Good article. However, I have a few issues with some of its premises. Unfortunately, I don't at the moment have much time to give a response, or even read the references :-( and certainly not the time that the article deserves, but I will say this:
Whatever we do the terrorists win. If we do nothing then they blow lots of us up. If we do something then they've caused us to react.
Secondly, the calculations are based on just one terrorist act, that of blowing up ten airliners each with 400 people on board. If the goverment and security forces do nothing then the terrorists will blow up a further ten aircraft the following week, and the week after, and the week after that, etc.
So even on the conservative estimate of 4000 people per week that is just over 200,000 people in one year. I think that is quite a significant proportion of those who travel across the Atlantic (which is where the current specific threat is supposed to be) compared with the number of people who use the roads vs those who are killed on the roads each year.
By the way, V for Vendetta is a brilliant film. It is now out on DVD, buy a copy. It is my film of the year; far, far better than Superman Returns or X3, or even Pirates of the Carribean: Deadman's Chest.
Secondly, the calculations are based on just one terrorist act, that of blowing up ten airliners each with 400 people on board.
That's because this represents the kind of major terrorist attack that takes a great deal of time and coordination to set up. It's not the kind of thing that could be done week after week after week - especially not with many of the major players having just been nicked.
Not the way its being reported as far as I can tell. Explosives made from the sorts of things most people have in their bathroom cabinets. The sorts of things we're being told about just about anybody who wanted to could (past tense) take on to a plane.
emperor's post is implying that we don't do anything to counter the threat; instead that we just let the terrorists do their thing. Therefore, they would keep blowing up airplanes.
Explosives made from the sorts of things most people have in their bathroom cabinets."
First I've heard of it. Materials that can be disguiused as like innoccuous substances that you might normally take in your hand luggage, but are nothing of the kind, yes... common cleaning products & toiletries, no.
emperor's post is implying that we don't do anything to counter the threat; instead that we just let the terrorists do their thing.
No it isn't - I quote: "I'm not belittling the tragedy of people dying in terrorist attacks, nor saying that we should do nothing to try and stop them.".
There's a difference between the kind of (largely) effective covert counter-terrorist operations that our security services have been carrying out out for decades now, and the rampant scaremongering that our current government is promoting.
So you're saying that the suicide bombers are going to come back next week and do it again? "If the goverment and security forces do nothing then the terrorists will blow up a further ten aircraft the following week" is not true because it won't be the same terrorists!
Personally my conservative estimate is zero, based on the zero recent attacks of this nature on aircraft. Note, for example, that outside of the US people are not required to have their shoes scanned, so we're wide open to the Richard Reid attack. And yet planes are not falling out of the sky due to exploding shoes.
Nor is it a dichotomy between doing something and doing nothing. The article is all about a proportional reponse; we should look at the risk of terrorism in the light of all the other risks we face, and take simple and proportionate measures to reduce the risk.
The difference is between treating terrorism as part of the risk of crime and disaster in the normal way, and treating it as some special thing which justifies throwing all normal concepts of justice and restraint out of the window.
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(no subject)
Whatever we do the terrorists win. If we do nothing then they blow lots of us up. If we do something then they've caused us to react.
Secondly, the calculations are based on just one terrorist act, that of blowing up ten airliners each with 400 people on board. If the goverment and security forces do nothing then the terrorists will blow up a further ten aircraft the following week, and the week after, and the week after that, etc.
So even on the conservative estimate of 4000 people per week that is just over 200,000 people in one year. I think that is quite a significant proportion of those who travel across the Atlantic (which is where the current specific threat is supposed to be) compared with the number of people who use the roads vs those who are killed on the roads each year.
By the way, V for Vendetta is a brilliant film. It is now out on DVD, buy a copy. It is my film of the year; far, far better than Superman Returns or X3, or even Pirates of the Carribean: Deadman's Chest.
(no subject)
That's because this represents the kind of major terrorist attack that takes a great deal of time and coordination to set up. It's not the kind of thing that could be done week after week after week - especially not with many of the major players having just been nicked.
Sorry, but your calculations are way off.
(no subject)
So by simple maths: 200,000 people per year. QED.
(no subject)
First I've heard of it. Materials that can be disguiused as like innoccuous substances that you might normally take in your hand luggage, but are nothing of the kind, yes... common cleaning products & toiletries, no.
No it isn't - I quote: "I'm not belittling the tragedy of people dying in terrorist attacks, nor saying that we should do nothing to try and stop them.".
There's a difference between the kind of (largely) effective covert counter-terrorist operations that our security services have been carrying out out for decades now, and the rampant scaremongering that our current government is promoting.
(no subject)
(no subject)
Personally my conservative estimate is zero, based on the zero recent attacks of this nature on aircraft. Note, for example, that outside of the US people are not required to have their shoes scanned, so we're wide open to the Richard Reid attack. And yet planes are not falling out of the sky due to exploding shoes.
Nor is it a dichotomy between doing something and doing nothing. The article is all about a proportional reponse; we should look at the risk of terrorism in the light of all the other risks we face, and take simple and proportionate measures to reduce the risk.
The difference is between treating terrorism as part of the risk of crime and disaster in the normal way, and treating it as some special thing which justifies throwing all normal concepts of justice and restraint out of the window.
(no subject)
(no subject)
Fixed.