[iwar] [fc:Terrorizing.Ourselves]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-02 21:21:14
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:The.Hijackers.We.Let.Escape]"
Previous message: e.r.: "Re: [iwar] [fc:The.biggest.intelligence.agency.ought.to.know.better]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Message-Id: <200206030421.g534LEL29625@red.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 21:21:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Terrorizing.Ourselves]
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Terrorizing Ourselves

<a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,241309,00.html">http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,241309,00.html>

Vague threat warnings may panic Americans and boost the terrorists. But
don't envy the White House the task of lowering public expectations of
security

BY TONY KARON

On the surface, it looks like we're in deep trouble here. Over the past week
alone, our government has said that our banks, apartment buildings and New
York City landmarks could soon be terror targets. Further terror strikes are
"inevitable," warns Vice President Dick Cheney. Americans should brace
themselves for suicide bombings of the kind that have become commonplace in
Israeli cities, warns FBI director Robert Mueller. And it's inevitable that,
sooner or later, the terrorists will get access to weapons of mass
destruction, according to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But wait a minute. Are things really that bad? And if so, why are we only
hearing about it now? Stung by criticism of its handling of pre-Sept. 11
counter-terrorism intelligence, the Bush administration's instinct to share
vague terror threats with the public is understandable. But although this is
designed to calm the public, it may well have the opposite effect ‹ and that
would be bad news for the administration and good news for al-Qaeda.

Everybody, everybody, please calm down

The implied government disclaimer attached to the threat warnings: Even if
we do our level best on the intelligence and security front, it may not be
enough to protect you. That's certainly true. Nothing is guaranteed to keep
U.S. citizens safe from terror. Example: Israel has probably the most
advanced and experienced counter-terrorism apparatus in the world; it knows
exactly who its enemies are and their general location, it often even knows
when they're coming, it foils a number of attempted terror strikes from week
to week ‹ and yet some suicide bombers get through.

The Bush administration may have decided that it's time to manage
expectations, to steel the public to absorb more blows in the way that the
Israelis have been steeled by years of terror attacks. It may also be hoping
to head off a self-destructive Capitol Hill post-mortem on Sept. 11 by
warning the nation and its legislators that the danger has not passed, and
urging them to focus on new threats rather than past mistakes.

But it doesn't look good, or inspire confidence when the messages emanating
from the government over the past week imply that very little has, in fact,
been achieved in the war on terror. Americans could be forgiven for deducing
that Washington is saying we're in as much, if not more danger than we were
on the morning of September 11, and that there's not much the government can
do to effectively protect us.

That's not true, of course; a significant amount has been done in the fight
against al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden is either dead or on the run; his
organization's financial operation is in shambles, and Afghanistan is no
longer a safe haven for operations. But the administration's message, coming
on the back of legislative probes and media questioning of the
administration's handling of intelligence and security priorities before
that attack, could actually function to undermine public confidence.

Helping spread terror

The vague warnings of the past week gnaw at public morale because they don't
offer much help in preparation of defenses against attacks, but do spread
panic ‹ which, of course, is a large part of the terrorists' intention. From
al-Qaeda's point of view, the warnings are the ultimate freebie. After all,
terrorism is not warfare in the conventional sense, where the object is to
project power in order to destroy an enemy's military capability. Terrorism
is more in the nature of violence-as-propaganda, using spectacular attacks
to terrorize an enemy's support base as well as to embolden and inspire the
terrorists' own supporters. Al-Qaeda's modus operandi over the past four
years has been to conduct one or two spectacular attacks a year (which may
require them to attempt a few more, on the assumption that some will be
foiled). Theirs is a war of messages in which mass murder is the ultimate
propaganda tool ‹ the message to Americans is that they will not be safe as
long as their government maintains a presence in Muslim lands; and al-Qaeda
is telling the Muslim world that despite America's power, it is not
invulnerable and that Muslims can bend it to their will by rallying to bin
Laden's 'jihad.'

Counter-terrorism experts fretted in 1998 that the Clinton administration's
bombing of al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan had only served to boost bin
Laden's standing by painting him as the man most hated and feared by
America. The current wave of warnings certainly suggests to the wider world
that bin-Laden continues to spook the U.S., and that's grist to his own
propaganda mill.

Still, nobody can envy the Bush administration having to preside over
national security in a time of terror. The second-guessing of the White
House's pre-Sept. 11 performance reflects a need, on the part of a
substantial part of the American public, to believe that their government
can protect them from all threats. Congress bought into National Missile
Defense, for example, precisely because of the allure, however misleading,
of the idea of an umbrella under which Americans can live unmolested by
foreign threats. But as appealing as the idea may be to the public, absolute
security, as the Bushies now well know, is something no government can ever
guarantee. 

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Grab your copy of VeriSign's FREE Guide, "Securing Your Web
site for Business," and you'll learn everything you need to know about using 128-bit SSL to encrypt your e-commerce transactions, secure your corporate intranets and authenticate your Web sites. 128-bit SSL is serious security for your online business. Get it now!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/A62TUC/LyKEAA/sXBHAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:The.Hijackers.We.Let.Escape]"
Previous message: e.r.: "Re: [iwar] [fc:The.biggest.intelligence.agency.ought.to.know.better]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2003-08-24 02:46:32 PDT