Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Richard Posner: “There is an old but still useful distinction between "risk" and "uncertainty," the former referring to contingencies to which a probability can be attached, the latter to contingencies to which no probability can be attached. The former is the domain of insurance and cost-benefit analysis. The latter? No one can assign a probability to any given time, place, or manner of a terrorist attack within a very broad range (obviously some possibilities can be excluded); and yet we have to take counterrorist measures; we have, in short, to manage uncertainty as well as risk.”

Gilles Kepel, professor at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris, quoted by Lawrence Wright: “The Internet is the key issue. It erases the frontiers between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-Kufr. It allows the propagation of a universal norm, with an Internet Sharia and fatwa system Anyone can seek a ruling from his favorite sheikh in Mecca. In the old days, one sought a fatwa from the sheikh who had the best knowledge. Now it is sought from the one with the best Web site”

The article is half about the terrorist bombings in Madrid on March 11th of this year as well as the political fallout and half about the use of the Internet by terrorist groups to communicate both plans and reactions to attacks around the world. The first half is a little more compelling, since it is more interested in telling the story of the attack, while the second half is a cautionary tale of the costs of using an open and accessible medium.

Walter Laquer has written an article on the future of terrorism and argues, among many things, that the connection between poverty and terrorism is a weak one if it exist at all. This is a blow to the left's assertion that poverty is the root cause, or is a root cause, but Laquer is more nuanced in his arguments, and has little patience for right-wing assertions that fighting terrorism can be fought with traditional war methods. Other points Laquer argues: he suggests that proportional responses to terrorism—especially in what he chillingly believes is the inevitable use of weapons of mass destruction by a very small, tightly knit and very much invisible (so below-the-radar that they may be impossible to defend against) group of fanatics—because war is usually unpopular outside the borders of the country going to war; Pakistan is a potential powderkeg that President Musharraf has little hopes of controlling; resentment in European Islamic population, especially the young, both despite and because of “alcohol, loose morals, general decadence, and all the other wickedness of the society facing them”, governments abiding by the Geneva convention and other aspects of international law do so foolishly because terrorists almost by definition do not play by the established rules; and democracies may have to engage in propaganda campaigns—even if it means outright lying—to convince societies that believe that Sept. 11th was the work of the Israeli intelligence agency.

Clearing out bookmarks (most-recently-read links at top; post gets moved to top as it gets updated):

• How To Win At The Dating Game by Jennifer Good: two things wrong. a) off the bat dating is conceptualized as a game and b) this quote: “if you truly wish your dating experiece to be successful, treat it as you would a job or an important project.” See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. If it feels like work, I'm not interested.
• Dad's Sad, Mad: Too Bad: Why dads don't count when it comes to abortion by Dahlia Lithwick: in line with my views on my abortion, i.e. it's not—and can never be—my decision.
• Bad Asian Girl (advice from Cary Tennis): Asian girl complains about her conservative parents. Tennis tells her to take a number.
• One hundred girls for every boy by Theresa Rusho: the author's alma mater is the same as a friend's, but to be honest, I forgot what I was searching for when I found the article. Also: reader responses.
• The Counterterrorist Myth: A former CIA operative explains why the terrorist Usama bin Ladin has little to fear from American intelligence by Reuel Marc Gerecht. Evidently published a couple months before Sept. 11, 2001.
• The Rise of Complex Terrorism By Thomas Homer-Dixon
• Among the Bourgeoisophobes: Why the Europeans and Arabs, each in their own way, hate America and Israel by David Brooks: “America [...] is the land of Bart Simpson, boy bands, boob jobs, and 'Baywatch.'”.
• Defusing nuclear terror: interesting article on the Nuclear Emergency Search Teams, and some of the bureaucratic problems emerging from a test run of a nuclear terrorist scenario.
• How NOT to Talk: I'm guilty of some of those, but I forget which ones.
• The New Criterion: bookmarked for the longest time because I thought I'd read the articles at some point. I was wrong.
• Tools - Jobs, Workers, Training and Careers: contains a link to Job Alert, which I thought I'd use. I was wrong.
• The Poutine, She's Delicious: lots of poutine-related links.
• The Cyber-nerds Guide to Dating: not really useful, since I don't really care anymore. There is also a /. article with links to dating for dorks.

Daniel Pipes: “This evasion has consequences, for an enemy who cannot be named cannot be defeated. Only when 'war on terrorism' becomes 'war on militant Islam' can the war actually be won.”

Dubya, as the author points out, and which goes unacknowledged by many who believe it's Christianity vs. Islam all over again, quite insistent that it is a war on terrorism that the United States is fighting. While this in principle is appropriate, in practice it is a war against militant Islam. At the moment at least. (Calling Saddam Hussein a militant Islamist would be mistaken, since his government is closer to secular socialist, although this has changed in recent years.)

What the author conveniently forgets, however, is that militant Islam is not the only threat to the United States, its government and it's people. Right-wing, home-grown terrorists, like the late Timothy McVeigh (who some conservatives believe was not a true Christian [link dead]) can be just as deadly.

Watched The Age of Terror at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Edward W. Said: “Phrases such as 'plucking out the terrorist network,' 'destroying the terrorist infrastructure' and 'attacking terrorist nests' (note the total dehumanization involved) are repeated so often and so unthinkingly that they have given Israel the right to destroy Palestinian civil life, with a shocking degree of sheer wanton destruction, killing, humiliation and vandalism.”

Jim Holt: “Defenders of the doctrine of double effect appeal to Kant's categorical imperative: A person is always to be treated as an end, never merely as a means. And treating people as a means—to send a message, to create wider panic, to demoralize the enemy nation they are a part of—is precisely what the perpetrator of an act of terror does.”

The article cites an book review (which I haven't yet read) by Michael Ignatieff, someone I've been coming across a lot lately.