9 ms·

Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

207 points by iwwr 15y ago

gegegege 15y ago
This is years old, maybe submitter should mention that.
- jdp23 15y ago
  Still incredibly relevant though. With Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and others confronting the TSA in the House, and last week's court decision requiring the TSA to have a comment period, this issue's going to be heating up again.
  - Iv 15y ago
    Relevant, yes, this opinion was put forward by rational people just after the 9/11 : terrorists want terror, don't give them that. Ten years later (yeah, 9/11 happened ten years ago, I feel old) this sensible opinion is still ignored.
bediger 15y ago
A thousand up votes! Keep calm, and carry on.
thyrsus 15y ago
Five years latter, the U.S. has institutionalized a terrified attitude, at least with respect to air travel. At this point, the only thing that might compel me to put up with the useless, degrading, indignity of U.S. air travel would be a dire family obligation - like a funeral - which I couldn't meet in any other way. I am appalled that my fellow citizens demand this abasement.
- cema 15y ago
  I am appalled that my fellow citizens demand this abasement. Many demand the opposite, but there is no political mechanism that would listen to them specifically. They need to convince the rest first, then it can be done.
cstavish 15y ago
It amazes me that people freak out when they see "Muslim-looking" people on flights. The politically-correct response is along the lines of "OMG That is highly prejudicial!", but that's irrelevant. From a purely practical perspective, why would a terrorist leader send an attacker whom many Americans immediately view as "suspicious", when he could send someone who appears more "normal"? On another note, people these days still puff out their chests and say the terrorists couldn't change our way of life. Good one. Another fallacious line of reasoning is that we can destroy terrorism by military action alone. Tell that to the teenage boy who just lost his family to an errant US bomb in his Afghan village and now has a massive amount of pent up rage, and nothing to lose. If the conditions are right, terrorism can always regenerate itself. The way to fight it is to alter the conditions. To do this we must understand why people hate America. Contrary to popular belief, it's not that we are secular or free. Osama bin Laden himself asked that if he wanted to attack secular, democratic states, why didn't he attack Sweden? I'm obviously not condoning terrorism, but the key to beating it is understanding it on at least a basic level. Unfortunately, our leaders in the past 10 years have been more inclined to drop bombs than to know the enemy. edit: I'm not saying military action is inappropriate. It clearly has been effective in many cases.
- rick888 15y ago
  yeah, well, 9/11 still happened with people that didn't appear "normal". "The way to fight it is to alter the conditions. To do this we must understand why people hate America." We should bend over backwards to make the terrorists happy so they don't attack us? What if they hate us because we aren't part of their religion..is the answer to make the US a Muslim country? Negotiating with terrorists that clearly aren't interested in negotiating is not what we should be doing here.
  - Tharkun 15y ago
    Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities. You seem to be very much stuck in an "us" and "them" mindset. You also seem to be missing several things. No one said anything about bending over backwards. As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place? You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere, and that "they" are secretly hatching evil plots to destroy "America". (Because apparently America is the only country that's ever been targetted by terrorists? Get over yourself.) And who suggested making the US a "Muslim country"? The very notion is ridiculous. The US claims to be a "free" country after all, with freedom of religion. There's nothing stopping Muslims from worshipping Allah as much as they please in the US. Nor should there be. And there sure as hell shouldn't be anything to stop "them" from getting on planes, looking at their watches, praying, growing big beards or walking around in whatever outfits they damn well please.
acabal 15y ago
Good article but it'll never be read by those who need to read it most. Unfortunately terror has now been institutionalized. The TSA is a massive bureaucracy that generates jobs and cash flow. It's not something that will ever be dismantled overnight. That's not even mentioning the political convenience it provides: with it politicians can keep us afraid, thus getting our votes when they promise to protect us. It goes deeper than just fear of terrorism though. Having spent the last few years traveling the world and seeing how other people live, it's always shocking to return to the States to see how afraid everybody is of even the smallest things. Fear seems to have become a centerpiece in the American psyche, and long before 9/11. We even raise our kids to be afraid (see some of the vitriolic responses freerangekids.wordpress.com gets in response to advice like, "It's OK to let your kid ride the bus alone"). Fear of mundane things giving you cancer; existential fear about the economy, which many of us don't even understand and as individuals, have no control over; fear of walking the streets alone at night; fear of getting sick if we don't use antibacterial soap after each bathroom trip. Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol. Uncontrollable fear of a country across the ocean maybe having WMD's. No, fear of terrorism is just the latest in a laundry list of things Americans have scared themselves with. Until we learn to control that basic fear response, the TSA will still be around and people will still be scared of sitting next to a dark-skinned man kneeling in prayer.
