1000 Points of Fright - Strategic Terror

1. Unarmed "civilians" have always been targets of violent force. Women have often been the "prize", and children to be raised as slaves, the booty of warfare. In WWI and WWII, entire cities were flattened and torched. As the Iroquois annihilated the Hurons, they kidnapped their women and children. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans held child-princes as hostages, and sold entire people into slavery. In the Sudan today, Islamic janjaweed warriors are enslaving the Bantu and slaughtering the Darfurians who are also Islamic - wiping out entire villages. Perhaps the reason homo sapien is alone on the "family tree", with all of our nearest hominid relatives being extinct, is that we killed the others off. The Pattern is that for as long as some life forms have thrived, some have not. It is the weaknesses of a person or a group which are the targets of the overcoming or the strength which is used to annihilate. The Point is this process is long-lived -- a tradition of millions of years.
2. The Internet is the essential tool used by al-Qaeda. 75% of the Web sites aligned with terrorrists and al-Qaeda have been registered in or supported by service providers in the US. {2004/10/24 LATimes citing Middle East Media Research Institute.} In fact, criminal syndicates are usually the first to adopt or apply new technologies -- for example, the clipper ship by rum-runners, the cell phone by drug-dealers. The Internet actually dictates and enables the anonymity and structure of the organization. It is the single most powerful weapon used against the civilization which created it.
3. The Bush Administration is not Addressing the Source or Weaponry of the Attackers. The Bush Administration has attacked an Arab "WWII - type" army in Iraq -- destroying its tanks, and leaving millions of small arms and tons of HMX and high explosive powder in the country. WMD left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union, including fissle materials and biological cultures, have been ignored. Nothing has been done to curtail the use of weapons by al-Quada which they have clearly selected in causing harm. The unarmed populations which are the al-Quada target, remain completely exposed, from Darfur to New York.
4. The Unarmed Populations know what al-Quada is doing even though the Bush Administration does not. Significantly, the Darfurians can recognize that the Arabs hate them and are trying to extinguish them, and that "religion" is not the basis of the assault. It is a "land grab", a struggle over limited resources and power. Significantly, the continental American areas most likely to be targeted by al-Quada attacks -- the coastlines of California, Chicago, and New York -- and the over-seas embassies, are ALL overwhelmingly in support of Kerry in seeking to replace the Bush Administration. As the "exposed" people, as the targets, we know we are being attacked. We need leaders who can protect us. We need intelligent, brave leaders devoted to the Public Interest instead of to their private greed.