{"id":185,"date":"2006-08-30T10:01:52","date_gmt":"2006-08-30T15:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/30\/stratfor-on-target-with-terrorism-analysis\/"},"modified":"2006-08-30T10:17:25","modified_gmt":"2006-08-30T15:17:25","slug":"stratfor-on-target-with-terrorism-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2006\/stratfor-on-target-with-terrorism-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"STRATFOR on target with terrorism analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

STRATFOR<\/a> summarized my thoughts nicely, regarding how we are letting terrorists “win the war”, in their latest report. We need to shake it off and stop letting them call the shots (read: Impeach Bush Now<\/a>). Excerpt:<\/p>\n

Terrorism: Psychology as Force Multiplier <\/p>\n

With that psychological component in mind, terrorist acts do not
\nhave to be tremendously successful (in terms of physical casualties
\nor damage) in order to be terribly effective.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n


\nAbout 3,000 people were killed in the 9\/11 attacks. That is an
\nenormous toll, certainly (the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, by
\ncomparison, resulted in only six deaths), but it pales in
\ncomparison to the number of Americans who were killed in highway
\naccidents in 2005 (more than 43,000) or the hundreds of thousands
\nwho lost their lives in the tsunami that struck Asia in December
\n2004. The true power in terrorism rests in the ability to commit
\nspectacular strikes and the psychological impact that such
\nspectacles can have. In many cases, the “psychological casualties”
\nfar exceed the number of physical casualties that can be realized
\nwith any given strike. <\/p>\n

The anarchists of the late 19th century referred to terrorism as
\nthe “propaganda of the deed,” meaning that their acts of violence
\nhad an ability to send messages to their friends and foes alike. Al
\nQaeda certainly fits this mold: The group has been struggling since
\nits inception to convince the “ummah,” or Muslim people, that the
\nUnited States and its allies are not invincible. The group also
\nspent several years attempting to provoke the United States into
\ninvading a Muslim country — so that it could launch a war of
\nattrition against the United States, similar to the way it fought
\n(and defeated) the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. After many smaller
\nattempts, al Qaeda succeeded in this goal with the Sept. 11
\nattacks, which took U.S. forces into Afghanistan. The 2003 invasion
\nof Iraq provided an even better theater for al Qaeda’s war of
\nattrition against the United States.<\/p>\n

Al Qaeda measures its progress in the war of attrition not only by
\nthe number of American servicemen killed, but in terms of American
\ntreasure expended in furtherance of the war. In essence, bin Laden
\nand his planners adopted a concept that is familiar to Americans:
\n“It’s the economy, stupid!”<\/p>\n

Bin Laden outlined this very clearly in his October 29, 2004 ,
\nmessage to the American people. In that recording, he estimated
\nthat it cost al Qaeda only $500,000 to carry out the 9\/11 attacks,
\nwhereas the estimated cost to the United States from the event and
\nits aftermath was measured at $500 billion. In the same message,
\nbin Laden also mused about how easy it was to “provoke and bait”
\nthe U.S. administration. All that was needed, he claimed, was to
\n“send two mujahideen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of
\ncloth on which is written ‘al Qaeda,’ in order to make the generals
\nrace there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and
\npolitical losses without their achieving for it anything of note
\nother than some benefits for their private companies.” Later in the
\nsame message, he stated: “So we are continuing this policy in
\nbleeding America to the point of bankruptcy — Allah willing, and
\nnothing is too great for Allah.” <\/p>\n

This theme of economic warfare has been echoed in several
\nsubsequent messages from al Qaeda leaders, and there is no evidence
\nat this point to suggest that al Qaeda has decided to scrap this
\napproach.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STRATFOR summarized my thoughts nicely, regarding how we are letting terrorists “win the war”, in their latest report. We need to shake it off and stop letting them call the shots (read: Impeach Bush Now). Excerpt: Terrorism: Psychology as Force Multiplier With that psychological component in mind, terrorist acts do not have to be tremendously … Continue reading STRATFOR on target with terrorism analysis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-and-raves"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9M0Zg-2Z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":184,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2006\/95-v-for-vendetta\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":0},"title":"9.5 V for Vendetta","author":"Administrator","date":"August 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Effortlessly the best action movie of the year. You have to pay close attention to hear all the details of V's pontifications, revealing how much we all lip-read without knowing it, but the quips are often worth a rewind. The best \"big\" movies have rich tapestries of backstory, introduced through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Consumption"","block_context":{"text":"Consumption","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/consumption\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1166,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/tornadoes-rip-by-our-neighborhood\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":1},"title":"Tornadoes rip by our neighborhood","author":"m","date":"April 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Yikes! We're fine, but we are thinking of others very nearby - a \"large\" (weatherman's emphasis) tornado came by at 70 mph within a couple blocks of our house. Estimates are that a couple dozen people were killed, 130 homes were destroyed, and a thousand more homes were damaged in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Daily Life"","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":294,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2008\/furry-little-feller-found\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":2},"title":"Furry little feller found","author":"m","date":"July 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Kindness, not cleanliness, is next to Godliness, even if it doesn't have a long-e middle syllable. I don't get many opportunities to be kind, through every fault of my own, so I was glad to get a chance while biking my way home last night. I passed another roadkill -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Daily Life"","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/post-pax-mike-is-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":3},"title":"Post-PAX Mike is back!","author":"m","date":"August 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"My friend Gary has been waiting for PAX to end, so I will get back to reality and get my head out of the PAX cloudcover. It was worth it... here's my PAX post... if you're not a gamer, \"move on\"... zomg pax so r0xx0rz!! ITSATRAP!! OK so we were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All My Rowdy Friends"","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":546,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2009\/taking-time-out-for-the-wolves\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":4},"title":"Taking time out for the wolves","author":"m","date":"August 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm super-busy trying to land a job in this impossible economy, but I had to take time out for my wolf friends today. They have unfortunately been on the receiving end of a backlash at their very moderate recovery. It's not easy co-existing with predators, and currently, things are in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Global Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Global Issues","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/global-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/reiley-and-i-play-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":5},"title":"Reiley and I play war","author":"m","date":"February 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday we decided that Reiley was old enough to play a Real Time Strategy war game with me. She and Wren have been playing multi-player Age of Empires ][: The Conquerers for a long time now, and they're very skilled at map building and playing in a friendly mode. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Consumption"","block_context":{"text":"Consumption","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/consumption\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}