Solve Terrorism Quick

October 26, 2001 4:22 PM

Solve Terrorism Quick in one to twelve pages. The Department of Defense wants quick solutions. Where are my crayons?
posted by SEWilco (5 comments total)

Important ideas can come from unexpected sources
posted by marknau at 10:04 PM on October 26, 2001

Wow, marknau, great link! I'll never be able to listen to the Star Trek crew talk about the Borg "modulating their shield frequencies" without thinking of this.
posted by JParker at 12:06 AM on October 27, 2001

great link
BAA... BAA ... so any ideas yet?
posted by worldsystema at 5:39 AM on October 27, 2001

I'm reminded of the book "Six Days of the Condor", where the employees of a small business don't know that their summaries of novels are being used by the CIA to get ideas for covert activity and tools.

No useful ideas myself...I've seen the Pentagon from above, beside, and below, and defending it is awkward with so much civilian construction so close. Unfortunately, its being merely a large office building doesn't reduce its symbolic value.

It will be interesting to see what people come up with in response to their request for offensive anti-terrorist ideas. Maybe there will be something as directly useful as the guy who realized a TV camera in the nose of a ground-launched antitank missile was highly effective, possible, and cheap.

Unfortunately, terrorists can blend in to the population of urban areas. It's easy enough to destroy their military camps, but the situation is different from when the Marines raided Tripoli during their wiping out the Barbary Coast pirates. Pirates find their way of life difficult when their ships have been destroyed, but oceangoing ships are easier to find than bomb makers in apartments.

As The Atlantic Monthly pointed out, terrorists haven't realized that terrorism does not work. Ireland and Israel are the obvious recent examples of decades-long attempts. But there have been many examples over the millenia of the use of terror where the targeted population doesn't do what the terrorists want done...or the population just works around the terrorists, life goes on, and the terrorists think they've accomplished something.
posted by SEWilco at 10:27 AM on October 27, 2001

"We're open to ideas from just about everybody," said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood, as the guys in the mail room went: "Oh, terrific; another million strangely addressed envelopes to check out." Answers on a postcard, please
posted by Carol Anne at 3:03 PM on October 27, 2001