Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Hello Harry --

I am a renewable energy advocate. My last book is "Reaping The Wind,"
which tells the story of wind power. I've been writing a lot of stories
recently about how the terrorist attack should cause us to rethink our
future energy strategy. One of my latest efforts is on the followign
website: www.powertothepeople.org. 

Any thoughts about what this new age of terrorism means for the basic
infrastructure of deliverying power. I was just told that even the
military may be lobbying for an expansion of distributed renewable
energy systems in light of the dangers associated with nuclear power
plants and the vulnerability of natural gas pipilines and long-distance
transmission lines.

HAve you thought about this issue?
  

    
Flash: The bibliography has a section on "Chemical and Biological
Terrorism." 
As a doctor you might be interested in:
Burke, Robert. Counter-Terrorism for Emergency Responders. Boca
Raton, Fla: Lewis Publishers, 2000. This is a procedure-oriented
manual.

Another relatively technical work is:
Graves, Barbara, ed. Chem-Bio: Frequently Asked Questions. Tempest
Pubishing, 1998.

For more general readers:
Cole, Leonard A. The Eleventh Plague: The Politics of Biological 
and Chemical Warfare. New York: WH Freeman, 1997.

Peter:
Welcome to this topic. In general there would be advantages in
having a more decentralized infrastructure for power, communications,
etc. I agree the most vulnerable part of the system isn't the
plants but the transmission system - the giant power "ties" 
linking (I believe) southern and northern California, for example.

Realistically, I can't see a large scale reconfiguration of our
power infrastructure taking less than 10-20 years even if we
started right away. I can see a trend of key installations (big
hospitals, military bases, office and industrial complexes) going
to local power sources, maybe renewables (though it would be hard
to put a wind or solar farm in Manhattan, and if industry and
business were moved out into the countryside wouldn't that 
cause an outcry by the "anti sprawl" activists?

I've written about nuclear power (for ABC-CLIO). I think a nuke
is a rather harder target than most people think. Certainly
security needs to be stepped up. If they ever build new nukes
I'd suggest a technology like the "Pebble bed" reactor that 
is inherently meltdown-proof and resistant to dispersal of
radioactive material in the event of an attack.

Anyway, it's a very interesting question.
  

    
The nuclear power fuel cycle has a wide variation in targets and
risks.  Operating reactors are generally pretty well hardened; the
buildings themselves are not that large and would be hard to hit
from above via a plane, and the containments in the standard designs
would withstand even fairly large munitions.  

A much bigger problem is with the far less secure and hardened
storage facilities for used nuclear fuel, and the potential for
diversion of nuclear materials in the nuclear-electric transportation
industry (new fuel to power plants, used fuel and components to
disposal sites, etc.), although both new and spent fuel are pretty
well protected in transit.

In regard to Peter's comment, the salient issues on energy system risk
were first laid out in comprehensive detail by the late Wilson Clark
in a series of research papers and books he did in the late 1970s and
early 1980s, as well as papers by Amory and Hunter Lovins (the famed
"Brittle Power" and others).  The fact that a drunk with a rifle
popped a hole in the Alaska pipeline last month, causing a spill of
several thousand barrels of oil and a shutdown of the complete pipeline
for quite a few hours is just one indication of our ongoing, pervasive
energy insecurity.  (Amory lately has been talking about how the
pipeline could easily become an "800 mile candle" if it was shut down
by someone with a truck, a grudge, and some serious explosives.)