- rick888 15y ago
  The US is a more aware society. Just because they are talked about in the news, doesn't make someone afraid, just more aware of the dangers in society. "fear of walking the streets alone at night" It depends on where you live. If I'm in Detroit, then yes, I will be a little more apprehensive about walking on the streets alone at night. It's just common sense. "Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol" If someone hacked into your servers and destroyed data through a weakness, would you fix the weakness or just restore the data and go on with your day? The Tylenol weakness has been fixed. It's the smart thing to do. "Uncontrollable fear of a country across the ocean maybe having WMD's." I love how you slipped this one in here. I actually would love for the US to stop all military actions and then have a major terrorist attack. I know I would be the first to blame all of the people who said we were too "paranoid". It's funny because the reason people can sit and talk about all of these things we don't need is because all of the precautions we have in place are working. Kind of like the person that's bi-polar that stops taking their meds because "I feel fine, why should I keep taking them"? "Until we learn to control that basic fear response, the TSA will still be around and people will still be scared of sitting next to a dark-skinned man kneeling in prayer." Until the people in the middle east get their shit together, we will need it. We don't know how many attacks have been prevented because of high security (IE: not even bothering to try).
huhtenberg 15y ago
That's all great, but consider a situation. I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? I will tell you more. As someone who rode on a subway train that was next to the one blown up in a terrorist attack, I will walk out of a coffee shop if I see a person leaving a bag behind and stepping outside. I did that when I was single and I certainly still do it now when I have two kids. If there is a sliver of probability that I can be killed due to my inaction, I will act and I will do my best to avoid that risk. If it takes de-boarding someone from a plane, so be it.
- tommyudo 15y ago
  >I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? That depends. Are his prayers Christian prayers, or Muslim prayers?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnmossel 15y ago
    Why does that matter? And fuck you for thinking that if a muslim prays it means they're involved in terrorism.
  - wtvanhest 15y ago
    Not really, I think it would be strange regardless.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  > I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? If you're freaking out at something as harmless as this, the problem isn't the other guy. This is the same kind of overinflated danger mentality that bars men from playing chess in a park near a playground on suspicion that they are child molesters. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/kiddie_pawn_shock_KnKyQ0JfMITAIqGawRJf8J http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/kiddie_pawn_sho... Meanwhile, things that are orders of magnitude more likely to cause harm are ignored.
wtvanhest 15y ago
There are roughly 20 Million Flights world wide per year. During the period of those 5 incidents, there were over 220,000 flights. (4 days) Yes, it would suck to be on one of those flights, but your chances are extremely low. 00.0023% of flights are impacted. You have less than a 1 in 43,000 chance of being on one of those flights. But... if you are on one of those flights where there is suspected terrorist activity, at a rate of 1 actual attack attempt per year (I couldn't get an exact number, but I bet that is pretty close) Your chances of being killed quickly become much, much higher at 1 in 365. I know I will be downgraded because people don't agree with me, but the reality is that terrorism is real, and if I am on a plane, I'd rather them be safe then sorry. Doing so makes attacks much less likely to succeed which will help reduce attacks.
- henrikschroder 15y ago
  > but the reality is that terrorism is real Many things are real. Lightning strikes. Car accidents. Meteorites to the head. Tsunamis. Smoking. Fat. Dying because of a terrorist attack is way, way, way, way down on the list of stuff you are likely to die from, so the only rational thing to do is to worry about the stuff ABOVE it on the list. Like driving. Or eating right. Or not smoking. Get your priorities right.
  - SonicSoul 15y ago
    so you wouldn't worry about lightning storms in your sleep, but if you are out in the field during one you'll probably take some precautions? maybe get out from under the tallest tree? You probably wouldn't completely ignore it.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      Lightning precautions are based on the testable realities of physics. There is no relation between that and the voodoo pseudo-security that is the TSA and public 'security' in general.
      - 15y ago
donnawarellp 15y ago
I wonder how many more people have been killed on the highways becase the security has made it so inconvenient for people to fly that they drive instead (driving yourself is far more dangerous than flying).
michaelabe 15y ago
