[extropy-chat] a comparison with London bombings

[Dan Clemmensen]

c c wrote:

> Al Qaeda has very little interest now in hijacking American airliners 
> or terrorizing airports. Of course they hate America and would do 
> anything they could, including a return to hijacking jets, but they 
> have other options, they got away with 9-11 and they are satisfied 
> with that operation; they aren't determined to go after American 
> aviation at this time.
> The government had to do what it did after 9-11 on airplanes, at 
> airports; but the government knows the barn door has been closed after 
> the cows are gone. Soon London and the UK will put into effect all the 
> measures needed to win a battle that was lost on July 7th.
>
More generally, Al-Qaeda (or whoever) is winning,  Al Queda spent 
approximately 30 man-years on the 9-11 attack.  The US government has 
spent at least 10,000 man years on a specific and unnecessary response 
to that attack, in the form of airport screeners. This response is 
unnecessary because airline passengers and crew will no longer tolerate 
a 9-11 type attack. Al Qaeda will not attempt another 9-11 type attack 
because they know it cannot succeed. This has nothing to do with TSA, 
and everything to do with the heightened awareness of the flying public.

Similarly, there is little to gain by increasing security measures after 
the horrific London attacks. The UK authorities should ask public 
transportation users to be on the lookout for unattended packages, but 
even if the authorities make no official request, an unattended parcel 
will not be tolerated on a public transportation system, starting now. 
On 9-11, the passengers of the fourth airplane learned the lesson of 
personal vigilance from the reports from the first three aircraft, even 
though they had only minimal information. The rest of the traveling 
public now has had a lot more time to assimilate the information, so 
9-11 is not reproducible.

Similarly 7-7 will be a lot harder to reproduce. any poor college 
student in any major metropolitan area who inadvertently leaves a 
backpack on a bus or subway car will be in serious trouble, because the 
other passengers will take action: the student will be thrown to the 
floor and the pack back will be thrown off the vehicle. During the next 
year we will see at least a hundred such incidents.

Suicide bombings are still a threat, From a purely rational perspective, 
this threat cannot be countered if each suicide agent can kill more than 
one victim. Fortunately, suicide is strongly counter indicated by 
evolution, so the cost of each suicide to the opposition is more than 
just a single life.