----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 2:29 PM Subject: Re: Secret Military Tribunals
> Dan Minette wrote: > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > > > There's plenty of information pointing to this being a state-sponsored > > > attack rather than any terrorist organization, > > > > Care to provide some of it. I haven't seen it. > > No need to be snide. That wasn't meant to be snide. I admit that I have little patience for arguments like "everyone thought the world was flat" as a dismissal of consensus views. I guess I had my fill of those arguments when I repeatedly read them in posts on sci.physics from people who claim that quantum mechanics and special relativity are false. FWIW, the time period when the consensus opinion of those who were the "experts" at the time was that the world was flat was a long long time ago. It wasn't 1492, it was long before that, before the experiments of the Greeks. The opponents of Columbus had the size of the earth right, he had it wrong and thought the shorter route from the Iberian peninsula to India was West instead of around Africa. >If you look at patterns and purposes of terrorism, > you can see larger bits that don't fit into the neat AQ model. Why did > they not claim responsibility? It fits their pattern to have plausible deniability while still claiming credit for all those who know the code phrases. (code phrases here is not necessarily in the most technical sense..but more in the line of David Duke's code phrases.) One has seen this in earlier attacks. AQ members have been convicted for involvement earlier terrorist attacks. I think you would have to either accept that this is their pattern or contest the validity of earlier convictions. And, since those convictions included evidence that includes recordings of cell phone conversations, you would have to argue that this evidence is suspect. The other alternative to expecting that the pattern of terrorists claiming responsibility to continue is to look at AQ and Bin Laden as having developed a more sophisticated technique. This view is supported by the understanding of a variety of folks who have taken on studying Bin Laden as a full time job. In particular, I'm thinking of the British journalist who, IIRC, was the last Western journalist who interviewed Bin Laden and who had just published a book on him. He pointed out a pattern of predictions, actions, and praise but no claim of credit for actions that occurred before the Cole, the embassy bombings, and Sept. 11th. >The role of terrorism is to create fear and disillusionment in the enemy, not just randomly blowing stuff >up and cackling about it. Sure, and it had worked. We did withdraw our forces in Somalia and after the Cole attacks. I'm guessing he misjudged the US with the Sept 11th attack. > > Whatever.. you don't respect my perspective, and I don't seem to have > the ability to communicate what I'm thinking clearly, so go ahead - > write another long, massive screed that tries to shut me up with the > volume of your words, another set of poisoned prose that seeks only to > make yourself feel grand by trying to squash someone else's exploration > of a topic. Well, I'm not opposed to exploration of a topic. I do have a tendency to dislike sloppy argumentation. Its easy to simply dismiss the logic and evidence provided by another by calling it a screed or poisoned prose. If you want examples of those, there are plenty of newsgroups where flaming is rampant. I try to use evidence and reasonable argumentation to back up my claim. The only exception that I can is my reference to Sid Caesar's bit about this argument, but that's part of the culture...part of the way we understand the argument "but they said X was wrong." > > Walking home last night, I realized I've been on Brin-L for over 4 > years, and lately its been nothing but people like you being snide, > condescending, and unwelcoming. > Nah. There are some tremendously talented people on this list. I stay here because there are folks who can give a very reasonable argument based on tremendous experience and knowledge. Dan M.