I am really amazed how the whole world wants to ignore one simple fact that until now costs us a lot of lives: (9/11 and many other terrorist attacks all over the world) There is a group of people (mainy Muslim)that want all: Jews, Americans, and "free" world countries to perish or convert the Islam (and if not pay special "Muslim" taxes) This is not a conspiracy and this message is played on national TV in many Muslim countries http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvsNFWRbM0&feature=share http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvsNFWRbM0&feature=share what pisses me off is that most of the word ignores this completely and blames Israel and the US for it because of our foreign policy. What scares me most is that it seems to me like were back to the 1930s when Hitler was talking about killing most non Aryan races and the whole world not caring and doing anything about it. So wake the fuck up and realize that we do have a problem in hand, and it's not a joke many people have died and will continue dying terrorism is a world problem not only American, there were dozens of terrorist attacks outside the US, sorry even more then the US. Any ways wake up people and stop being scared of saying the obvious.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Eliezer 15y ago
But if we refuse to be terrorized, the terrorists have already won!
- Raphael 15y ago
  The refusalists will have won.
- Eliezer 15y ago
  ...yes, that was intended as sarcasm, you can stop downvoting it now.
jamesbkel 15y ago
This has always been one of my biggest issues with "counter-terrorism". If the costs of fighting terrorism outweigh the damage that a genuine terrorist group could inflict... who really wins? As a US citizen, I don't doubt that some of our spending has directly stopped particular terrorist plots. However, my point for the past ~10 years has been: they [terrorists] are tricking us into burning money chasing them around the world. If we had invested a fraction of this to take care of people who have suffered from non-terrorist causes we would result with a net benefit.[1] I want to reiterate that there undoubtedly threats to be addressed, but sometime I wish that politicians (and a fair amount of the general population) would leave the whack-a-mole terrorism game alone, take their (our) coin home and find something better to do. [1] Admit, this is an assumption. But I don't think it's a huge leap.
- coffeedrinker 15y ago
  >they [terrorists] are tricking us into burning money chasing them around the world The terrorists are not the ones gaining financially and they are not the ones tricking us.
  - jamesbkel 15y ago
    I didn't mean to say that terrorists are gaining financially or that the "burn[t] money" goes to them. I'd be surprised if that's a real goal. My point was that regardless of where the money ends up, if it's misappropriated then it's a waste.
    - coffeedrinker 15y ago
      I understood your point, and don't disagree. Terrorism is overblown as an excuse to spend the money in ways to benefit certain industries.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
RocknRolla 15y ago
<quote> "The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.</quote> I know this is not going to be popular because Schneier is a crypto/security God and all but I call B.S. on the above quote. If you would have given any of the 9/11 terrorists or UBL a button and told them they could wipe out the U.S. and everyone in it by just pressing the button how quickly do you think they would do it? Or do you think they'd say "Sorry, no-can-do. There won't be anyone left to terrorize."? Their goal is not to terrorize/scare people. Their goal is the total destruction of anyone or anybody that stands in the way of their total domination.
- splat 15y ago
  Their goal is to maximize destruction given the resources they have. If they had a button that instantly destroy the US, of course they would press it. But the fact is that they don't have such a button; they have very limited resources. Their most efficient use of resources is to make random, very visible and violent attacks and hope that our responses do even more damage.
  - RocknRolla 15y ago
    Huh? Just because they don't have said resources to kill everyone in the U.S. doesn't mean it's not their ultimate goal... No one can say whether or not they could eventually acquire those resources via rogue states. UBL specifically stated that jihadist should NOT differentiate between Military/Government and civillians.
Cyph0n 15y ago
A satisfying read indeed. Schneier hits the target right in the middle. I feel exactly the same way about this terrorism. Even though I personally haven't been to the US, what I see in the news, in movies and on television is enough to tell me that Americans are indeed living in fear. However, I do not blame the American (and other) people for hating us (Muslims). I blame the media. I blame the politicians. I blame the terrorists. We may also disagree on the definition of a terrorist. I may tell you that an Afghan militant defending his country and his people against invasion by shooting at American soldiers (this differs from taking innocent lives) is not a terrorist, but a soldier, regardless of his nationality, or who the soldiers he's shooting at are. But in the end, people, Muslims or otherwise, who shamelessly attack, bomb or torture innocent people, people who did them no harm, nor presented any threat to them, nor attacked their country or their people, are terrorists. Indeed, what is happening today in America and in several other countries regarding escalating security measures and incessant leakage of threats is simply the result of governments wanting to control their people (see "1984") by using the media to their advantage. I mean, seriously, think of the guy who tried to detonate a bomb located in his shoe whilst in an plane. Why didn't he go to the toilet and detonate it there? The terrorists I know from the media aren't that ignorant.
blahedo 15y ago
This was well understood nearly a century ago; an awful lot of people know FDR's line that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" but have never thought about it and have no idea what it means.

