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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (31644)	6/6/2002 4:14:05 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Another take on the Airport situation. From "Reason" June 4, 2002 Editors' Links Back on Track? By Charles Paul Freund After studying the federal security hassles that American travelers have been enduring since September 11, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert told The Christian Science Monitor that "the United States does not have a security system, it has a system for bothering people." People, however, prefer not to be bothered if they decide that they're being hassled to little purpose. Waiting while some poor elderly traveler waits at security for help in removing his shoes, or watching a grandmother being led off at the gate for a full-dump search -- not to mention the legendary nail-clipper threat -- has persuaded plenty of people that the system is inane. The result is that travelers are quietly reorganizing the nation?s travel industry on their own. Business travelers on short trips have been switching to rail -- especially Amtrak's relatively speedy Acela line from Washington to Boston -- in such numbers that one airline, Delta, has used its recent ads to target rail travel. As The New York Times puts it, these spots "do everything but imply that train passengers have to watch out for Jesse James and his gang shooting up the lounge car." Indeed, American Airlines Chief Executive Donald J. Carty has called for a decrease in airport security measures, suggesting that security screenings at gates be dropped. Carty recently told businessmen in Tokyo that, "It will be a hollow victory indeed if the system we end up with is so onerous and so difficult that air travel, while obviously more secure, becomes more trouble for the average person than it is worth." How do the airlines know that travelers are using trains out of disgust rather than out of fear? Because the travelers said so. A recent survey by the Business Travel Coalition found widespread frustration with airport security practices and low levels of fear. Only some 23 percent of those responding to the survey indicated they were worried about safety. Thus, the burgeoning new market for rail -- and not just Amtrak. According to the Times, states and private investors are building or planning high-speed rail lines from San Diego to L.A. to San Francisco, from Chicago to cities in nine different states, from Houston to Dallas, and from Orlando to Miami. Private investors have attempted to build some of these routes lines before, but Amtrak reportedly managed to veto the effort. Amtrak seems not to be a factor anymore in making these decisions. Until now, rail outside the Northeast corridor has been riding on its old-time romance. Not anymore. One hotel executive told the Times that the rail revival "has nothing to do with romance." Rather, "It's about business and the vaunted American productivity. In the United States, you can simply no longer justify the economic costs and lost productivity of traveling short distances by air." Meanwhile, The-Idler.com is pushing a volume called The Art of Travel as "a book to help explain to a weary voyager why waiting for three hours to be scanned, wanded, x-rayed, patted down, quizzed, cross-examined, eyeballed, only to be eventually admitted into a small metal tube that is hurtled into space, to consume reheated unidentifiable pressed vegetable matter in tasteless sauce with plastic forks and knives, should not be seen as a hassle, a worry, or a burden, but rather as a truly privileged experience, travel being transcendental and sublime." In other words, the payoff for flying may be becoming . . . romance. That should really have airline executives worried.

To: Bilow who wrote (31644)	6/6/2002 4:57:14 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<For anyone who is interested in having a neutral discussion on the dynamics of the situation (i.e. without the need to put moral judgements on killing), > Carl, I don't see how moral judgements can be avoided when people are being killed by other people. Mqurice PS: Why GeorgeW's antimissile space system is a waste of money. Just as Osama's crew needed only a bit of money and some box-cutters to remove the WTC and a lot more besides, Saddam doesn't need missiles to nuke Chicago. <Saddam might have arranged for some funds transfer to some naughty jihadist people in Pakistan, who might have misappropriated a Pakistani, or even Russian, nuke or three. Those might have been packed inside yet another delivery, or three, of Afghan-produced opium poppy powder, in a container for delivery to the USA. Some underpaid customs officers might have been paid to turn a blind eye and allow these through to the enormous USA drug markets. Exports to the USA are up so there are no doubt lots of containers with spare space for the opium powder Trojan Horse deliveries. lists.isb.sdnpk.org. Once the customs officer has been fooled into allowing a nuke buried in some opium through, by the simple expedient of bribery in exchange for forgetting to check a container, Saddam's USA operatives can rent some warehouse space in some major USA cities where said containers can be stored until needed. The customs officer wouldn't let a nuke in, but I'm sure some of them will accept bribes for opium imports. Saddam has had the USA on his case for a decade, so he's had a lot of time to do things. Now, suppose the USA army is rolling up the turnpike to Baghdad just like a decade ago and they seem to be heading for Saddam's palaces. He might be inclined to explain to the USA that he has arranged for a nuke to be discreetly concealed in one of a large number of USA cities of over 1 million population and that if said USA soldiers come a metre closer, he is going to activate one of the bombs with a Globalstar phone which he keeps handy. The CIA, being pretty quick-witted will immediately shut down Globalstar. But Saddam, enjoying such games, will actually not have a Globalstar phone other than to shout "BANG" to give a fright to the NSA listening team. He will really use a normal sort of call to a prepaid cdma2000 phone set up in the container to explode the trigger. He will also have a backup 'dead man's switch' trigger in case he is suddenly rendered inoperative. If his bluff is called, he will demonstrate that it wasn't in fact a bluff by blowing up the said city. He will explain that he has got more where that came from and the next one will be activated if the USA soldiers approach another kilometre, or more USA Tomahawks make loud noises near his palaces. Or, maybe Osama or the Pakistani Moslem jihadists have already done the job. Heck, even China would be inclined to ensure a few nukes are in strategic places just in case push comes to shove over Taiwan. GeorgeW's space defence system seems silly when containers are flooding in. Meanwhile, Pakistan and India are wondering whether they should do pre-emptive strikes in the great tradition of dawn-raid military surprises to get the upper hand on an enemy. So, a week from now, we could have had quite a lot of very large bangs across the Moslem world, in the USA and into India and maybe China and Taiwan. That wouldn't be ideal for cdma2000 sales in several countries. Nor would it be good for stockmarkets. Gold of the Aztec type could do okay though. But if Iraq, 4 USA cities, Pakistan, chunks of India and China, Taipei and a few New Zealand farms are leveled, that's no big deal for the other 5 or 6 billion of us.>

To: Bilow who wrote (31644)	6/6/2002 5:52:34 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; I guess trying to have a substantive discussion on a generalization of Richardson's equations of war to an escalation theory of conflict is impossible with you. Maybe someone else is interested. Thanks a bunch for not answering my question and just insulting me instead. The only contrast I clearly understand is trying to separate the death of combatants from the death of non-combatants. Anyway you slice it, the overall Palestinian death numbers are much higher, but their proportion of non-combatant deaths very much lower.