More On Tragedy

There's been lots more happening today - arrests and suspect taken from the Westin Hotel in Boston, as well as the Park Hotel in Newton, MA, which is right down the road for me. There's been some thoughtful submissons about people saving the feeds on their [PVR]s, so that the moment isn't lost in time. NATO has invoked Article 5, meaning that for first in history, I believe, the mutual defense clause has been activated. More news included below.

Scott Laird writes "We've received notice that our network facilities in NYC are going to run out of Diesel in ~2 hours, and there's no way to get more diesel to them until lower manhattan is opened up. Since we're located in the same facilties as most of the other major network providers in Manhattan, odds are there are going to be a lot of things dropping off the air this afternoon."

ELBnet writes It would be a godsend if the various survivor registries would pool their data, or if someone sets up a google-like search engine to reach all of them at once - and that is a great idea. I set up the search engine at WWW.ELBnet.com/wtc but need URLs to populate it. Please e-mail me any suggested URLS and I'll add them.

Also please don't /. the site... let the people who need it get to it. Spread the word."

Radio Free Wazee writes "Radio Free Wazee has suspended its normal programming in order to provide a relay for National Public Radio. Most of the sites are slammed -- we've got room for about 320 listeners. You'll need an MP3 player (WinAMP, etc.) -- the stream is at http://live.str3am.com:2310/listen.pls Our web site is http://www.ideashot.com/wazee.org Howard @ radio free waee"

GatorMan writes "The Red Cross and Amazon.com have setup a donations page for disaster relief to aide in the recovery of our people. I've seen it jump $100,000 in an hour (thanks to my $10 I'm sure) with over 25,000 donations so far, very promising. No where else on Earth could you find support like this."

winksmith writes "as many of us look on the recent crashes in horror, we will also be pushed towards more tech solutions to some of the scenarios witnessed. i believe experts agree that the buildings may have stood up to forces of the crash had it not been for the very hot fuel burning w/i the building. the building themselves were designed to take aircraft impacts (albeit circa 1960 aircraft). this disaster may spark re-interest in fuel additives for jet fuel that would immediately put out fires upon impact.

the faa and nasa ran some very extensive tests including the purposeful crashing of a large boeing jet (B720) in december of 1984. the tests were not encouraging. details are available. figure 1-1 shows the jet crashing.

no one can second guess what would have happened, but perhaps continued research into this area might have played a role in saving a few more lives. and still may in the future."

Wiggins writes ""The Internet Fraud Complaint Center recently received several complaints that someone is using the letters, "FBI" or "fbi.gov" in an e-mail address in order to make it seem that the message is coming from an FBI employee. In several cases, the message said, "Your application is approved. Please fill out this form to confirm your identity" and solicited the person's name, address, credit card number and expiration date." More on the http://www.ifccfbi.gov/. I am sure /. users know better, but the general populace doesn't (always)."

What can be done about terrorism?

Yesterday, immediately after the attack, it was hard to think anything but "nuke the middle east back into stone age", which seemed to fit the would-be nukees' level of cultural development.

Today, having calmed down a little, I have been thinking about feasible ways to prevent such acts of terrorism.

Experts seem to agree that security measures can never completely prevent a determined, well organized attempt involving suicide killers. Never being fully secure, maybe we could still make pulling off something like this hard enough so it won't happen again. Please share your ideas.

One thing I read on /. was "physically separate the pilots from the passenger cabin". I think that would make it a lot harder. It could be improved by adding security personnel in plain clothes (preferably Constable Angua von Überwald ;o) israeli-style.

This act was obviously planned by a close and disciplined group. Such groups need money to operate. It has been suggested that Osama Bin Laden be involved in this. Regardless, he is definitely actively supporting terrorism, which is what we are trying to make more difficult.

IIRC, Bin Laden is a sort of rich businessman from Saudi-Arabia. Probably he still owns some company (or companies), drawing his income from it (or them). The huge, illegal, (nonexistant) cartels of (nonexistant) multinational corporations (not) governing virtually all international trade all (don't) have well established procedures (not) to crush possible competitors. Considering the degree of interdependency in our economy and the fact that the WTC housed some quite influential offices, Bin Ladens commercial efforts might suddenly prove unfit for competition on global markets, as did many others, surprising unsuspecting watchers.