207 points by iwwr 15y ago

gegegege 15y ago

This is years old, maybe submitter should mention that.

jdp23 15y ago
Still incredibly relevant though. With Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and others confronting the TSA in the House, and last week's court decision requiring the TSA to have a comment period, this issue's going to be heating up again.
- Iv 15y ago
  Relevant, yes, this opinion was put forward by rational people just after the 9/11 : terrorists want terror, don't give them that. Ten years later (yeah, 9/11 happened ten years ago, I feel old) this sensible opinion is still ignored.

bediger 15y ago

A thousand up votes! Keep calm, and carry on.

thyrsus 15y ago

Five years latter, the U.S. has institutionalized a terrified attitude, at least with respect to air travel. At this point, the only thing that might compel me to put up with the useless, degrading, indignity of U.S. air travel would be a dire family obligation - like a funeral - which I couldn't meet in any other way. I am appalled that my fellow citizens demand this abasement.

cema 15y ago
I am appalled that my fellow citizens demand this abasement. Many demand the opposite, but there is no political mechanism that would listen to them specifically. They need to convince the rest first, then it can be done.

cstavish 15y ago

It amazes me that people freak out when they see "Muslim-looking" people on flights. The politically-correct response is along the lines of "OMG That is highly prejudicial!", but that's irrelevant. From a purely practical perspective, why would a terrorist leader send an attacker whom many Americans immediately view as "suspicious", when he could send someone who appears more "normal"? On another note, people these days still puff out their chests and say the terrorists couldn't change our way of life. Good one. Another fallacious line of reasoning is that we can destroy terrorism by military action alone. Tell that to the teenage boy who just lost his family to an errant US bomb in his Afghan village and now has a massive amount of pent up rage, and nothing to lose. If the conditions are right, terrorism can always regenerate itself. The way to fight it is to alter the conditions. To do this we must understand why people hate America. Contrary to popular belief, it's not that we are secular or free. Osama bin Laden himself asked that if he wanted to attack secular, democratic states, why didn't he attack Sweden? I'm obviously not condoning terrorism, but the key to beating it is understanding it on at least a basic level. Unfortunately, our leaders in the past 10 years have been more inclined to drop bombs than to know the enemy. edit: I'm not saying military action is inappropriate. It clearly has been effective in many cases.

