Yes, but then you would be up against the "this is war" party that will berate anyone who suggests putting terrorism in it proper place in terms of priority.

BTW, I just noticed the "Public Reaction" thread on this section of Flyertalk listing reliable polling data on the public mood. It tracks exactly with the point I made in my earlier post and the numbers are even more lopsided than I would have thought.

Those who post all the time on this board are really just preaching to the choir, and a very small choir it is.

The "public" is demanding stupid, ineffective regulations that do nothing to stop real terrorists? Since when? And how did we make these demands?

Sorry, virtually all of TSAs stupidity is internally driven by the fear they might get criticized if they miss something, so for the entire time of their existence, they have over-reacted.

Excellent post! I wonder why they are not doing that. It would be so darn easy. They could put bombs in gas stations. Imagine the effect on the American psyche and economy if Americans are afraid to fuel up because gas stations are being blown up left and right. Washingtonians were afraid to go out because of a single sniper (they were two but we didn't know that). Imagine how scared everyone will be when gas stations are blowing up left and right. The death count may not even be as high but the effect would be terrifying. Given that 4 of the worlds biggest 5 companies are petrol multis and that the fifth is heavily dependent on them (Walmart) and that most of them are American and that the Muslims control most of the oil, this would be the perfect plot.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/

I really wonder why they are not doing it. You don't even need that much manpower. And you could set the bombs on timers. Imagine to have just 100 gas stations blow up every day for a week randomly all over the nation. Total havoc. Is it hard to blow up a gas station?

All this to say that even if they could make flying safe, which they cannot, there are a million other places to hit. Softer and even more vulnerable targets.

I don't get it. :(

The former head of the CIA's Near East and South Asia division who also was in charge of CIA counter-terrorism efforts for a while was doing the rounds today and saying what has been known for a long time: terrorism is a nuisance and it's not going away anytime soon, so learn to live with some of it even if the political class is unwilling to be honest about it.

The public seems to have issues with such honesty.

Sure. You have a soft American public that has known very little about sacrifice and is petrified of death.

Go look at the latest post on PV and look at second comment. Here is the take away:

"My life! My life! The life of my family! They are special and precious and have to be saved at all costs. DON'T LET ME DIE!!! Please! I will give you anything!"

And that is where we are in America.

Patriots are few. Cowards are many.

It is a generation of people who have been carefully groomed in the public schools to believe NOTHING is worth dying for, NOTHING is worth fighting for, and war is never right. They have been taught to admire and WATCH heros, but NEVER to fight, but cowardice and submission to robbers, swindlers, crooked politicians, authorities and government is praised and rewarded.

I agree with above posters re: terrorist plots, it seems there are many seemingly effective plots that would be easy and cheap to pull off. I don't know if that means that the authorities are protecting us or that the bad guys really are just a poorly trained and poorly funded bunch of misfits. I, too, was expecting major terror attacks at the peak of the economic crisis.

FWIW though I think the heightened sense of fear (even if it is overblown) serves the public good pretty well. Americans as a lot are - as mentioned - cowardly, lazy, apathetic and nearly braindead. Perhaps it takes a constant, soiled-pants level of fear to even get people to notice someone sticking bombs to the pumps at the gas station or acting suspiciously on a plane.

We can only speculate. I suspect it is a combination of factors, including the following:

---While there are many who sympathize with the perpetrators of these acts, their actual numbers are not that large- especially ones who could operate in US society without being noticed.

---Our domestic intelligence system is really pretty good, with local law enforcement now much more aware and active in this area (e.g., cultivating informants).

---AQ, in particular, is focused on very large, spectacular attacks to make an impression throughout the world.

---To mount a coordinated series of attacks on economic targets like malls or gas stations would require many more resources including people, communications, weaponry, etc. Once you get into that sort of complexity, the possibilities of being detected increase significantly.

That doesn't mean it won't happen. If it does, however, I would expect it to involve only a small number of targets using less than highly skilled talent- sort of like the guys who have been captured recently.

