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IP: A question from Oz
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:35:59 -0400
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 10:55:43 +1100 From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochrane () theage fairfax com au>
Hi Dave Something I don't understand. The role of terrorism is, of course, to promote terror to achieve political aims. And in order to achieve a political aim, people have to know the reason for the terror. The people don't have to agree with the reason, but they do have to know it. And in order for people to know, someone must claim responsibility for the terror. The attacks were the terror equivalents of America landing a man on the moon. Would America have achieved such a coup and not told the world about it? So who has claimed responsibility? The only suspect, Osama bin Laden, who was cited by news media within minutes of the first attack, has said: "Good on whoever did it, but it wasn't me". Whoever did it can't be afraid of the repercussions: nearly two dozen hijackers willingly went to their deaths. Death does not scare them, so even a massive nuclear strike against them -- which looks more likely as time goes on -- would hold no fear over them. To orchestrate such an attack, and then deny responsibility, would be a loss of face more damaging than mere death to such a person. And any cause great enough to make the supreme sacrifice, however misguided, is one they would want people to know about. So why not just step up to the podium and take responsibility? Another thing that occurs to me, is that if this terror attack was part of a holy war, that jihad has been successfully exported now to the American people, who are engaged in their own holy war against an enemy they can't define or find. At least the jurisdictions that rely heavily on defense dollars -- personnel and contracting companies -- will have more money to pump into their local economies after ten years of successive spending cuts.
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