In spite of myself, I find myself liking the Libertarian Party. Sometimes: LP News Online: March 2002: Libertarian Party runs provocative anti-War on Drugs newspaper ads.

¶ 302 Posted at 10.36 PM ⇒ No Comments ( politics | terrorism )

More on terrorism: This is not a war.

¶ 309 Posted at 05.50 PM ⇒ No Comments ( politics | terrorism )

The most brilliant thing I have ever gotten out of a Slashdot comment:

The beauty ... of a war on an abstract concept is that the concept never surrenders and the war never ends...

¶ 448 Posted at 12.26 PM ⇒ No Comments ( politics | terrorism )

"Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness." One of many sources.

¶ 844 Posted at 02.51 PM ⇒ No Comments ( politics | terrorism )

I'm surprised and pleased that George W. Bush said this:

We actually misnamed the "war on terror." It ought to be "the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies and who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world."

Source. Marketing hates the name, but it's a far more accurate summary of the problem than I've heard to date from this administration (marketing hates accuracy too). Of course, these words are only as valuable as the actions that reflect them. So far, Bush's administration hasn't acted as though they believe it; witness the ridiculous assertion by the head of the FDA that importing drugs from Canada opens the United States to another vector of terrorist attack. How that is a danger when Ecuadorian bananas or Canadian maple syrup are not is beyond me (unless it's a ploy to deflect criticism of big pharmaceutical companies, but that wouldn't happen). Until the Bush administration stops exploiting the word "terrorism" for cheap political gain, I can only think of Bush's statement above as words. Perceptive words, perhaps, but only words.

¶ 845 Posted at 11.35 AM ⇒ No Comments ( politics | terrorism )

I regularly read Bruce Schneier's Crypto-gram email newsletter. You should too. Much of it is tech-oriented, but little of it is inaccessible to the lay person; Schneier does an excellent job of explaining weaknesses in common sense language that anyone can understand. Schneier started as a computer security guy, but has expanded into general security issues. Since September 11th, he has increasingly been taking aim at the "security theater" we see being implemented, measures that are visible but useless. In his last edition, Schneier made the following statement:

Unchecked police and military power is a security threat -- just as important a threat as unchecked terrorism. There is no reason to sacrifice the former to obtain the latter, and there are very good reasons not to.

A reader responded in a message published in this month's newsletter, a response that I find absolutely brilliant. Here's an excerpt:

Terrorism exists because people don't think they are being heard by the establishments in power: it is a way to make their voice heard. (A bad one, but easy to use.) The US has historically been nearly immune to terrorist attacks precisely because of its checks on police, military, and political power. Because of those checks, terrorism isn't needed in the US. A voice can be heard without it. (Usually.)

Read the the whole message.

¶ 849 Posted at 03.24 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

I missed this story the first time around, what with being on my honeymoon and all. No wonder we have such stupid anti-terrorism policies; the country is full of idiots. Start here: Annie Jacobsen freaks out because brown, swarthy men are on her flight (note how she keeps saying Middle Eastern because use of "Arab" would sound racist). Then there are a bunch of morons who jump on it: stupid, stupid, stupid... well, that'll do, though there are many more out there. One of the comments from that last:

The fact of the matter is, nothing beats a well-informed and proactive traveling public. It wasn't someone on the federal dole who sounded the war cry of our American folk that resounds from September 11th onward, but a regular Joe who gave us the immortal phrase, "Let's roll".

You're not well-informed, fella. That you buy into this crap is proof enough. You're attempting to use terrorism to make yourself feel important. Another comment:

that means that their behavior was at best, to purposely to psychologically manipulate/terrify the plane, and at worst, do more.

Listen, buddy: your fear is your fear. Nobody else is responsible for that. Blaming it on someone else cloaked behind grandiose terms like "psychologically manipulate" doesn't make you any less of a wimp.

