Why 'the terrorists' are winning...

POSTED BY: STDOUBT
UPDATED: Monday, April 6, 2026 01:33
VIEWED: 4312
PAGE 1 of 1

STDOUBT

Thursday, August 24, 2006 8:58 PM

This article is worth a read. He says it better
than I ever could.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/what_the_terror.html

(And before anyone says "but we're thwarting attacks!", read the article, and remember how many billions of dollars we spend each MONTH on "the war on terror"... they ARE winning)

KELKHIL

Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:09 PM

Good article. He is so right. It is time to fight the terrorist the only way that will work.

Kelkhil

PENGUIN

Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kelkhil:
Good article. He is so right. It is time to fight the terrorist the only way that will work.

Kelkhil

Very good article...

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:21 PM

This guy has a point.

I suppose the logical conclusion is that the only way to fight terrorism is to ignore it, and arrest the terrorists as silently as possible as they try to draw attention to themselves. Then we should charge them in regular courts with the most mundane boring things we can. Conspiracy to commit manslaugter, no one care, possession of illegal fire arms, no one cares, and hit them with 37 charges so you can lock them up for a good long while.

Then you never make a headline, life goes on, and no one knows that there are terrorists, or what they want. Then Al Qaeda would be forced to enter the political arena to make their point.

HKCAVALIER

Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
This guy has a point.

I suppose the logical conclusion is that the only way to fight terrorism is to ignore it, and arrest the terrorists as silently as possible as they try to draw attention to themselves. Then we should charge them in regular courts with the most mundane boring things we can. Conspiracy to commit manslaugter, no one care, possession of illegal fire arms, no one cares, and hit them with 37 charges so you can lock them up for a good long while.

Then you never make a headline, life goes on, and no one knows that there are terrorists, or what they want. Then Al Qaeda would be forced to enter the political arena to make their point.

Exactly. This is exactly what I, for one, have been saying all along (only not so persuasively, it would seem). Bush's and Blair's policies have given terrorists more political klout than they have ever had.

Quote:
From the original article:
Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

WHIMSICALNBRAINPAN

Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:46 PM

He hits it right on the nose!

"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." http://whimsicalnbrainpan.blogspot.com/

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:40 PM

Absolutely. And when (ahem) certain people run around with their hair on fire screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" I look at them funny... not because I don't understand the threat, I simply refuse to light my hair on fire too.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

MISBEHAVEN

Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:55 PM

A excellent article!

Excerpt:
"Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer."

My thoughts exactly.

"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation."
-Bertrand Russell

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, August 24, 2006 11:53 PM

Thanks for sharing it STDoubt. I'll the umpteenth to agree.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

DREAMTROVE

Friday, August 25, 2006 1:16 AM

Wow. We agreed on something. All of us. And I noticed there were multiple political viewpoints represented. Huh.

Quote:
HK:
Exactly. This is exactly what I, for one, have been saying all along (only not so persuasively, it would seem). Bush's and Blair's policies have given terrorists more political klout than they have ever had.

Here's a scary thought: We've all been assuming probably that the fanfare is for our benefit, whether you think it's fear mongering or fishing trip stories "Hey, I caught one!"

But....

What if they actually do understand all of this, and that's the goal. They want to increase the terrorists power. It's not too far fetched an idea. Govts. on both sides got a lot of mileage out of the Cold War. Don't say the Soviet Union wasn't amazingly important to the radical militarists in the US and Europe, and that the same wasn't true in reverse on the other side. A giant powerful enemy with a deep seeded hatred of the west could be an enormous asset to those in power over here.

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, August 25, 2006 1:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Wow. We agreed on something. All of us.

Well, Auraptor and Hero aren't here yet.

Quote:
They want to increase the terrorists power. It's not too far fetched an idea. Govts. on both sides got a lot of mileage out of the Cold War. Don't say the Soviet Union wasn't amazingly important to the radical militarists in the US and Europe, and that the same wasn't true in reverse on the other side. A giant powerful enemy with a deep seeded hatred of the west could be an enormous asset to those in power over here.

Well, that's why I've been saying Al-Qaeda is artificially created. They took a bunch of half-baked, low-rent wannabes, advertised and recruited for them, and gave them the publicity to be an actual real threat. All under the wide open eyes and hounddog nose of the average tax-paying American.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

YINYANG

Friday, August 25, 2006 1:26 AM

Quote:

Absolutely. And when (ahem) certain people run around with their hair on fire screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" I look at them funny... not because I don't understand the threat, I simply refuse to light my hair on fire too.

I like the way you put that, SignyM!

---

I'm a trouble-maker; Kaneman said so!

::points to 'I'm a trouble-maker' sticker on shirt and makes a platypus noise::

RUE

Friday, August 25, 2006 2:22 AM

The first thing I thought after 9/11 was: the US is a huge country. It'll take a lot more than that to derail it. But with Bush stoking fear - and hate - to his own ends, the country's become an unrecognizable gollum of its former self.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, August 25, 2006 2:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
This guy has a point.