rick888 15y ago
yeah, well, 9/11 still happened with people that didn't appear "normal". "The way to fight it is to alter the conditions. To do this we must understand why people hate America." We should bend over backwards to make the terrorists happy so they don't attack us? What if they hate us because we aren't part of their religion..is the answer to make the US a Muslim country? Negotiating with terrorists that clearly aren't interested in negotiating is not what we should be doing here.
- Tharkun 15y ago
  Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities. You seem to be very much stuck in an "us" and "them" mindset. You also seem to be missing several things. No one said anything about bending over backwards. As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place? You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere, and that "they" are secretly hatching evil plots to destroy "America". (Because apparently America is the only country that's ever been targetted by terrorists? Get over yourself.) And who suggested making the US a "Muslim country"? The very notion is ridiculous. The US claims to be a "free" country after all, with freedom of religion. There's nothing stopping Muslims from worshipping Allah as much as they please in the US. Nor should there be. And there sure as hell shouldn't be anything to stop "them" from getting on planes, looking at their watches, praying, growing big beards or walking around in whatever outfits they damn well please.

acabal 15y ago

Good article but it'll never be read by those who need to read it most. Unfortunately terror has now been institutionalized. The TSA is a massive bureaucracy that generates jobs and cash flow. It's not something that will ever be dismantled overnight. That's not even mentioning the political convenience it provides: with it politicians can keep us afraid, thus getting our votes when they promise to protect us. It goes deeper than just fear of terrorism though. Having spent the last few years traveling the world and seeing how other people live, it's always shocking to return to the States to see how afraid everybody is of even the smallest things. Fear seems to have become a centerpiece in the American psyche, and long before 9/11. We even raise our kids to be afraid (see some of the vitriolic responses freerangekids.wordpress.com gets in response to advice like, "It's OK to let your kid ride the bus alone"). Fear of mundane things giving you cancer; existential fear about the economy, which many of us don't even understand and as individuals, have no control over; fear of walking the streets alone at night; fear of getting sick if we don't use antibacterial soap after each bathroom trip. Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol. Uncontrollable fear of a country across the ocean maybe having WMD's. No, fear of terrorism is just the latest in a laundry list of things Americans have scared themselves with. Until we learn to control that basic fear response, the TSA will still be around and people will still be scared of sitting next to a dark-skinned man kneeling in prayer.

rick888 15y ago
The US is a more aware society. Just because they are talked about in the news, doesn't make someone afraid, just more aware of the dangers in society. "fear of walking the streets alone at night" It depends on where you live. If I'm in Detroit, then yes, I will be a little more apprehensive about walking on the streets alone at night. It's just common sense. "Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol" If someone hacked into your servers and destroyed data through a weakness, would you fix the weakness or just restore the data and go on with your day? The Tylenol weakness has been fixed. It's the smart thing to do. "Uncontrollable fear of a country across the ocean maybe having WMD's." I love how you slipped this one in here. I actually would love for the US to stop all military actions and then have a major terrorist attack. I know I would be the first to blame all of the people who said we were too "paranoid". It's funny because the reason people can sit and talk about all of these things we don't need is because all of the precautions we have in place are working. Kind of like the person that's bi-polar that stops taking their meds because "I feel fine, why should I keep taking them"? "Until we learn to control that basic fear response, the TSA will still be around and people will still be scared of sitting next to a dark-skinned man kneeling in prayer." Until the people in the middle east get their shit together, we will need it. We don't know how many attacks have been prevented because of high security (IE: not even bothering to try).