Oddly enough, on Sept. 3 we were heading over from Alexandria to
Springfield and went past the Pentagon.  Right out by the road was
a demonstration display of solar panels.  I think DOD has been starting
to get serious about renewable and distributed energy for some time now.

http://www.solartoday.org/2000/jan-feb/feature4.html
  

    
I want to ask Harry another sort of categorical question.  Is it possible
to have a terrorist group that operates purely online?  I was thinking
about this while attending the meeting of the North American Operators
Group (www.nanog.org) this week in Oakland, and hearing reports by
Sean Donelan and others about Sept. 11 and the Code Red/Nimda attacks.

http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0110/ppt/donelan_files/v3_document.htm

If terrorism is defined, more or less, as physical harm caused to
innocent people for political purposes, is it possible to have "terrorism"
that simply operates on the net?  For example, if something like the
February 2000 attack which brought down a significant number of major
web sites like Yahoo for several hours were undertaken by an group
with "political" motives in the conventional sense (as February 2000
appears not to have been, although it seems likely the attacker(s)
were motivated by some kind of anti-big business stance), would that
be "terrorism" if no direct physical harm occurred, just economic and
time loss?

I ask this in part as a theoretical/philosophical question, but also
as a very practical matter, since the US Senate will this morning pass
what is now HR 3162, the "counter-terrorism" bill, which adds some kinds
of computer intrusion or defacement to the definition of "domestic
terrorism."  

I guess the question is at the basic level of labeling and semantics.
The restrictive view of terrorism is that it is limited to acts by
non-governmental entities that cause injury or loss of innocent life.
But what about acts that do not directly cause injury or death, but are
aimed at government or public facilities?  

Sorry for rambling, but this seems like a very gray area.
  

    
Slightly different question: my wife and I were talking about bin Laden's
motivation, and I was remembering that he gained explosive's expertise
working in his father's construction business. Could be that he just likes
to blow things up, that he's not so much into the associated politics or
religion... i.e. a vandal who's also, as Nick Lemann says in this week's
"New Yorker," a "terrorist entrepreneur."  I'm wondering to what extent
terrorists throughout history have been mercenary and detached from the
political implications of their activities? 
  

    
That sounds at odds from what people say about his "creepy charisma" -- his
ability to stir pride and faith with cadences I've now heard described as "
Martin Luther King-like" from two very different sources.
  

    
Carlos the Jackhammer Guy?
  

    
Ironically the opposition to centralized nuclear waste storage
(particularly Yucca Mountain) has probably made us more vulnerable
because so much waste is in cooling pools and temporary storage
at plant sites becuase there's no place ready to receive it.
I think we need to finish Yucca Mountain and start stashing
the stuff.   

There will be vulnerability during transportation, but high 
level waste containers are tested to withstand severe impacts
and high heat, so blowing up or derailing a train isn't likely
to cause radiation release. Theft/diversion is a concern,
though.

I have considerable misgivings about the latest anti-terrorism
legislation (I think we on the Well are very fortunate to have
people like Jack King keeping an eye on it for us.) However
in terms of categorization, I don't see why cyberterrorism
(the term sometimes used) isn't just as "real" as more physical
forms of terrorism. To the extent we "live in" and are dependant
on what happens in cyberspace, attacks in cyberspace are going
to have real consequences. Our whole financial system depends
on having secure networks, for example -- although these networks
are already pretty "hardened." I think the more likely scenario
would be widespread DOS (denial of service) attacks to cause
attrition against the economy as well as the release of more
sophisticated computer viruses with more destructive payloads.

The danger with such legislation of course is that relatively
innocuous forms of hacking will be given draconian penalties. Still,
when the social immune system is so highly inflamed, I'd advise 
would-be hackers to stay out of sensitive systems just as I would
advise people not to mail "prank" envelopes full of white powder.
Besides the serious legal consequences, such actions are helping
to accomplish the terrorists' objective of paralyzing our economic
and social life.
  

    
A small question...

Harry: you say further back up the thread that the prices of Gold &
Silver are primarily driven by survivalists, and that your observation
of the gold price post 11/9 show that the survivalists aren't moving
much.

Now, I spent ten years working in the place where the world price of
gold is set every day. I talked, often, to guys who attempted to
position the company in such a way to gain maximum advantage from
movements in the gold or silver markets.