I suppose the logical conclusion is that the only way to fight terrorism is to ignore it, and arrest the terrorists as silently as possible as they try to draw attention to themselves. Then we should charge them in regular courts with the most mundane boring things we can. Conspiracy to commit manslaugter, no one care, possession of illegal fire arms, no one cares, and hit them with 37 charges so you can lock them up for a good long while.

Then you never make a headline, life goes on, and no one knows that there are terrorists, or what they want. Then Al Qaeda would be forced to enter the political arena to make their point.

I agree with what you’re saying. Let me know when you get the Muslim states to go along with this, and I'll be on board. Al Qaeda isn't doing what it's doing to impress you or me; they are doing it to impress people in the Middle East. Bin Laden’s goal from the time that he assassinated Azzam and took control of the MAK was to control the Middle East, not the West. Battling the West was just the way he thought he could maintain his imagine and his popularity as a mujahideen.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

GRAYFURY

Friday, August 25, 2006 2:45 AM

Heres my 2 cents, Every new advance in warfare since the dawn of warfare has been a form of "terrorism" The first man that brought a stick to a fistfight dazed his opponent with "shock and awe" First sword, first rock thrown, first use of armor, first arrow, first catapult, First use of explosives, first gun, first machine gun, First nuclear fision device... each time one of these was used on an opponent in battle they were thought to be unfair and cowardly. until they were adapted and used by most. During WWI they would use mustard gas. It would roll into trenches and choke and poison the troops... that was a dastardly thing to do. kind of terroristic. We have to adapt to a malicious, underhanded, inexpensive way of always keeping them on orange alert.

"Smellin' alot of IF comin' offa' this plan!"

SOUPCATCHER

Friday, August 25, 2006 4:21 AM

Thanks for the link, STDOUBT.

Looks like I'm late to the agreement party but ... better late than never .

DREAMTROVE

Friday, August 25, 2006 4:40 AM

Quote:
I agree with what you’re saying. Let me know when you get the Muslim states to go along with this, and I'll be on board. Al Qaeda isn't doing what it's doing to impress you or me; they are doing it to impress people in the Middle East. Bin Laden’s goal from the time that he assassinated Azzam and took control of the MAK was to control the Middle East, not the West. Battling the West was just the way he thought he could maintain his imagine and his popularity as a mujahideen.

You make a good point. I don't know that the muslim states have to be on board. If you stop the attacks, and do it silently, and arrest them, then all the arabs will be able to report in their media is "another al qaeda member captured:" which is not going to be much of a recruitment poster. I they score no victories against the west, they'll win no allies at home.

Ironically, but logically, defeats at home are worth points for al qaeda, so we stack them up there too. Victories hurt them, particularly if they're against each other. Arabs are going to resent any take over attempt, and so if al qaeda takes its current popularity and uses it to support a ME conquest agenda in the absense of US and Israeli forces, they're going to run out of allies pretty quickly.

DREAMTROVE

Friday, August 25, 2006 4:42 AM

gray,

interesting thought. In 50 years, we may all be talking about how the al qaedas of the world have too much power ever since the collapse of govt., but everyone will support them anyway against the new mind-fighters.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, August 25, 2006 5:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
You make a good point. I don't know that the muslim states have to be on board. If you stop the attacks,

That’s a lot of “if.” You won’t be able to stop them all. Without a strong intranational intelligence campaign with things like the NSA wiretapping for instance or boots on the ground in the Middle East, you won’t stop half of them. You’ll have to get the intel somehow, and the terrorists aren’t going to send you a memo. The best way to do it is from the point of origin; failing that you have only the NSA, DIA, CIA etc. Pick your poison.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

SIGNYM

Friday, August 25, 2006 2:53 PM

Quote:
Al Qaeda isn't doing what it's doing to impress you or me; they are doing it to impress people in the Middle East. Bin Laden’s goal from the time that he assassinated Azzam and took control of the MAK was to control the Middle East, not the West. Battling the West was just the way he thought he could maintain his imagine and his popularity as a mujahideen.

So... does this mean that you disagree with Hero and Auraptor when they say that Muslims are trying to take over the world?

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

RUE

Friday, August 25, 2006 3:17 PM

Hey DT !

Your msgs are coming to me fine. Are mine getting through?

Rue

RUE

Friday, August 25, 2006 4:20 PM

Bump.

Desperately seeking DT.

RIGHTEOUS9

Friday, August 25, 2006 4:46 PM

Finn,

My understanding is that the NSA wiretapping was going on before 911, in spite of a recent statement by Rove saying if we'd had wiretaps at the time we would have stopped it...

so they've proven both unconstitutional, and ineffective...why do you still cheerlead for them?

JAYNEZTOWN

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JAYNEZTOWN

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