Saturday, July 23, 2005
Collateral damage? Not quite......
At this point it appears that the man shot by British police was not directly connected to the bombers, though he may have known them.
Remember: A major goal of unconventional warfare, from protest marches to bombings, is to confuse and de-legitimize the authorities. Cognitive dissonance. The enemy forces the police to choose between: (1) in the heat of chase, shoot an obvious suspect or (2) hold fire. If the police choose (1), the enemy-controlled media [led here by BBC, which has been pro-Mohammed since 1988] will destroy the will of the people. If the police choose (2), the terrorists are simply free to operate.
As I've said dozens of times before, we didn't have this problem in WW2 because the enemy's propagandists were obviously based in Germany, Italy and Japan and had names like Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-Haw. Now they're based in New York and London, and the pro-American propagandists are down here in the samizdat band.
What do we need to do? Maintain our unconfused resolve. And (a bit harder) try to spread the idea that wartime behavior is not the same as peacetime. In WW2 this need was pounded home nightly by both news and entertainment. Don't hoard, don't consume, lights out at night to avoid giving bombers a target. Our requirements are different, but the need for instruction is just as strong. Don't leave mysterious packages, don't spill white powder in public places, don't act like a bomber.
This was not just a lucky event for the enemy; it's part of the plan. Senhor Menezes was killed by the Mohammedans just as surely as the unfortunate tourists in Sharm el Sheikh.
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Later: It occurs to me that incidents like this also form a good argument for Official English in the long run. If authorities have to give cautions in 27 different languages, the information will be lost in the buzz. It should be clearly stated that failure to understand English is your problem, not ours. And an argument for reinstating the lost emergency broadcast setup. Yes, we do have the EAS, but it's used solely for weather, and based mainly on computer-generated messages. It needs to be 'humanized'. ¶ 10:33 PM
Remember: A major goal of unconventional warfare, from protest marches to bombings, is to confuse and de-legitimize the authorities. Cognitive dissonance. The enemy forces the police to choose between: (1) in the heat of chase, shoot an obvious suspect or (2) hold fire. If the police choose (1), the enemy-controlled media [led here by BBC, which has been pro-Mohammed since 1988] will destroy the will of the people. If the police choose (2), the terrorists are simply free to operate.
As I've said dozens of times before, we didn't have this problem in WW2 because the enemy's propagandists were obviously based in Germany, Italy and Japan and had names like Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-Haw. Now they're based in New York and London, and the pro-American propagandists are down here in the samizdat band.
What do we need to do? Maintain our unconfused resolve. And (a bit harder) try to spread the idea that wartime behavior is not the same as peacetime. In WW2 this need was pounded home nightly by both news and entertainment. Don't hoard, don't consume, lights out at night to avoid giving bombers a target. Our requirements are different, but the need for instruction is just as strong. Don't leave mysterious packages, don't spill white powder in public places, don't act like a bomber.
This was not just a lucky event for the enemy; it's part of the plan. Senhor Menezes was killed by the Mohammedans just as surely as the unfortunate tourists in Sharm el Sheikh.
-----
Later: It occurs to me that incidents like this also form a good argument for Official English in the long run. If authorities have to give cautions in 27 different languages, the information will be lost in the buzz. It should be clearly stated that failure to understand English is your problem, not ours. And an argument for reinstating the lost emergency broadcast setup. Yes, we do have the EAS, but it's used solely for weather, and based mainly on computer-generated messages. It needs to be 'humanized'. ¶ 10:33 PM
