Bleeding to Bankruptcy? How about "not".

The idea is fairly obvious if you think about it, but first you have to be thinking about these sorts of things. That said, this Janes article is well developed, and now that I’ve found a link accessible to those on the web, I’ve provided it here. (You have to access it from that Ft Leavenworth page, but it's there.) At 3500 words it’s a bit of a chunk to paste into the blog, and despite this generating zero income I don’t want to infringe peoples’ copyrights. I think I can make enough enemies without doing that…

Essentially, Bin Laden has come out and said that one of “their” dollars is as effective as one million American ones. Accordingly, says he, attack things that they value, and more importantly, scare them into reacting willy-nilly and the economic damage will compound itself. Ok, maybe not that bit about compounding, but that’s the effect.

I have for a while been advocating a more detached, quick-in-and-out approach to dealing with his sort, and the fact that Al-Qaeda and their ilk are PLANNING on our panicking and lashing out in all directions seems to support my concept. The idea of emplacing democracy where it obviously doesn’t belong (at least not yet) is not playing out all that well, and is VERY expensive. What are our priorities, really, and is there a better way to get there?

A lot of ink has been spilled (and bits forcibly arranged) about the “security theatre” to be found in a lot of places, particularly the US. One of my favourites, I think Jerry Pournelle said it, was that we are permitting ourselves to be treated like criminals (searched, etc.) just to get on a plane. In other words, the price of this “security” is not just economic.

Here’s another of my brainwaves: how about we just tell the public the truth, and set a good example of not soiling ourselves over some low-probability terrorist plot. Make sure that no-one can get a (real) weapon on a plane (elementary screening of passengers with metal-detectors and X-ray machines does this), but dispense with the BS about nail clippers and hair gel.

Generally, the populace is only scared if their leaders are, or more importantly if they look to be. A bit more evidence of the work our security forces do (we’re watching this group, be busted this up, etc) within the bounds of OPSEC, and generally, pound into people that these clowns could be dangerous, but so is getting hit by lightning, and that’s a lot more likely.

Attitude, it’s all about attitude. Give a big middle finger salute to the jihadi fuckers in the media, all the time. We’re generally getting our asses handed to us in the media wars, and the local media is complicit in that. It’s not just Al-Jazeera it’s the European and North American outlets too. Too lazy, intimidated, or just self-loathing and longing for the collapse of Western civilization; I have no idea, but many of them don’t know what side their bread is buttered on.

So, governments and media, here’s my challenge: make us believe that we’re strong and free, and that a bunch of disgruntled Muslims with a shoestring budget won’t be able to “bleed us to death”.