. 
	
A third option is quite simply to buy as much of it as possible. 
*/

I expect a city or two to get nuked in the next decade or so. (Haifa or Tel
Aviv would be my leading candidates.) To me, this is unsurprising.

/* 
My bets in the following order:
     Paris
     New York
     Rome
     London
     LA (by home brewed idiots)
     Chicago
     Berlin.
 
     I don't think that terrorists in the middle east will pop a nuke as
they would get as many of their own as the "enemy". One of the things a
terrorist needs more than money is a place to hide, and if you are killing
your own people, they won't shield you. 
*/

moderate economic or physical crises. (No, I am not a "survivalist," just
mentally and physically prepared to deal with a major earthquake, economic
dislocation, or terrorist incident in San Jose, which is 30 miles north of
me.)

/*     Sounds like a "survivalist" to me.  */

examples of how the Net can be used to undermine governments (what those
governments of course refer to as "terrorism," even when it is mostly not).

I'm not advocating such "terrorism," by the way, merely telling it like it is.

/*  
If you want to define terrorism as in the above paragraph, them I am,
and you do too. The biggest problem with terrorism is that there isn't a
good defination that looks the same from both sides. In otherwords the old
saw about one mans terrorist being anothers freedom fighter. Any
defination sufficiently inclusive so as to cover all "terrorist"
activities will also include uniformed soldiers. The lines get very thin
and blurry. 
*/


Keep your head down, avoid crowded downtown areas, prepare for moderate
disruptions, and reject arguments that an American Police State will do
anything to stop terrorism.

/*
The american police state (and if we aren't one yet, it isn't for lack
of trying) IS an instrument of terrorism in some parts of this country. 
*/

(Remember, terrorism is just warfare carried on by other means, with
apolgies to Von Clausewitz.)

/* Terrorism is when the other side hits with out warning. */



From: frantz@netcom.com (Bill Frantz)

Thanks Tim for your essay.  The only thing I would add is that terrorist
attacks  on pure information resources (e.g. the banking system) are likely
to result in many fewer casualties than terrorist attacks on physical
entities (e.g. major cities).  Another way of saying it is, email bombs are
preferable to snail mail bombs.

/* 
I don't think so. 

One objective of terrorism is/could be to lessen a populations faith
in "The System". Some possible situations (can't remember how to spell
scenireo):

Trash a multi-store pharmacy database and people can't get their
prescriptions, or worse get the wrong one. 

Cause disturbances in certain parts of certain cities, then attack
the 911 system to route officers and firemen to _wealthy_ neigborhoods at
the expense of the poor neighborhoods. Then complain to the papers about
it. 

Gain control of the power grid (I don't know how possible this is)
and selectively brown out certain sections of the city during peak demand
periods. Make it obvious, then do the preceeding idea.  

In all of these people will, or could die, but are much more
effective in undermining the faith people have in the structures that run
the country. If a bomb blast goes off, people get pissed off at the bomb
makers, if the power fails, people get pissed at the electrical company.
If you can create a large enough disturbances they will be better than
bombs.
*/ 

From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>

[TCM]
>Can anything be done? To stop the likely effects of lots more
>surface-to-air missiles, lots more nerve gas available on the black market,
>and so on?
>In a word, "no."

try to have a warfare, siege-like mentality imho, and a continual
"trying to stay ahead of the criminals". we do not have
regular open terrorism in the streets of the US and I see no reason
to think there ever will be as TCM suggests.

/* 

Depending on how you define "terrorism" I would like you to visit my
neighborhood, and then we can go to a couple other here in chicago where
the cops terrorize the citizens, the gangs terrorize the cops and the
citizens, etc. It hasn't hit the national level yet, but it will. 

*/

nevertheless what his essay misses, and many in law enforcement miss,
are the root reasons for crime. I'm not going to sound like a liberal

/*
There is a big difference (IMO) between a terrorist and a common criminal.
Money and Ideology. In *MOST* instances the terrorist is attempting to
acheive a political, social, or long term (as in decades/generations)
economic change. A criminal is simply trying to get rich or get stoned.
IMO the root cause of crime is a lack of self disipline, and it is as far
as I can tell part of the human condition. 
*/

in reality. it seems to me no nation-state has ever experimented with
trying to take away the root causes of violence and discontent. 
why? 

/* 
Is it possible that to a large degree the nation-state IS the problem?
*/

because a policeman holding a gun is so much more visceral and
the public responds to this image readily.  other "programs" that
try to decrease discontent among the budding terrorists of tommorrow
are usually ridiculed. it is very difficult to prove that they work

/*
Rightly so. Most of these programs amount to hand-outs or paternalistic
pandering. People need to work, not get paid for doing nothing. 
*/ 

terrorists invariably have a 
patricular pathological psychological profile that sees the world
in terms of "martyrs vs. villians" with the villians in the government,
and the villians taking away or abusing respectable citizens.

/* 
Often they are right. 
*/

the "problem" of terrorism will be solved when we take the view
that insanity and violence is *not* 
a natural aspect of human behavior (as TCM tends to suggest), and that

/* 
It is. Insanity is a condition that occasionaly crops up in humans.
Sometimes the problem is chemical, sometimes not, however it _is_ natural.
So is violence. People want things, and some don't care what they have to
do to get these things. 
*/

>(Remember, terrorism is just warfare carried on by other means, with
>apolgies to Von Clausewitz.)

disagree. the purpose of warfare has traditionally been to seize
something tangible like territory. terrorists are after intangibles--
namely, terror itself, disrupting a "peace process", etc. 

/* 
Or forcing a certain group to the discussion table.
*/

Any Obcrypto I could add at this point would be preaching to the choir. 


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@crash.suba.com