It seems like the stupid people have perfect memory for September 11th, but no memory for all of the times they are wrong; how many times did Fox News declare WMDs had been found Iraq and all of these webloggers jump onto it? And then it turns out that it was actually something completely innocuous but they've already moved on to the next thing. Then finally, some reason.

Oh, and we (sort of) have some actual facts from the air marshals themselves (source referred to is no longer online and archives apparently are unavailable [ditto for Google cache and Wayback; it's important to find the primary sources, after all]). Apparently the danger they saw was the hysteria of this foolish woman.

With that kind of idiocy, I'm amazed that I haven't been detained on flights. Brown, swarthy, doesn't smile at people... I'm up to something. And that shaven head is surely some kind of extremist fundamentalist thing. And Jessica could be a brainwashed American woman I'm using for cover. And I could have a poison needle in my class ring. And I'm going to build a nuclear bomb out of my laptop and a bag of salted peanuts.

So what's the moral of the story? You can make up lots of scary scenarios. You can connect unrelated dots. If you go looking for something, you will find it. It's easy to spook yourself without any basis in fact or reason whatsoever. And that kind of hysteria is exactly the point of terrorism. They seek to cause fear because fearful people can be manipulated. The only weapon against fear is reason. Annie Jacobsen should have taken a step back and realized that a group of Arab men who apparently know each other and are carrying musical instruments might actually be (drumroll)... a band. She should have applied a little bit of skepticism and realized that the odds of terrorists hijacking a plane are tiny. She should have realized that, even if she was 100% correct, there was nothing that she could possibly do to help the situation: these "Middle-Eastern men," like all the passengers, had been searched. If they really were hijackers, the whole plane would instantly mobilize against them. If there were air marshals on board, they were smarter, more perceptive, and better-equipped than her. And there's the very strong possibility that she's wrong.

Hysterical people will defend their reaction by invoking all manner of weak appeals to vague possibilities, but they're just ghost stories. Any evaluation of a situation like this demands that it be placed in the proper context. What reasonable explanations are there for this behavior? What might I be missing? What are the odds of an actual terrorist attack? Unfortunately, people don't seem to be very good at this kind of critical thinking and so let themselves be swayed by fear, refusing to accept that the fear is unjustified and itself has a cost. The goal of terrorists is to make us afraid, because fear makes us weak and stupid. As much as it pains me to invoke that tired and abused expression, this stupidity means the terrorists are winning.

¶ 852 Posted at 12.18 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism | stupid people )

In other words, if you focus on what could happen and not what is likely to happen, you'll quickly realize just about anything is possible and be reduced to a bowl of jello.

You know, if you remove certain key words like "airplane" and "terrorist," Annie Jacobsen almost sounds like those conspiracy nutjobs that were popular in the 90s ranting about the UN World Government and their stealth black helicopters. The only difference is that she uses the magic words and the whole country is along in a consensual mass hallucination.

¶ 854 Posted at 09.25 AM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

If there is a terrorist attack before the elections, and it is not an attack on John Kerry and John Edwards (or their campaign), it will be a boost for George W. Bush. This is obvious enough that any potential attackers know it, which means they must intend that. I won't go so far as to say Al Qaeda wants Bush in power, but it's clear that Bush has reacted to September 11th about how they hoped, polarizing the Islamic world and enabling extremists to pull more supporters to their cause.

¶ 864 Posted at 11.20 AM ⇒ No Comments ( politics | terrorism )

George W. Bush and other government officials dismiss the rising anti-American sentiment in the world as being irrelevant compared to making the country safer and "winning the war on terror." But where do these terrorists come from? They come from the places in the world where anti-American sentiment is strongest. This isn't about France or Germany, but Egypt and Syria and Saudi Arabia. Victory depends on raising world opinion, because this hatred of America is creating terrorists faster than we can capture or kill them.

