A refreshing, realistic view on terrorism and the so called security theater...

[XabbaRus]

It's funny in all the years of the IRA bombing mainland UK there were never the calls for ID cards, phone taps etc like there is now and I would consider the IRA than a bigger threat and Islamic terrorists are now.

The provos were much more capable than any Al-Qaeda type group is now of causing chaos in the UK.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are still a few hiddens caches of arms in mainland UK that have been forgotten about or lost.

You go, Goldorak!

You are Right On, so by all means, Write On!

[Dowly]

I can change my fontsize too!

[Letum]

AT LEAST HE
DIDN'T USE
CAPITALS AND
BOLD.
o

[Dowly]

[antikristuseke]

I almost expected someone to call it leftist propaganda.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Letum

AT LEAST HE
DIDN'T USE
CAPITALS AND
BOLD.
o

What's wrong with underlining important quotes from the article ?
Not everything has to be written in small caps.

In any case its good to see atleast some people that actually "get" what terrorism is, how to deal with it and the reason the US is going all wrong dealing with this issue.
Too bad that such rational thinking is drowned in a sea of hype and "warmongering attitude as if you could really wage war on a abstract concept". Just remind me, has the war on drugs been won ? After several decades ? No you say. Well thats exactly the situation where the US will be in 50 years. Still heralding the "victory" on the war on terror all the while your freedoms will have been all but eliminated because there is a 0,0000001% probability that a person could perpetrate a crimine oops I meant a terrorist attack.

Just a note, I was apalled listening to NPR radio about how people (or sheeple a better term) are OK with going to the airport 6 fricking hours before a flight because of security measures.
If this doesn't tell you just how ****ed up the whole system is and how the terrorists have already won nothing will.

The US a country of fear induced citizens. You really have to wonder how countries that have had political/ethnical terrorism for decades have manged to survive and go along just fine without trasforming ourselves and our societies into some kind of kafkian bad dream.
Carpenter and other filmakers ironically managed to capture this latent american fear very well decades ago in films such as 1997 escape from new york and another b movie Fortress with Cristophe Lambert.
They dreamed it up, your stupid politicians made it real.

[Skybird]

I think you direct attention to some valid points.

But I disagree a bit on comparing terrorism in totality with crime.

Due to the sheer scale of the attack, I do not see 9/11 as just an act of crime. Nor is the attack in Londown. Or in Madrid. Or several others from earlier times. What you probably mean is that even these attacks are better prevented with good police work and human intelligence operation, infiltration of hostile networks, instead of thinking a missile strike could deal with the issue. and I would agree. I see some occasions where the military should be used, too, but today there is a thinking that military action alone would help to prevent terrorism, and that is foolish. It is just one tool in a toolbox. Before the past decade, the US had severly reduced HUMINT in the Arab-Islamic sphere, and shifted focus to technology solutions, satellites, etc. These things have their purpose, too, they can be of help, even more so in fight with an enemy that incrasinly uses tech soltuions himself. But "TECHINT" was pushed at the cost of HUMINT, and since the Americans had to spend much time in the past decade trying to rebuild an human intelligence capacity again in the region, we know that this shifting focus from HUMINT to TECHINT alone was a mistake.

Also, in case of Islamic terrorism, there you have left the field of ordinary crime for sure, since djihad is a form of ideologically motivated and ideologically excused war.

More hitech at the airport gates, will help battling some symptoms of terrorism, but will not cure the disease. The price for battling these symptoms becomes higher and higher - it is the loss of our freedom and liberties. One has to weigh the one against the other, like you also have to weigh the interest of the many and their legitimitate security concerns, against the individual freedom of the single person - and trying to find a good balance between both that makes reasonable sense in most cases. In most cases - in all cases, that is probably impossible. Total security is only to have at the cost of total control and total loss of freedom. And that then is totalitarianism.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Also, in case of Islamic terrorism, there you have left the field of ordinary crime for sure, since djihad is a form of ideologically motivated and ideologically excused war.

Is that any different to other forms of terrorism?

Political, religious, ethnic, social or environmental terrorism is all justified
and motivated by ideologies. Islamic terrorism isn't exceptional in that
respect.