On 1/19/06, Mark Smith <random@72616e646f6d20323030342d30342d31360a.nosense.org> wrote:

The purpose of terrorism is to create widespread _terror_ (the hint is in the word).

And what is terror? Warfare What is War? (from Von Clausewitz's Om Kriege) War is fighting and operates in a peculiar element -- danger. But war is served by many activities quite different from it, all of which concern the maintenance of the fighting forces. These preparatory activities are excluded from the narrower meaning of the art of war -- the actual conduct of war, because they are concerned only with the creation, training, and maintenance of the fighting forces. "The theory of war proper, on the other hand, is concerned with the use of these means, once they have been developed, for the purposes of the war." How do we defeat our enemy? (again, Von Clausewitz) - "The acts we consider most important for the defeat of the enemy are . . --- Destruction of his army, if it is at all significant --- Seizure of his capital if it is not only the center of administration but also that of social, professional, and political activity --- Delivery of an effective blow against his principal ally if that ally is more powerful than he." I'd say economic attacks fall under #2. I'd further venture that if 9/11 happened in say, Tonopah, NV, there would not have been $XXX B damage as a result of direct and indirect costs... and further, there would have been (far) less of an uproar and DHS-type activity increase. What is worse for destruction of the US? Crippling the economy or killing +/-3000 people? Was WW2 Germany defeated economically or head-to-head, mano-y-mano in Europe? Was the Confederacy defeated by systematically winning most land-enagements? I submit that: * there is a significant reason that WTC was targeted twice * this is not the first or last time economics means have been employed in terror campaigns * every war ever, since the beginning of time, is was and will be rooted in economics, and all other reasons given for war are BS. * economic targets (supplies, infrastructure, shipping terminals, communications, railroads) do far more to defeat an enemy than killing some civilians... as a terrorist, great, an added bonus, you got so infidels too!!! I suspect that various entities will shortly start bitching about operational content here, so... Operations related, I think it *is* important to know, and conduct war-games (you *.gov types) which include multi-vector attacks, in which terrorists think and operate a coordinated manner that say, a few Special Forces A-teams would, if they were given the same mission... inflict as much economic and political damage as possible with 40 people and a million dollar budget. I think this definitely includes having access to the positions of these communications lines. I think that public access to the locations of these communications lines would have the end result of a far more fault-resilient infrastructure.

First of all: the IRA carried out very successful "systems attacks" on the City of London, and also on major transport systems - motorway viaducts, railway stations and signalling centers, airport terminals - both in kinetic (real, actual bombs) and nonkinetic (hoax calls) modes. All of these were practically speaking pre-Internet. All right, this is NANOG. Yes, some of you were chatting over the thing about who you wanted to fuck at Berkeley in 1973. For economically and practically real-existing purposes in the UK, 1996 was pre-Internet. I'm sorry, I'm not in the master race. The IRA 1990s London offensive was intended specifically to inflict economic costs and political disruption without serious casualties, as the IRA was in negotiations with government at the time. After John Major kicked over the negotiations in order that the DUP would keep his government in power, they wanted to put a fire to his balls without appearing uncivilised enough to cause a hate-wave among the public. Hence the sysdisrupts. One thing they did not do was attack telecommunication targets. I still have no idea why. In the UK they are normally quite obvious. Beware..