
The decade's biggest scam - Terrorism - Salon.com - jedwhite
http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/08/29/terrorism
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dasil003
The stats are just proof of how successful the war on terrorism has been! Now
stand in line and let the high-school dropout security contractor cup your
balls like a good American.

~~~
cal5k
I have this policy of refusing to go through backscatter machines... while I'm
not particularly convinced that the radiation is harmful (although it might
be), it's on principle that I don't think I should have to give away naked
pictures of myself to get on a plane.

Anyway, this inevitably leads to an extremely invasive patdown by an annoyed
TSA agent. I also have a policy to have as much fun as possible during
patdowns, so I grin ear to ear, whistle loudly, and try to imagine that I'm
getting a free massage.

The look on the uncomfortable TSA agent's face as he goes about his search is
all the victory I need.

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Yxven
Should we be trying to dismiss terrorism by suggesting it is as equally
threatening as bath tubs?

Lets pretend I'm a terrorist who is trying to make a point. You're telling me
I should be ignored because I haven't killed enough people. Logically (or as
logically as one who has justified terrorism can be), I need to kill more.

Is this the goal we're trying to achieve?

I'm not suggesting that billions haven't been misspent, but if this argument
catches fire, it will be added to the wiki entry for Pyrrhic victory.

~~~
dasil003
Even assuming that the message to terrorists is the only basis for our policy
decisions, you can slice and dice this anyway you want. Consider the converse
argument:

By spending millions of dollars and wasting thousands of man-hours of the
citizenry for every single American ever killed by terrorism, aren't we
sending the message that all it will take to completely cripple the US is to
kill 25,000 of its citizens?

~~~
bluekeybox
> aren't we sending the message that all it will take to completely cripple
> the US is to kill 25,000 of its citizens?

We peace-minded Westerners are an incredibly naive bunch. The world is a
brutal "eye-for-an-eye" place -- has been and will always be.

Terrorism has impact not only in the number of people killed, but also (1)
probably much larger economic impact (people minimizing travel or any other
activities that involve risk, even if they are not conscious they are doing so
because of terrorism), (2) acts of terror that go unpunished will usually
raise the position/status of the terrorist who committed or organized those
acts in the internal power hierarchy he's embedded in (that's how fame, or
rather "infamy" works), which in turn could lead to an extremely precarious
and expensive situation of having to deal not just with a lone terrorist group
but with an entire terrorist government, (3) if there is one thing most people
want from their governments, it is protection against external threats, and
failure to act can be perceived as failure to protect, which in turn will
increase risk-avoidance and thereby have an economic impact (see first point).

Saying that nothing should be done when terrorists strike is like telling a
kid who is being bullied to simply ignore bullies and expect bullying to stop
-- it's something that's never said by someone in the position of being
bullied, but always by someone who is not impacted by it. In addition, such a
statement rests on the false premises that (1) bullying is mostly harmless (it
isn't), and (2) that bullies are primarily interested in seeing a response
from the bullied kid -- and that they are not bullying him/her for some other
purpose (such as scapegoating, or deriving pleasure from the act of bullying
itself).

~~~
dasil003
My post was only meant to illustrate the ease with which you can formulate the
completely opposite argument from the same premise.

If you want to know my core belief on the subject it's that doing nothing, and
spending trillions on security theater are both equally stupid options.

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sixtofour
The people (administrations and congress) foisting this on us do not have our
interests in mind.

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bsiemon
I will say one thing about industrialists; you only have to show them
something once.

