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The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#61

Post by MichaelApproved »

"It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It's hard to find willing terrorists, it's hard to put a plot together, it's hard to get materials, and it's hard to execute a workable plan. As a collective group, terrorists are dumb, and they make dumb mistakes; criminal masterminds are another myth from movies and comic books."

He is very wrong. He is confusing foot soldiers with their leaders. Terrorist leaders are not dumb.

Yes, it's harder than we think but not for the reasons in the article. In Israel, there was a wave of bombings every few days. The bombers were not dumb. They were very successful and killed many people. I believe that it wasn't until the borders got sealed tight that the bombings subsided. That's why they had to resort to using Katyusha rockets but, believe me, if they could get in the country, they'd blow things up, no problem.

Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan all have had regular waves of successful suicide bombings.

What keeps the US relatively free of terrorism is the massive ocean that's between the terrorists and their target. It makes an operation much harder to execute because it's more remote from their base of operations. What we've seen so far is the evolution of their attempts to bridge that gap. The author is confusing these early experiments with stupidity. The terrorists are smart and they learn from the failures of their experiments. Eventually, they'll get better at blowing things up from a distance. If we write them off as dumb, we're going to be in for a surprise when they perfect their methods.

Edit: Israel is tiny and could control its borders much easier than Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan and the US. We see that Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan are very vulnerable to terrorism because their borders are easy to penetrate. The US has the advantage of an ocean defending its borders. Eventually, they'll overcome that obstacle.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#62

Post by jlgreco »

MBlume wrote: post #48
greenyoda wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw no shortage of resolve in NYC after 9/11. Just as untog said of London, we all went to work the next day and carried on with our lives.

There was an excellent article by a New Yorker a while back contrasting the response within NYC with that of the rest of the country.

I think that the proximity to the horror likely has a strong effect. The survivors know that they are survivors, and know that they must carry on surviving. Distant observers thousands of miles away are left only with the horror but little of the resolve that comes from experiancing survival.

But that is just me making up a hypothesis that fits the data in retrospect. Maybe something else is going on.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#63

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #61

"It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It's hard to find willing terrorists, it's hard to put a plot together, it's hard to get materials, and it's hard to execute a workable plan. As a collective group, terrorists are dumb, and they make dumb mistakes; criminal masterminds are another myth from movies and comic books." He is very wrong. He is confusing foot soldiers with their leaders. T…

[deleted]

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#64

Post by seivan »

no_more_death wrote: post #54
seivan wrote: post #45

Probably going to get very well down voted for this, but it hasn't stopped me before. It's not through terrorism they beat us. But through politics. Either twisting the minds of the current leaders, or infecting political parties and slowly implementing sharia - happening in Sweden, with our own tax money. Forget gay and female civil rights.

Seivan, I apologize deeply for getting your comment off track, and I hope others will not follow this further from your main point. However, I would just offer a quick point of advice. Don't spend keystrokes saying you might be down-voted for something. It's actually bolder to just say what you're going to say. When you reference downvoting, you stigmatize it and influence people not to do so. I would rather know if…

Fair enough, appreciate the input. I'll remember it till next time, and you're kinda on to something, it sounds defeatist and quite frankly just tacky.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#65

Post by markdown »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #61

"It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It's hard to find willing terrorists, it's hard to put a plot together, it's hard to get materials, and it's hard to execute a workable plan. As a collective group, terrorists are dumb, and they make dumb mistakes; criminal masterminds are another myth from movies and comic books." He is very wrong. He is confusing foot soldiers with their leaders. T…

> What keeps the US relatively free of terrorism is the massive ocean that's between the terrorists and their target.

What keeps most countries relatively free from terrorism is that they aren't occupying other peoples land or bombing their women and children all the way to hell.

Ever wonder why extremists haven't bombed the Cook Islands or Peru?

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#66

Post by rayiner »

jlgreco wrote: post #59
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No red dawn fantasies, just realpolitik ones. I would consider it a destruction of our society if our economy was not "recognizable as an economy at all." Indeed, the current recession only wiped out about $600 billion of GDP at the worst, and look at how much suffering it caused. I'm willing to vote for the US to send quite a few more drones to Pakistan to avert a possible 10x 9/11 event, even if we could technicall…

You define "society" far too narrowly. A society is not an economy, a government, or even a piece of land enclosed by a border. It is an abstract idea, a sort of shared culture and basic methodology. Here is the real trick though, this "New Rome" is not a city. We don't have a seat of power from which we derive our identity and shared culture, or any sort of sackable cultural Mecca which we define ourselves by. You c…

> You define "society" far too narrowly

You're defining "society" as a pointless philosophical abstraction. I'm defining "society" in terms of the only thing I care about: the people and country around me. I'm not interested in the history books that remain to be written. I think most Americans feel similarly. It might be satisfying in some intellectual sense if "the worldwide shared culture of the 21st century" (of which America might represent a small fraction numerically, but which is disproportionately American in its composition) survives, but does little good for Americans who suffer.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#68

Post by rdouble »

markdown wrote: post #65
MichaelApproved wrote: post #61

"It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It's hard to find willing terrorists, it's hard to put a plot together, it's hard to get materials, and it's hard to execute a workable plan. As a collective group, terrorists are dumb, and they make dumb mistakes; criminal masterminds are another myth from movies and comic books." He is very wrong. He is confusing foot soldiers with their leaders. T…

> What keeps the US relatively free of terrorism is the massive ocean that's between the terrorists and their target. What keeps most countries relatively free from terrorism is that they aren't occupying other peoples land or bombing their women and children all the way to hell. Ever wonder why extremists haven't bombed the Cook Islands or Peru?

Peru has had tens of thousands of civilians killed in conflict with the Shining Path.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#69

Post by artsrc »

DanBC wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't react to terrorism because they're afraid of being blown up personally. They do it because they're afraid of the precedent that might be set by not responding. It's statistically unlikely that you'll be the victim of gang violence, but does that mean it's irrational prosecute and punish gang members? No, because the activity threatens social stability vastly out of proportion with the probability of any…

That does not explain why people stopped flying after 9/11. People are terrible at estimating risk.

I flew less after 9/11 because it made rational sense to do so.

Before I could turn up at the airport 10 minutes before my plane took off and go the the gate and check in.

After 9/11 I was in a queue for ages and had to arrive really early. So it was quicker to just drive.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#70

Post by ipedrazas »

rdouble wrote: post #68
markdown wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What keeps the US relatively free of terrorism is the massive ocean that's between the terrorists and their target. What keeps most countries relatively free from terrorism is that they aren't occupying other peoples land or bombing their women and children all the way to hell. Ever wonder why extremists haven't bombed the Cook Islands or Peru?

Peru has had tens of thousands of civilians killed in conflict with the Shining Path.

funny but at first I didn't recognise Sendero Luminoso. I wouldn't expect English speaking people to know about them or ETA or so many others
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