So, why *are* we always fighting the last war?

[N. A. Corbier]

Bruce Schneier, a cryptography and security expert, gives his thoughts on why public safety agencies are blowing up lite-brites and banning Coke on aircraft.

I do have to agree with the man, in that we always have, and seem to always will, fight the last war. Would you want to be the person responsible for allowing something that happened before happen again?

With CNN watching.

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72774-0.html

[Chucky]

"Police mistook these signs for bombs and shut down parts of the city, eventually spending more than $1 million sorting it out. Authorities blasted the stunt as a terrorist hoax, while others ridiculed the Boston authorities for overreacting. Almost no one looked beyond the finger pointing and jeering to discuss exactly why the Boston authorities overreacted so badly. They overreacted because the signs were weird."

I for one thought that they were over reacting and was embarrassed for the Boston police. But was reminded that most the planes involved in the 911 attack
came out of the Boston airport and that is a black eye that the city will never live down. So they are not about to make clowns out of themselves again. So if they were overcautious and a bit over zealous, then I now feel maybe they had a reason to be.

[N. A. Corbier]

The problem with the Boston Response wasn't so much that the police "overreacted," it was the political spin and head-hunt towards Cartoon Network and Turner Broadcasting. The politicians got into it, and by God, they were made to look like asses, and they were going to use the full weight of the law to teach those punks a lesson.

You don't see the street cop screaming, "THOSE WERE TERRORIST DEVICES!!!!!!!!!!!!1one."

[Bill Warnock]

The problem with the Boston Response wasn't so much that the police "overreacted," it was the political spin and head-hunt towards Cartoon Network and Turner Broadcasting. The politicians got into it, and by God, they were made to look like asses, and they were going to use the full weight of the law to teach those punks a lesson.

You don't see the street cop screaming, "THOSE WERE TERRORIST DEVICES!!!!!!!!!!!!1one."

Nathan and Chucky, what seems to be forgotten in this maelstrom by the average civilian and sadly in this and in the law enforcement profession, the people who would do us real harm are sitting back, stroking their beards and pondering how best to exploit this foible. Posted on the main SIW site was the liquid ban on airliners. I have stated repeatedly, to the dismay of some of you, take the baby bottle and empty it contents and fill it with two or three ounces of a clear liquids transferring relatively harmless substances, binary agents if you will, and creating a liquid explosive in its neat form. Drop it and the airplane goes poof with no fire at all. No fire Bill, you're kidding! No, blow up a balloon until it bursts. Did you see any flame? No!
Recently Dr. Kirk Yeager, was assigned to the head the explosive unit at the FBI's laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. This response is as the FBI prepares defense against kitchen sink bombs.
Nathan and Chucky you are on the right track.
What of the two cleaning people in the well of an automobile repair shop killed by toxic fumes? They were cleaning the walls and floor with bleach, literally pouring the bleach on the walls and floor. A quantity of brake fluid, they didn't say how much, was on the floor and when combined, the fumes, heavier than surrounding air, killed them. The ME said death was instant.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[SecTrainer]

One very significant reason we're fighting the last war is because it has become "politically incorrect" to fight the war we're in. When you can't even focus your limited resources on the enemy in ways that plainly make the most common sense, you're left with nothing else but to fight the wrong war.

Norman Podhoretz got it right in his article about "World War IV", and I'm sure the militant Islamists, despite openly declaring themselves to be our enemies, didn't like it when he pointed out that very simple fact. However, our enemies received aid and comfort from the ultra-left, who howled that Podhoretz was "calling for" a "war of civilizations" (as if he started the whole thing himself, rather than merely pointing out that it had begun).

...and, of course, we all know what we (used to) call giving aid and comfort to the enemy, don't we? The word - and the crime itself - was called TREASON, if I'm not mistaken. It's not a word you'll hear much anymore in the pseudo-sophisticated world of the "intellectuals", and in fact they openly reject the idea that such a crime could possibly exist in the New World Order, where there is no such thing as a "nation-state" any longer. After all, you can't have treason, which is a crime against a country, if there's really no such thing as a country.

No, it's all just one big world-wide koom-ba-yah circle jerk of universal harmony, if we stupid people could but only see it coming through the mist. Me, I admit that I have trouble seeing it, but it's not the mist obscuring my vision. It's clouds of smoke rising from the ruins of the Twin Towers.

Nope...try as I might, I don't see a New World Order coming like some cosmic orgasm. What I see coming is an army of militant Islamists and many others who use and aid the militants because they hate us for other reasons of their own. And when I look closely, I see that some of these enemies of America even look very much like Americans who for some reason hate America. I'm sorry, but to my simple mind you can't call this anything but treason.

I don't know whether historians a century from now will record that you and I were among the last few generations of Americans to cross the stage of world history, but I think it's the worst mistake we could make not to consider that such a future is entirely possible. It's all the more likely to happen if we cannot even bring ourselves to call our enemies by name and then muster the courage to destroy them to the very last one. In other words, we can only fight the current war if we're willing to define it without fear of being "politically incorrect" or buying into the crap that comes from the treasonous cowards who dominate certain elements of our own society, most notably the media, education and the press. No matter how they might want to obscure the issue in philosophical terms, this isn't hard: Some people want to kill us and will do so unless we kill them first. In fact, they'll be perfectly happy to kill us while we're discussing Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard and Camus. Right in mid-sentence, they'll be happy to kill us. The question is, when that fact finally dawns, will it be too late as it has been for nations before us? Check out Rome if you don't think it is possible to miss the critical moment when all is finally lost.

Some who do realize the danger seem to take false comfort in the idea that these enemies do not have the capability to destroy us. Unfortunately, this idea is rooted in a failure to understand exactly who our enemies are, including certain powerful nations that are aligning themselves with the militants (or their allies) in one way or another. When you examine that issue carefully, you'll see that a lack of capability is not the case, or will not be for very long. Again, the window will close at some future moment and if we fail to act, the only question is when.

[ACP01]

IMHO the reasons we fight the last war are
1. as Nathan said "Who wants to be responsible for letting it happen again"
2. You look at the last one as the way things will progress
3. Predicting how attacks will occur in the future is hard. Not to mention if what you are predicting isn't what happens then there goes your credibility.
4. A "repeat" attack and you are done...a differant attack and "who woulda thunk it" is the mentality.


Sure you can plan for kitchen bombs as "the next way" then another ANFO goes off. (Oklahoma City and WTC attack 1)....
plan for the thermo-nuclear or dirty bomb and the Tangos burst a Hydrogen Cyanide tanker upwind of a city.....

[Bill Warnock]

IMHO the reasons we fight the last war are
1. as Nathan said "Who wants to be responsible for letting it happen again"
2. You look at the last one as the way things will progress
3. Predicting how attacks will occur in the future is hard. Not to mention if what you are predicting isn't what happens then there goes your credibility.
4. A "repeat" attack and you are done...a differant attack and "who woulda thunk it" is the mentality.


Sure you can plan for kitchen bombs as "the next way" then another ANFO goes off. (Oklahoma City and WTC attack 1)....
plan for the thermo-nuclear or dirty bomb and the Tangos burst a Hydrogen Cyanide tanker upwind of a city.....

ACP01 that is not the half of it. What of the building owners and managers who disregard OSHA and local fire regulations? One example I routinely found in my survey work was the violation of quantity distance requirements. Some chemicals used in maintenance benign if by themselves are dangerous when mixed accidently or otherwise, ammonia and chlorine.
Enjoy the day,
Bill