From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 09:05:36 MST
Kai Becker wrote:
>
> IMO, bin Ladin has perfectly achieved his goal. He turned some hundred
> million positive thinking people into chicken-hearted rabbits being
> afraid of an imaginary snake, and made a super-power change its course
> from free, democratic and peaceful prosperity to less democratic hyper
> security and war...
This kind of notion is what motivates governments
to go to *any* extreme to deal with the source of
threats, in a courageous attempt to restore the
former sense of peace. Bad move, Kai.
> Now, which technology is _not_ vulnerable? Airplanes, power stations,
> computer networks, banks and stock exchange, oil and gas industry, ships,
> ... Kai
I am arguing that subways are in a class all by themselves
for vulnerability. They cannot reasonably set up a
passenger screening system like the airlines have,
yet any agent can slay an airplane-like load of
people with very little expense or effort. The Korean
incident last week demonstrated that a dollar's worth
of flammable liquid and a match in the hands of a
single suicidal agent can slay 100 or more infidels.
If the agent goes to a modicum of effort, she can
arrange a two minute ignition delay with a bottle of
alcohol in a backpack. She most likely could pull
it off without being caught. She could do it with
materials that are not in themselves illegal to
possess or carry around.
Europe and Asia rely more heavily upon subways than
does the US I believe, perhaps because those continents
had a number of major cities that were invented before
cars, making them inherently more suited to subways.
I predict that all the world's subways will be
effectively useless within 10 years.
spike
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