[41562] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Horrible world trade center crash, traffic effect
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu)
Tue Sep 11 14:28:59 2001
Message-Id: <200109111709.f8BH9pr17043@foo-bar-baz.cc.vt.edu>
To: dave@manbitesdog.de
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 11 Sep 2001 16:55:26 +0200."
<3B9E25DE.DBB0206@manbitesdog.de>
From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:09:51 -0400
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
(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@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