huhtenberg 15y ago

That's all great, but consider a situation. I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? I will tell you more. As someone who rode on a subway train that was next to the one blown up in a terrorist attack, I will walk out of a coffee shop if I see a person leaving a bag behind and stepping outside. I did that when I was single and I certainly still do it now when I have two kids. If there is a sliver of probability that I can be killed due to my inaction, I will act and I will do my best to avoid that risk. If it takes de-boarding someone from a plane, so be it.

tommyudo 15y ago
>I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? That depends. Are his prayers Christian prayers, or Muslim prayers?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- johnmossel 15y ago
  Why does that matter? And fuck you for thinking that if a muslim prays it means they're involved in terrorism.
- wtvanhest 15y ago
  Not really, I think it would be strange regardless.
kstenerud 15y ago
> I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? If you're freaking out at something as harmless as this, the problem isn't the other guy. This is the same kind of overinflated danger mentality that bars men from playing chess in a park near a playground on suspicion that they are child molesters. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/kiddie_pawn_shock_KnKyQ0JfMITAIqGawRJf8J http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/kiddie_pawn_sho... Meanwhile, things that are orders of magnitude more likely to cause harm are ignored.

wtvanhest 15y ago

There are roughly 20 Million Flights world wide per year. During the period of those 5 incidents, there were over 220,000 flights. (4 days) Yes, it would suck to be on one of those flights, but your chances are extremely low. 00.0023% of flights are impacted. You have less than a 1 in 43,000 chance of being on one of those flights. But... if you are on one of those flights where there is suspected terrorist activity, at a rate of 1 actual attack attempt per year (I couldn't get an exact number, but I bet that is pretty close) Your chances of being killed quickly become much, much higher at 1 in 365. I know I will be downgraded because people don't agree with me, but the reality is that terrorism is real, and if I am on a plane, I'd rather them be safe then sorry. Doing so makes attacks much less likely to succeed which will help reduce attacks.

henrikschroder 15y ago
> but the reality is that terrorism is real Many things are real. Lightning strikes. Car accidents. Meteorites to the head. Tsunamis. Smoking. Fat. Dying because of a terrorist attack is way, way, way, way down on the list of stuff you are likely to die from, so the only rational thing to do is to worry about the stuff ABOVE it on the list. Like driving. Or eating right. Or not smoking. Get your priorities right.
- SonicSoul 15y ago
  so you wouldn't worry about lightning storms in your sleep, but if you are out in the field during one you'll probably take some precautions? maybe get out from under the tallest tree? You probably wouldn't completely ignore it.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Lightning precautions are based on the testable realities of physics. There is no relation between that and the voodoo pseudo-security that is the TSA and public 'security' in general.
    - 15y ago

donnawarellp 15y ago

I wonder how many more people have been killed on the highways becase the security has made it so inconvenient for people to fly that they drive instead (driving yourself is far more dangerous than flying).

michaelabe 15y ago

I am really amazed how the whole world wants to ignore one simple fact that until now costs us a lot of lives: (9/11 and many other terrorist attacks all over the world) There is a group of people (mainy Muslim)that want all: Jews, Americans, and "free" world countries to perish or convert the Islam (and if not pay special "Muslim" taxes) This is not a conspiracy and this message is played on national TV in many Muslim countries http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvsNFWRbM0&feature=share http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvsNFWRbM0&feature=share what pisses me off is that most of the word ignores this completely and blames Israel and the US for it because of our foreign policy. What scares me most is that it seems to me like were back to the 1930s when Hitler was talking about killing most non Aryan races and the whole world not caring and doing anything about it. So wake the fuck up and realize that we do have a problem in hand, and it's not a joke many people have died and will continue dying terrorism is a world problem not only American, there were dozens of terrorist attacks outside the US, sorry even more then the US. Any ways wake up people and stop being scared of saying the obvious.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Eliezer 15y ago

But if we refuse to be terrorized, the terrorists have already won!