Apparently, he gets lots of cash from fund-raising organizations operating in rich (read: G7) countries. Could these be found out, their efforts proved illegal, their money confiscated?

These methods could be used against multiple targets. They seem to involve less martyr potential than nukes. Any other suggestions?

Kiwaiti

Re:US foreign policy, not global trade, the issue

I've got a bright idea.. don't try to take over another country and we won't come in a shoot at you.. Iraq clearly started that fight.

Agreed. And the US was right to drive them back. But you did not protect freedom or democracy. Kuwait is a monarchist dictatorship. It is legal to hold foreig slaves in Kuwait. There Philipinos servants held in virtual bondage by their employers, with the consent of the Kuwaiti government.

The woman who went to the UN to talk to the Assembly about her rape at the hands of Iraqi soldiers was in fact an ambassador's daughter who was not in Kuwait during the invasion.

Note that the US has also, at other times in history, bankrolled and supported Iraq. And Iran. And Afghanistan. Every time it suited a justifiable foreign policy decision.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG.

How are we making anyone in the Middle East 'not free'?

A good, if not somewhat naive, question. The US has interfered in Middle East politics for decades.

• The US supported the corrupt regime of the Shah in Iran (so did the Brits).
• The US supported the Afghan militias during the Soviet invasion. Osama bin Laden was trained under this support. The same people the US equipped, now rule Afghanistan.
• The US has alternately supported and destabilized Iran and Iraq at various times.
• The US has propped up the corrupt monarchies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
• ...and more

I am not claiming that any of these acts were "wrong" - people need to get over the notion that nations act for "right" or "wrong" - these are simplistic notions for children. Nations act in their own interests, as the US did.

Re:US foreign policy, not global trade, the issue

The US supported the corrupt regime of the Shah in Iran (so did the Brits).
The US supported the Afghan militias during the Soviet invasion. Osama bin Laden was trained under this support. The same people the US equipped, now rule Afghanistan.
The US has alternately supported and destabilized Iran and Iraq at various times.
The US has propped up the corrupt monarchies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
...and more

None of these examples show how the United States prevented stood in the way of the Freedom of the Arabic people.. I'm sorry that the Arabic leaders are keeping the Arabic people from their deserved freedom, but this isn't the US.. these people that are fighting a 'War of Terrorism' against the US are the very people restricting the freedom of the Arabic peoples... It's incredibly hypocritical for them to be constantly shouting how they are fighting the US in the name of freedom, when these people (Hussien, bin Laden, et al) are the very people that are performing atrocities and restricting the freedom of their people..

When a country is at war with one of our enemies, we may help to fund those wars... It's in our own self interst to do this.. This is in no way a restriction of the freedom of the people of those countries.. and we are more than allowed to change our opinions at a later date if these countries suddenly become a threat to our nation..

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

Your average terrorist that is willing to smash jetliners into buildings with 25,000 people in them, doesn't give a flying fart about corporate greed and globalization.

Those are just buzz words for dissatisfied Western youths whom don't know what evils lurk out there in the world.

What will prevent terrorism? Through out history, the only way to prevent terror is to cleanly and violently defend your interests and remove the heads and bases of the threat.

I cite the Barbary Coast 1797-1806 and the German Spy threat in the United States and UK from 1939-1945 as examples of this working.

The Mossad has also had some good experiances with this working as well.

The French experiance in Spain during the Neopelonic Wars and the German experiance on the Russian Front and Balkins during World War Two as tacticts that do not work.

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

Sorry to say but a lot of those "angelic acts" had alterior motives. They helped rebuild japan to ensure a military staging point close to the western european front. For every legitimate gov't they helped support there are 3 more coups they engineered or illegitimate leaders they propped up.

By lumping a pile of vastly different political situations in with what is certainly a tragedy, the author attempts to legitimize some very questinable acts. It's in poor taste to use this tragedy to push a political agenda.

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

Mod this guy UP!

