IP: Managing our risks of terror

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Jack Rieley" <jrieley () boardrush com>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 19:49:56 -0400
To: "David Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Managing our risks of terror

Prof. Farber,

Forget the alarmists who warn of impending doom without revealing specifics.
Forget those who speak of vague yet imminent nuclear, chemical and
biological threats, never saying how we are to cope if any of these threats
are carried out.  Forget those who sow near panic with their warnings and
then tell us to go out and shop.

We need to hear the voices of experience. We need to learn from those who
survived in the great European cities during the Second World War.  How did
they cope?  What precautions did they take?  What risks did they endure?

Let us read the accounts of those citizens of Vietnam who managed to make it
through years of air bombings, sea bombings and land mines. How did they
handle themselves?  What did they do to keep from understating or
exaggerating the threat they faced daily?

The U.S. government has utterly failed to tell Americans who to avoid
terror, how to prepare for it or how to respond to it.

And so it is for us to reach into the archives, pull out the first-person
accounts from other places.

Let us learn from the Britons who faced up to the bombs of Irish terror; and
from the French who survived Basque, Corsican and Algerian attacks; and from
the Dutch who twice faced German terror, invasion and occupation.  What were
their "do's" and "don'ts"?   Did they carry on as normal or did they take
precautions?  What precautions?

In these times, we are in urgent need of lessons.  Since the government is
too incompetent to provide them, let's find out ourselves.

Regards,
Jack Rieley


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