Yes, that's about the only thing I imagined as a possible answer myself. But if I were in their shoes, which I am definitely not, I'd pursue this kind of thing. The problem would be to pull this off more than once because of human resources and likelihood of detection. If you wanted to do this in 50 places (all states) at the same time, you'd need 50 attackers. They wouldn't have to put their own life on the line, though, which should make recruiting easier.

I hope the answer really is that there are not that many guys out there. That on the other hand makes the situation not necessarily look any better. If there are only a few, and just these few can keep the biggest military nation in the world shaking of fear, something is very wrong.

Till

Undressing the Terror Threat
 

There was an excellent article in the Journal today on this topic. Check it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...587677752.html

And that, unfortunately, is the real take-away.

An excellent article. Thank you for posting it.

Last night I watched Washington Unplugged with Bob Schieffer

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?...eaturedPost-PE

Charles Glass, one of the interviewees, said we need to do what Margaret Thatcher did during the time of IRA terrorism. She refused to call these thugs terrorists, but rather referred to them as "criminals", because that is all they are, common criminals.

When you refuse to use the term "terrorist" you eliminate a great deal of the psychological impact of their acts.

^^

That might have more impact than anything else. Call them criminals, murderers, sociopaths; treat them as what they really are: isolated, marginal people with violent antisocial agendas.

i think we should stick with the term terrorists. with all the rights we afford criminals in this country it would be a crime to see them as eqauls...

Using the term "terrorist" gives validity to their cause; if you take away that validity, you go a long way toward taking away their power to terrorize.

in theory that is a good point but in reality it makes no difference. on 9/11 we could have called them "rodeo clowns" and the result was still the same. psychological impact? we are dealing with thin skinned america. we go to pieces if we get a flat tire, dont get the special meal in f, or our blackberrys malfunction. i can see a point in there but i dont think it makes any difference...

Excellent article -- exactly what I have been trying to say for years, but was never able to put so eloquently.

Patriots are few, but idiots are many! I am shocked by the number of people who will agree to do anything and everything in the name of imaged safety.

I predict they will be screening people wearing only underwear soon enough but the masses of sheep will agree to it.

But then you also severely dilute the politicians' reasoning for sprawling out government's tentacles.

I agree with you and Prime Minister Thatcher's words, it just wouldn't work in modern U.S. politics.

This has often puzzled me that it has not occurred. Seems doable. They pulled off coordinated strikes in London and Madrid several years ago.

Maybe it is related to the top item. Is keeping Western civilization afraid of their own shadow more important than destroying it?

Thanks for posting that article! Very good, indeed.

He says the same thing about analytical risk comparison and uses the same traffic death example as I did a few days ago in another post.

His economic analysis is even more interesting. There are many fields where the spent money will avert many more deaths and suffering. And that's without causing suffering and death elsewhere as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are undoubtedly doing, which he doesn't mention. If you think that even further, it is likely that if we spent only half of the military budget on education instead, we wouldn't even have all these problems.

Finally, as has been said here and in his article, the problem is not that they are treated as idiots and cowards but that the majority are idiots and cowards.

The other problem is that while our leadership is endowed with some of the most unrestrained powers of any democracy (to the point where it is questionable whether it is a democracy), the leaders shy away from making strong but rational decisions from the top down, especially the rather intelligent and liberal leaders that could make such decisions. The right wing and not so smart leaders, don't shy away from making decisions from the top down except that they are not in the interest of the country but in their own. :mad:

Till

It doesn't matter what party is in power - the only interest that matters is their own. :td: Dems and Reps - they're more alike than different at this point.

Yes, to a certain degree. But I bet if Obama had the balls, he'd do similar things to what the writer from the WSJ article or I suggest. He just doesn't which is disappointing but not surprising.

Bush had enormous cojones (or craziness) and used it. But he didn't use them for the right thing.

We have seen that it was impossible to do state health insurance. Imagine cutting the military budget in half and instead investing in education. It sure would be nice but is nothing but a pleasant illusion I use to console myself. ;)

Till