Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 19:12:08 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Andrew Boothman <andrew@cream.org> Cc: "f.johan.beisser" <jan@caustic.org>, "Pedro F. Giffuni" <giffunip@yahoo.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: WTC Payoff [11 september] (was Re: oh my god the nasa shuttleblewup) Message-ID: <3E408108.B4745D42@mindspring.com> References: <20030204005427.Q63914-100000@pogo.caustic.org> <3E3FA575.92A5B49@mindspring.com> <3E4079D7.8040303@cream.org>
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Andrew Boothman wrote: > Terry Lambert wrote: > >"f.johan.beisser" wrote: > >>Terrorism is not a standup war. anyone who's lived with it at any point in > >>their lives knows this. You can't drop bombs on terrorists. You handle > >>them the same way you deal with any other extremist group: you arrest > >>them, or you kill them. > > > >You *can* bomb terrorists, if you are willing to accept sufficient > >collateral damage. It all depends on the level you set for what's > >an acceptable amount of collateral damage. > > What about the terrorists that are already in your country? Have you ever seen the film GATTACA? If your DNA is on record, and you are checked as you go into every public building, identity is easy to confirm after the fact. I dislike the idea intensely, but it's *possible* to monitor a population, now, to the extent that you can effectively eliminate terrorists after the fact, without having to be so crude as to amplify their power by enabling them to target the collateral damage you cause attacking them. > Or those living in London, Paris or any other European city? You can't be > suggesting that bombing any of these places is a good idea? Establish a "zero tolerance" policy. One issue Europe has with these sorts of people is that it does not engage in capital punishment. This is a moral high ground one cannot afford when one is defending ones existance. But the result is that terrorists can kill with impunity, with no fear of being killed in retribution, and every expectation of eventually being able to repeat their offenses, in time, until their goals are met, or they die of old age. There is a differential in cost to society vs. penalty. Differential penalties are the same reason there are "gangs" in the U.S.. > Sure you can go hunting in places like Afghanistan and other countries > where they are hiding. You might even find quite a few of them. But > those who are left are more dangerous with their comrades killed then > they were when their friends were alive... That's a nonsensical statement. If your tactic is suicide bombing, any reduction in your numbers reduces the danger you represent. It's a very simple equation: less living bodies := fewer explosives delivery systems components. The fact is that nothing will satisfy most of these people, except handing all state powers over to them for whatever borders they want on their little kingdoms, and then permitting them to engage in genocide, unchecked, within those borders, and praying they do not get bored after they have killed all thier own <insert ethnic or philosophical group here>, and come after those in neighboring states, simply because they have resources available to do so. And you are quite guaranteed that, even were you to let this happen, eventually there would be border friction between the kingdoms, and you would be right back where you started, having solved nothing. Rodney King is often quoted as asking "Can't we all just get along?". The answer is "No, we can't. There is no way to make everyone happy at the same time. There is no four-color mapping theorem for conflict avoidance". -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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