Terror attack foiled on Northwest Airlines flight

[DGuller]

Terrorism succeeds when it provokes people to over-react.  Looks like the guy toasting his balls scored a big one.  Sigh, when will people learn?

[Berkut]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

[DGuller]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

This is a superficial way to look at it.  Killing is a means to terrorize.  It's not like a reducing the western population by hundreds or even thousands is going to yield the terrorists a whole lot of benefits directly.  Forcing us to over-react and waste tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, now that's a measurable impact.  Making us constantly think of a threat of being killed by them, that's also a victory.

[Berkut]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

This is a superficial way to look at it.  Killing is a means to terrorize.  It's not like a reducing the western population by hundreds or even thousands is going to yield the terrorists a whole lot of benefits directly.  Forcing us to over-react and waste tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, now that's a measurable impact.  Making us constantly think of a threat of being killed by them, that's also a victory.

Yeah, but I dispute the idea that the measures taken to prevent someone blowing up a plane are so vastly outrageous comapred ot the damage done when they actually successfully pull off a spectacular attack.

For all the bitching about increased security, when I fly it isn't really any different than it ever has been, not as a result of increased security anyway. Almost all problems I have when flying have nothing to do with security at all - delayed flights, lost luggage, crowded airports, etc., etc.

I think people grossly exaggerate how horrific increased security measures really are. The reality is that you still go pay some price for a ticket, and that price is almost completely driven by economic realities having nothing to do with security, like fuel costs and such. You go to the airport, get on a plane, and it flies you where you want to go. Nothing has really changed in any fundamental way.

People are going to bitch about guys like this guy slipping throught the cracks, but you know what? There will be more. And it isn't because the TSA is terribly incompetent - or rather, it isn't that there is any real way to make it any more competent than it is, by and large. Millions of people fly every day, and there isn't going to be any system that will allow that to continue in any kind of reasonable manner that will not also involve the occasional butjob finding a hole.

If nothing else, simply testing the security measures over and over again will eventually see someone screw up and let something through. That is simple odds.

The reality is that it is, apparently, pretty damn hard to actually successfully take down an aircraft these days - at least, it hardly ever seems to happen, so apparently they are doing something right.

[Josephus]

It's never been that easy to take down an aircraft, which is why these security measures are a band-aid solution that make flying a pain in the arse.

You can only have liquid in 100 ml bottles...but you can have ten of those if you want. Seriously. WTF?

Even before 9/11 planes weren't falling out of the sky everyday. I fly fairly frequently, and, trust me, it's becoming a pain in the ass, and each time some nutbar tries to do something, they ramp the security a notch until in a decade or so we're all gonna have to fly naked.

[Razgovory]

Terrorism succeeds when it provokes people to over-react.  Looks like the guy toasting his balls scored a big one.  Sigh, when will people learn?

Al-Qaida doesn't engage in terrorism in the classic way we know.  It's not a propaganda of the deed type thing.  It's closer to guerrilla war at a distance.  Anyway, what way or people over-reacting?

[Berkut]

It's never been that easy to take down an aircraft, which is why these security measures are a band-aid solution that make flying a pain in the arse.

You can only have liquid in 100 ml bottles...but you can have ten of those if you want. Seriously. WTF?

Even before 9/11 planes weren't falling out of the sky everyday. I fly fairly frequently, and, trust me, it's becoming a pain in the ass, and each time some nutbar tries to do something, they ramp the security a notch until in a decade or so we're all gonna have to fly naked.

So your big bitch is that you can't have liquids in bottles of more than 100ml?

That seems pretty trivial to me.

[jimmy olsen]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

The aim of terrorism is not merely to kill someone, but to cause some sort of change in the political or religious policy of the target. They don't have to kill people to succeed, just scare people enough and they can get what they want anyways.

[Berkut]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

The aim of terrorism is not merely to kill someone, but to cause some sort of change in the political or religious policy of the target. They don't have to kill people to succeed, just scare people enough and they can get what they want anyways.

I find it hard to believe that what AQ wants is people to not be allowed to take more than 100ml bottles on planes.

I think it has something more to do with spreading radical Islam, or something.

[jimmy olsen]

By the way, it's gonna be a total bitch for me to fly back, they already did all that new stuff to me when I left. I'll probably literally be strip searched next time, I'm gonna have to get there four hours early.

[jimmy olsen]

I think terrorism succeeds when they kill a bunch of people in some spectacular manner.

Why lower the bar for them?

The aim of terrorism is not merely to kill someone, but to cause some sort of change in the political or religious policy of the target. They don't have to kill people to succeed, just scare people enough and they can get what they want anyways.

I find it hard to believe that what AQ wants is people to not be allowed to take more than 100ml bottles on planes.

I think it has something more to do with spreading radical Islam, or something.

Destroying the open society of the west is another aim, and we're well on our way to cooperating. Just look at what England's turned into.

[DGuller]

Terrorism succeeds when it provokes people to over-react.  Looks like the guy toasting his balls scored a big one.  Sigh, when will people learn?

Al-Qaida doesn't engage in terrorism in the classic way we know.  It's not a propaganda of the deed type thing.  It's closer to guerrilla war at a distance.  Anyway, what way or people over-reacting?

Guerilla war is pretty much the same thing as terrorism, functionally speaking.  The strategic goal of the guerilla war is to not kill a lot of the enemy, but to complicate the life of the enemy, by sapping its resources and morale.

[Berkut]

Terrorism succeeds when it provokes people to over-react.  Looks like the guy toasting his balls scored a big one.  Sigh, when will people learn?

Al-Qaida doesn't engage in terrorism in the classic way we know.  It's not a propaganda of the deed type thing.  It's closer to guerrilla war at a distance.  Anyway, what way or people over-reacting?

Guerilla war is pretty much the same thing as terrorism, functionally speaking.  The strategic goal of the guerilla war is to not kill a lot of the enemy, but to complicate the life of the enemy, by sapping its resources and morale.

No, you are confusing means with ends. Nobody engages in any kind of war with the strategic goal of making life complicated for the enemy.

[DGuller]

As far the question of costs, appart from the intangible indignities of having all those security checks, there is also a basic cost of time.  The more security checks there are, the more time you have to spend in the airport. 

Take hundreds of millions of passengers, multiply it by a couple of hours, multiply it by their cost of time, and pretty soon you're talking real money.  This is just talking about specific costs of airline security, and not the more general costs of conducting the "War on Terror".

[Grallon]

Agree with marti (and others); one tosser (on the terrorist watch lists) fails to do much but we hand anti-Western forces victory on a plate with retarded and disruptive security measures 

Sometimes I think we will lose this battle (despite our pathetic opponents); our responses are so unintelligent and pusillanimous 

So long as we won't address the core problem - allowing muslims to emigrate or travel to western countries - this will get worse.  It really is amazing to see so much obfuscation around that issue.  Islamic fundamentalism is a product of Islam - it's not seperate from it;  therefore we can't address that problem without also addressing the general problem of muslim culture. 

And we will remain pusillanimous in our responses so long as we won't admit that in some cases it may be warranted to discriminate - especially when you deal with people who won't hesitate to use and abuse liberal values to cause us grief.



G.