¶ 924 Posted at 05.03 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

There are those who believe that we invaded Iraq to secure its oil. These people may be right, but they may be wrong. It doesn't matter, because even if we didn't invade Iraq to secure its oil, we are still there because of oil, no matter whom you believe. Don't believe me? We attacked Iraq in 2003 because (pick any or all):

• We wanted their oil.
• Saddam Hussein was an oppressive, brutal dictator
• They had weapons of mass destruction
• They supported Al-Qaeda
• They were a threat to Saudi Arabia

The first one's easy. Go straight to oil; do not pass GO or collect $200(,000,000,000).

Saddam Hussein was clearly a terrible man. There appears to be a strong correlation between strong economies and free societies. More interestingly, there appears to be a strong correlation between strong economies and a lack of natural resources. Correlation is not causation, but it makes a lot of sense. Natural resources can be easily controlled by a small group of people, and it's wealth that literally comes out of the ground, as opposed to the wealth produced by trade, manufacturing, and services, which is greatest in free societies. Natural resources often support tyrannies. Witness Iran, the Republic of Congo (back when it was Zaire), Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc. Saddam Hussein would have been a despot regardless, but controlling the oil enabled him to strengthen his grip even more.

We know they had weapons of mass destruction at some point. Of course, those programs aren't free. How did Iraq pay for the investment in research and capital? Oil money. Why would they be useful? For attacking or intimidating neighboring countries in advancement of the goals of Arab nationalism and Iraqi expansionism. Oh, and you can take their oil, too.

Then there's Al-Qaeda. We now know that there was no meaningful connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, but Al-Qaeda is still relevant. The roots of that organization are in the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but Al-Qaeda only formed in the early 1990s due to Osama bin Laden's outrage at infidel troops being stationed in the holy land of Islam. Those infidels? US troops. The holy land? Saudi Arabia (I smell oil...). He was also strongly opposed to the Saudi government itself, which we have helped to keep in power for decades.

US troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War because Iraq was considered a threat. Why do we care about Saudi Arabia? Because they are the major producer of oil (there's that word again). That's the same reason the Iraqis would consider invading. We attacked Iraq in 1991 because they invaded Kuwait. Why did they invade Kuwait? Because Iraq and Kuwait had a dispute over whether Kuwait was illegally tapping Iraqi oil fields. It was also because Iraq's port facilities had been destroyed in the Iran-Iraq War, not to mention their substantial debts arising from the same war.

The Iran-Iraq War had numerous causes. Mesopotamia has been a mess for basically all of recorded history. However, there were certain more immediate issues. One was Saddam Hussein's desire to fully control the Shatt al-Arab waterway, an important shipping channel for oil exports from both Iraq and Iran (hello, oil). The Iranian Revolution had occurred the previous year, presenting Hussein with an opportunity, as the revolution had alienated the west, as well as inspiring fear that the revolution would spread to the Shi'a majority in Iraq. The United States supported Iraq in the war as part of a strategy to counter-balance the dangerous revolutionaries in Iran, but also sold weapons to Iran as part of the Iran-Contra Affair. These actions certainly prolonged the war. Still, that's all geo-political, right? There's no oil there...

Except there is. The Iranian Revolution was a revolution against the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, whose regime was corrupt, autocratic, un-Islamic, and pro-Western. The Shah had been returned to power in 1953 as part of an Anglo-American operation to overthrow the legitimately elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh. There were two primary reasons for this: the first was because of Mossadegh's socialist rhetoric and Iran's position on the border of the Soviet Union. The second? The Iranian government nationalized the oil-producing assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, due to ongoing disputes over the distribution of royalties (from... oil).

So... where does that leave us? We wanted the oil directly. We wanted to secure the alleged weapons of mass destruction that were financed with oil money. We wanted to hit an alleged ally of a terrorist group formed in response to our actions to protect our oil supply. This threat came from a nation whose fortunes were tied to and often driven by oil. Any way you slice it, no matter who you believe on the Iraq War, our involvement is inextricably intertwined with petroleum. It's all in Wikipedia; you can see for yourself. We only care about the area today (besides Israel) because of oil. These are essential facts for people to understand. Our oil addiction kills.

