On Tuesday, February 19, 2002, at 08:40 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Tue, Feb 19, 2002 at 01:33:52PM -0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: >> Prediction: in order to justify the Holy War on Nations Without >> Effective Anti Aircraft Defenses, against opposition of the whole >> western Europe, Japan and others, Bush will produce another 5-10K >> carnage in the Fatherland in the next four weeks. >> >> >> Avoid dense areas. > > For all the predictions of death and carnage and avoid-soft-targets, > Washington has been scarcely affected. We had an anthrax scare that > affected people mostly in the Brentwood post office (on the Maryland > border, right?) and shuttered Hart, but that's about it. We didn't > even rate a successful hijacking.
New York City had also been scarcely affected... As you know, the nature of warnings and "could happens" is that they either happen or they don't happen. And unless and until they _do_ happen, it's easy to dismiss them. I don't necessarily expect another WTC-scale attack, though there are some plausible attacks which could kill 10 times as many people, even 100 times as many. And the economic effects of the WTC attacks were enormous. Direct costs of $100 B, lost business to NYC, and the steep decline in airline travel which has already driven several airlines into bankruptcy (Swissair, Sabena, US Air is close, UAL is also close). And the costs to our liberties....military checkpoints, suspension of chunks of the Bill of Rights, Pax Americana spreading across the globe, ground troops in the Philipines.... I'd say the 911 attackers merit a nearly perfect "10" for effectiveness. Re the anthrax attacks, just a few letters did substantial economic damage (shutdowns of deliveries, talk of extending bill payments, a scramble for alternatives to paper mail). Had there been 100 letters mailed to random places, instead fo the 3-5 (or whatever), the damage would have been an order of magnitude worse. (Or the economic _gain_, if a conversion to e-mail and e-bills ultimately was hastened.) If even just a few anthrax-laden letters were still being sent periodically, mailed from random mailboxes across the U.S., the implications would be enormous. --Tim May "Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001