With the exception of the Bunker Hunt brothers, it's interesting to
note how little impact the US has had, at least in the last 25 years,
wither as a government or as individuals, on the price of either gold
or silver. The people who traditionally run into and out of gold at
extreme speed just before things get touchy are the Arabs and the Jews,
for apparently congruent but not necesarily 'shared' reasons!

Now, I am out of touch with the gold market. I confess, I haven't
tracked the physical or warrants markets for ages, and wasn't in any
poition to do so during early september: but I'd be fascinated to know
what the survivalists buy, when they buy it, and where their market is
expressed.
  

    
I'm not an expert on the gold market. I didn't mean to say that the
gold or silver market is _primarily_ driven by the survivalist
impulse. Rather, I'm suggesting that a widespread panic about
the stability of the nation in the future is likely to express
itself in an upward pressure on gold and silver, including bullion
gold and silver coins like American Eagles and common dated bagged
pre-1964 silver coins.
Judging from the charts at 
http://www.kitco.com/cgi-bin/goldyear_new2.cgi
spot gold went from around $273 up to about $295 following the attack,
and then has fallen pretty much back to where it started (around $275
or so).
Since survivalists typically buy gold rounds or bullion gold coins
that sell for a premium above gold value, that would be a little
harder to figure. 
If I had gold and silver I'd probably hold onto it simply because
there's little downside.
  

    
it's not just survivalists. It's everybody, lead by ethnic groups
whose interests have always tended more towards liquidity. That kind of
move int he gold price is, as you say, nothing: a jump to over a
thousand bux in a single day is typical of the onset of a war.

That the price *didn't* move on this occasion, distinct from the Yom
Kippur war, Gulf war, etc, raises a completely different and rather
disturbing proposition: that the traditional gold refugees were
forewarned about this.
  

    
Or already paranoid about the market for other reasons... the economy 
had been sagging for months after all.

Interesting.

Harry, looking at your definitions and introduction got me wondering about a
lot of things.  The quotes from I.L. Horowitz caught my eye, and look like
a good list,  for example "the terrorist distinguishes himself from the
casual homicide in several crucial respects:  he murders systematically
rather than at random, he is symbolic rather than passionate... and his
actions are well planned rather than spontanous."

Timothy McVeigh or the unabomber fit these descriptions, but 
can be treated as murderers in our society rather than as terrorists to 
some respect because they have little or no constituency.  They won't 
be martyrs, they won't be on tee shirts in 30 years like Che.

One item in that list that I didn't follow was the first item --

"A terrorist... makes little if any distinction between strategy and
tactics on one hand and principles on the other..."
Can you give an example of that?
  

    
(It seems to me serial killers also fit those three points mentioned in
Gail's third paragraph.)
  

    
Oops, my fault, Jeanne.  I left off the first line which said it was a person 
"...engaged in politics who..."

but that's interesting. I guess some serial killers are symbolic, and that
some have political sides to their crime.  But they aren't inspiring others,
they don't have a constituency, a movement, not even a group of
trusted allies to be a militia or a cell or whatever term for a small group 
with a goal.
  

    
Right. Their techniques and attitudes rather than their place in a small or
large society of likeminded people. (Or their belief they have such a place.
I think what makes McVeigh and those he worked with terrorists is their
belief that they represented a lot of people, regardless whether those
people agreed.)
  

    
Manson did.  While David Berkowitz certainly terrified NYC as "Son of Sam,"
I doubt he much appreciated or cared about the larger effects.
  

    
slippage
  

    
Harry, I wonder if you would elaborate a little on trends you see 
happening.  I'm particularly intrigued by the notion that CNN, specifically,
has changed the nature of warfare and certainly terrorism as well since
the Gulf War era, just the same way that local and national TV news
changed the way that civil protests and disobedience are typically
organized (this is the topic of Todd Gitlin's fascinating "The Whole
World is Watching," which in part was about how TV changed the way
the anti-Vietnam War movement was evolving).
  