¶ 1233 Posted at 01.04 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism | issues | iraq )

I can't believe I forgot a biggie in my explanation of the roots of the Iraq War. We send money to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries for oil. The Saudi government supports the extremist Wahhabi school of Islam, sponsoring religious schools that spread this brand of militant fundamentalism throughout the Middle East, including in Afghanistan, creating an environment where terrorist organizations flourish. Numerous wealthy individuals in the Middle East also give money to Al Qaeda, with their source of income frequently being oil or oil-related, such as Osama bin Laden's inherited fortune from construction.

¶ 1235 Posted at 01.07 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism | issues | iraq )

Was the recently uncovered airline bombing plot exaggerated? Chemistry would suggest that.

¶ 1353 Posted at 12.43 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

Read this fine interview with Michael Scheuer, who wrote the excellent Imperial Hubris. He succinctly describes the reality of the so-called "War on Terror," and proposes straightforward, common-sense alternatives that could salvage an increasingly bad situation. Via Amir, who now has a weblog.

¶ 1356 Posted at 01.19 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

Bruce Schneier explains how terrorism is succeeding right now because we're panicking. All of the incidents he mentions can only be viewed as horrible failures in our counter-terrorist policies. A key excerpt:

We're all a little jumpy after the recent arrest of 23 terror suspects in Great Britain. [snip] Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers' perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they've succeeded. Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that's basically what's happening right now.

¶ 1358 Posted at 02.37 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

When the Bush administration tries to justify their treatment of captured, suspected terrorists, remember that even the Nazis got a fair trial.

¶ 1364 Posted at 08.55 AM ⇒ No Comments ( fyi | issues | terrorism )

Remember how John Ashcroft trumpeted the capture of "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla? The NY Times article on the development of the US torture policy and secret prisons includes this priceless information from Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda member captured late in 2001:

But Mr. Zubaydah dismissed Mr. Padilla as a maladroit extremist whose hope to construct a dirty bomb, using conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials, was far-fetched. He told his questioners that Mr. Padilla was ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material.

(emphasis mine)

¶ 1365 Posted at 09.16 AM ⇒ No Comments ( funny | terrorism )

Bruce Schneier has a fine essay attempting to bring some sanity to way politicians and the media freak out about so-called terrorist plots that are not really any threat at all.

¶ 1482 Posted at 02.16 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism )

How can you effectively respond?

¶ 1517 Posted at 03.41 PM ⇒ No Comments ( issues | terrorism | funny )

Quote:

What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?

¶ 1563 Posted at 01.25 PM ⇒ No Comments ( terrorism | freedom )

Fact: John Walker Lindh never attacked or planned to attack US citizens or US soldiers. Fact: Lindh never provided assistance to Al Qaeda. Fact: though Lindh was involved the Taliban, he primarily did so before the United States had any dispute with them, i.e., before September 11th. Fact: Lindh had nothing to do with the uprising at the prison in Mazar-i-Sharif, nor the death of CIA officer Mike Spann. Fact: Lindh was tortured and otherwise deprived of the rights due a US citizen. Fact: the worst offense Lindh pled guilty to (he was convicted of nothing) was carrying weapons for the Taliban.

Due to all of that, Lindh is now serving a 20-year sentence in the ADX SuperMax facility in Colorado, where he is kept in solitary confinement 24 hours a day, with only 1 hour outside his cell in the prison yard. Consider the other guests in residence there, and their crimes. Lindh may have broken the law 1, but there is no way that what he did justifies his treatment. He didn't kill anyone. He didn't injure anyone (that I'm aware of). He didn't kidnap anyone. He didn't steal anything. He didn't commit treason 2. As far as we know, he never fired his weapon or even raised his voice in anger. For this he gets 20 years. If there was anything remotely like justice in his case, he would be a free man today 3, but if justice could be relied on, this never would have happened. I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget he existed.

¶ 1610 Posted at 05.37 PM ⇒ No Comments ( issues | terrorism | politics )