Raphael 15y ago
The refusalists will have won.
Eliezer 15y ago
...yes, that was intended as sarcasm, you can stop downvoting it now.

jamesbkel 15y ago

This has always been one of my biggest issues with "counter-terrorism". If the costs of fighting terrorism outweigh the damage that a genuine terrorist group could inflict... who really wins? As a US citizen, I don't doubt that some of our spending has directly stopped particular terrorist plots. However, my point for the past ~10 years has been: they [terrorists] are tricking us into burning money chasing them around the world. If we had invested a fraction of this to take care of people who have suffered from non-terrorist causes we would result with a net benefit.[1] I want to reiterate that there undoubtedly threats to be addressed, but sometime I wish that politicians (and a fair amount of the general population) would leave the whack-a-mole terrorism game alone, take their (our) coin home and find something better to do. [1] Admit, this is an assumption. But I don't think it's a huge leap.

coffeedrinker 15y ago
>they [terrorists] are tricking us into burning money chasing them around the world The terrorists are not the ones gaining financially and they are not the ones tricking us.
- jamesbkel 15y ago
  I didn't mean to say that terrorists are gaining financially or that the "burn[t] money" goes to them. I'd be surprised if that's a real goal. My point was that regardless of where the money ends up, if it's misappropriated then it's a waste.
  - coffeedrinker 15y ago
    I understood your point, and don't disagree. Terrorism is overblown as an excuse to spend the money in ways to benefit certain industries.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

RocknRolla 15y ago

<quote> "The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.</quote> I know this is not going to be popular because Schneier is a crypto/security God and all but I call B.S. on the above quote. If you would have given any of the 9/11 terrorists or UBL a button and told them they could wipe out the U.S. and everyone in it by just pressing the button how quickly do you think they would do it? Or do you think they'd say "Sorry, no-can-do. There won't be anyone left to terrorize."? Their goal is not to terrorize/scare people. Their goal is the total destruction of anyone or anybody that stands in the way of their total domination.

splat 15y ago
Their goal is to maximize destruction given the resources they have. If they had a button that instantly destroy the US, of course they would press it. But the fact is that they don't have such a button; they have very limited resources. Their most efficient use of resources is to make random, very visible and violent attacks and hope that our responses do even more damage.
- RocknRolla 15y ago
  Huh? Just because they don't have said resources to kill everyone in the U.S. doesn't mean it's not their ultimate goal... No one can say whether or not they could eventually acquire those resources via rogue states. UBL specifically stated that jihadist should NOT differentiate between Military/Government and civillians.

Cyph0n 15y ago

A satisfying read indeed. Schneier hits the target right in the middle. I feel exactly the same way about this terrorism. Even though I personally haven't been to the US, what I see in the news, in movies and on television is enough to tell me that Americans are indeed living in fear. However, I do not blame the American (and other) people for hating us (Muslims). I blame the media. I blame the politicians. I blame the terrorists. We may also disagree on the definition of a terrorist. I may tell you that an Afghan militant defending his country and his people against invasion by shooting at American soldiers (this differs from taking innocent lives) is not a terrorist, but a soldier, regardless of his nationality, or who the soldiers he's shooting at are. But in the end, people, Muslims or otherwise, who shamelessly attack, bomb or torture innocent people, people who did them no harm, nor presented any threat to them, nor attacked their country or their people, are terrorists. Indeed, what is happening today in America and in several other countries regarding escalating security measures and incessant leakage of threats is simply the result of governments wanting to control their people (see "1984") by using the media to their advantage. I mean, seriously, think of the guy who tried to detonate a bomb located in his shoe whilst in an plane. Why didn't he go to the toilet and detonate it there? The terrorists I know from the media aren't that ignorant.

blahedo 15y ago

This was well understood nearly a century ago; an awful lot of people know FDR's line that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" but have never thought about it and have no idea what it means.