Horrible world trade center crash, traffic effect

Tue Sep 11 17:09:51 UTC 2001

(This isn't operational content, but it may become so in the future)

On Tue, 11 Sep 2001 16:55:26 +0200, Dave Morton <dave at manbitesdog.de>  said:
> I am watching here on satellite Sky News and CNN. 
> Someone out there with a pretty sick mind. Whoever
> is responsible for this has competely outed themselves.

This attitude is one that we have to combat if we have any hope
of winning a war that involves terrorism.

The people responsible were *NOT* sick.  They were *very* logical,
well-prepared, methodical, and rational.  The problem is that
they started with their world-view, which included the concept that
Western civilization as we know it must be destroyed.

>From there, they have come up with an incredibly good attack
when measured on a casualty basis - assume 4 airliners, and
3 operatives per airliner.  Any military commander would be
proud of an operation that had 12 casualties on their side,
and thousands on the enemy's side.  Combined with the second-order
economic impact of airline shutdown and widespread closures,
and the third-order impact of making the enemy nervous,
they've suceeded in their goals.

We shy away from injuring non-combatant civilians.  Under
their rules, civilians are not non-combatants because civilians
are supporting the Western civilization the terrorists are at war with.
Remember that *WE* didn't have qualms about civilians killed in
bombing runs on German factories - the terrorists are merely taking
a slightly wider definition of combatant...

Regarding them as sick/twisted is very dangerous.  They're
rational, intelligent, and reasoning from different ground rules.

And remember - the US dropped 2 nukes.  I'm sure the residents
of a few Japanese cities thought that Truman was sick and twisted
for allowing it to happen.

				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech