> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Charlie Bell > Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 1:58 AM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: "Someone Must Tell Them" > > > > But it isn't. The whole idea of terror is to get you to take away > your own freedoms by fear.
I really don't see this. For example, with AQ, the evidence is that they see the lifestyle of the West as decadent and evil, and the dominance of the West to be anathema to the proper order of things. I really don't think that AQ considered Bush wiretapping without a warrant or the law establishing military tribunals as the types of goals they wanted to reach. I think they more had in mind isolationism tactics like the restriction of American ship movement after the Cole, or the change in the Spanish government after the Madrid bombings. Bush bungling Iraq as bad as he did is a gift to the insurgency. There is no doubt that any time the US tries and fails miserably, it will be a boon to the insurgency. But, the "war on terror" apart from Iraq hurt the insurgency more than it helped it. The capacity and command and control of AQ has been weakened. They no longer control Afghanistan. Thus, it should be harder to stage overwhelming massive attacks, like 9-11. There have been no attacks on the US (outside of the battlegrounds that we chose to fight in...for better or worse) since 911, while there had been four during the '90s. It's still too early to consider this having statistical significance (from random chance, one could expect this to happen 30% of the time) but it is approaching 1 sigma. >It's not about killing as many as possible, it's about killing >spectacularly and violently and most importantly, randomly. I think, fundamentally, it's about getting a better armed adversary to retreat and eventually give up. Spectacular, violent, and random killings are very good at getting through people's defense mechanism for fear: understanding the risk, fighting the risk....leaving flight as the single natural reaction that's possible. The suicide bombings in Israel will succeed if enough Jews decide that it's not worth living there any more and move on, to the US for example. I think that the terror attacks do work as you say....but I think that regular killing of 100 citizens of Israel every week would have been more successful than the suicide bombings were. And, FWIW, those bombings have decreased noticeably over the past few years. They still happen, but not all the time. So, the poorly planned incursion into Lebanon notwithstanding, Israel seems less likely to see people leave than it did just a few years ago....so whatever they did to counter the bombings does seem to be working. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