Lemme preface my own response with the fact that I am not an expert, and that I'm at work and haven't had the chance to look up everything. However:

I really, really, really hate to have to be a cynic at a time like this. But... it's not like we did all the things that Sinclair mentions out of generousity, there was blatent self-interest. The same time we were propping up the French government we were preparing to overthrow the prime minister of Iran. After we "pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries" should we be surprised that "newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, war mongering Americans" when you realize how much of that American money went into the pockets of brutal totalitarian regimes? Suharto, Saddam Hussein, Noriega, etc, etc... While we forgiving international debts we were arming and indebting various middle eastern factions against the Soviet Union. Many of the same factions that now hate the US for abandoning or manipulating them. Hell, we trained many of them. It's not like these people just started hating us for no reason whatsoever. We're reaping the rewards of about 60 years of a really nasty foreign policy in the Middle-East.

I don't want to be the bad guy when we need to be united - but what I hope comes out of this tragedy is a better understanding among American citizens as to why a sizeable portion of the world hates them. I hope to see guilt and redemption, not self-congradulatory patriotic pandering - we are not nor have ever been a "Good Neighbor". But it's about time we were.

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

This was broadcast in 1973 after the US withdrew from Vietnam. Sinclair died in 1984.

(The Europeans have started making decent planes since then.)

More information is available here [ryerson.ca].

The original text is avaiable here [ryerson.ca].

For some reason, the email version (I received one too) omits the references to China, Israel, Egypt and Nicaragua, among others.

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

Reign in corporate greed and globalization. As long as our bottom line takes precendence over human rights, we will be a target of (quite justifiable) rage and (condemnable) violence.

Give me a break. Do you really think that Osama is angry about GLOBALIZATION? About the hegemony of McDonald's? He's pissed about American support for Israel. He's pissed about US bases in the Middle East. He's probably pissed about the decimation of Iraq. Globalization is something North American college students get pissy about. Most of the world has real problems (AIDS, oppression, genocide) and globalization doesn't even rank.

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

Give me a break. Do you really think that Osama is angry about GLOBALIZATION? About the hegemony of McDonald's? He's pissed about American support for Israel. He's pissed about US bases in the Middle East. He's probably pissed about the decimation of Iraq. Globalization is something North American college students get pissy about. Most of the world has real problems (AIDS, oppression, genocide) and globalization doesn't even rank.

No, but I think that globalism is one of the things that brings him supporters. Get rid of the systemic problems and go after the terrorists. THat way more terrorists don't step in to fill the void.

Re:What can be done about terrorism?

No, but I think that globalism is one of the things that brings him supporters. Get rid of the systemic problems and go after the terrorists. THat way more terrorists don't step in to fill the void.

The systemic problem is that after WWII a bunch of Europeans were given land in the Middle East and the people who were there are understandably pissed. If you have a solution to this problem that doesn't require the removal of either group, then I would love to hear it. Nobody else seems to. Globalization is irrelevant.

Arm Pilots

This ocurred to me last night.

Every commercial airline pilot i have ever met was an ex air-force pilot. (In the USe abotu the only way to learn to fly jhets is to join the US Airforce.)

Given that, I would think they have training on the proper handling of a side arm. Maybe its time to arm them all.

Re:Arm Pilots

Well, maybe, but then there would always be guns on the aircraft, freeing the hijaakers from having to figure out how to smuggle them on board. Instead, they could just sneak up on the pilots and grab the guns from them. Perhaps if the guns were "keyed" to the pilots' thumbprints or something, so that they couldn't be used by anyone else...

Re:Arm Pilots

Every commercial airline pilot i have ever met was an ex air-force pilot. (In the USe abotu the only way to learn to fly jhets is to join the US Airforce.) Given that, I would think they have training on the proper handling of a side arm. Maybe its time to arm them all.

I have two points for your consideration:

1. Do you have any idea how Bad a thing it is to puncture a thin-skinned pressure vessel? Let alone one containing hundreds of people at altitude potentially over an inhabited area?
2. I can't quote stats (and under the circumstances I don't want to quote stats) but it occurs to me that the number of law enforcement personnel attacked or injured by their own weapon is non-trivial.

Firearms on civil aircraft... nope, that's a scary idea. Try Again.

Proper weapoin wont puncture the Aircraft

As it happens the Israelies have solved this one.
They have a gun (special bullet i believe) tht has a large bullet and low muzzle velocity. Will put down a human, wont go through steel.

But secondly, to be honest, in a hijacking ill take my chances with depressurization. If the hijacker is put down there are always the breathing masks for the passengers.