From: Steve Davies (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 11:12:53 MST
Kai wrote
> > Now, which technology is _not_ vulnerable? Airplanes, power stations,
> > computer networks, banks and stock exchange, oil and gas industry,
ships,
> > ... Kai
Spike responds
> 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.
I'm afraid I don't see this. Subways may be unusually vulnerable as a
transport system, although I actually doubt this - trains are just as
vulnerable as are major freeway systems. I vividly recall how the IRA twice
brought Britain's entire motorway network to a complete standstill with
strategically placed dummy bombs and bomb warnings. As for the other kinds
of technology Kai mentions how are these intrinsically less vulnerable?
>
> 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.
If that happens several major cities (London being the first) will have to
be completely rebuilt or even abandoned (only 48% of Londoners own a car).
The point of course is that this won't happen because the threat is
overstated. I agree there are people other than terrorists who have some
kind of interest in causing major disruption/chaos e.g. the kind of idiots
who make false alarm calls but I don't see how they are enough of a problem
to cause that kind of disruption - *unless* the mass of the public are panic
prone enough to react in the way you suggest. A reassuring note on that
score: a few years ago, as you know, the then Government here announced
"we've just had new advice from the scientist chaps, who tell us BSE can
actually get from beef to humans so we're facing human BSE and it could be a
handfull, it could be several million, we're not sure - but don't panic!"
Price of beef falls to an all time low. TV news shows a woman pushing a
laden trolley of beef from a store. Asked "Aren't you worried about BSE ?"
she replies "Well yes, a bit, but it's such a bargain!" In fact the two
weeks after the announcement showed record sales of beef.
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