    
Gail: 
With regard to:
 "A terrorist... makes little if any distinction between strategy and
 tactics on one hand and principles on the other..."

I'm not exactly sure, but what I think he's getting at is that most
"civilized" military or government agencies make some distinction
between their principles and the means they're willing to use to
achieve them. In other words, they won't do _anything_ it takes
to defeat their enemies. I'm not of course saying that even
"civilized" countries don't cross that line distressingly often.
And of course in such actions as Waco it's hard to say just
what "principles" the federal agents thought they were upolding.
Which leads to another point: once you've decided to engage in
an action, the immediate pressure of combat tends to make abstract
principles recede. You're not upholding democracy or whatever,
you're trying to get the guy because he's shooting at you.

Phred: 
I'm not sure about the role of the media. On the military side
it's pretty much a bust: day after day we see blurry pictures
of bombs and missiles going off and shots of refugees. The Pentagon
seems to have learned from the past and no longer raises our
expectations even while saying that the bombing has been
"successful." Successful at doing what? After awhile the media
becomes irrelevant because they don't have the information that
might enable us to tell whether we are in fact "winning."

The coverage of domestic threats (the anthrax incidents mainly)
I think will amplify the debilitating effect of these low-level
attacks on morale if they continue  - right now there's no 
way to know whether more anthrax is still being introduced,
we have two known letters and suspecting at least one more
because the two existing ones don't have a reasonable vector
to the latest casualties. By endlessly repeating a relatively
small number of incidents the media does create the impression
that the attacks are far more widespread. Yes, they do say
there are only 15 or whatever actual cases, but visually you
see more and more buildings being checked ... on NBC I saw a 
map showing a bunch of states (including even Arizona). These
states apparently represent mail-handling sites that will be
checked for possible contamination, but the casual viewer
might well conclude that anthrax is now spreading across
the country. Which it may be -- but there's no real evidence
yet.

In some discussions in current I've posted some more thoughts
on the possible long term consequences of the attack. I'll
repost it in the next post.
  

    
See current 727 for the discussion in context:

mthomas:
 Yes, I think you characterized my concern fairly. One thing that I
 think is often left out is that the reaction to war or other
 major stresses is, as mirmir suggests, usually an increase in
 the centralization, command-control type of economic management.
 We're also likely to get an increase in government regulation
 not only of individuals but of businesses, in the name of
 national security. But this in turn makes the economy _less_
 efficient and introduces further distortions into it, and
 so on. And then we have the familiar feedback loop where
 economic shortfalls lead to government "welfare" (mainly
 to corporations at this point), which leads to more inefficiency
 and distortion.

 Obviously I don't know whether this effect will damp out before
 it becomes of lasting significance. If the "war" and low-level
 attacks on the American infrastructure and people continues more
 than a few months, I'd start to worry more.

 </begin side musing>
 If I were put in charge (hah!) I'd take a different course. I'd
 promote a decentralized, more robust infrastructure and put
 more decision-making power in local hands. And with the federal
 money I'd do things like offer prizes for the best ideas for
 improving security. I'd ask the mail carriers for suggestions
 on improving security, not the Postmaster General, who's never
 worked in a mail-sorting room. And I'd offer training on observation
 and reaction to terrorist threats to mail carriers, bus drivers,
 garbage collectors, taxi drivers -- people who are already out
 on the street in the thousands and who could become something
 like antibodies to protect against attack.
 <end side musing/>
  

    
Did I see a page a day or so ago citing the pentagon calling for
suggestions?  I don't believe it was parody though I don't remember where
I saw it.  Perhaps you can forward those musings along someplace.  (And 
of course that's also a reason to post online, it gets ideas into 
circulation.)

An educated decentralized response seems like a promising way to handle
decentralized threats on civilians.  Has that been the trend in Ireland,
Palestine, Israel? 
  

    
Well, Israeli citizens have certainly been encouraged to be vigilant,
and many of them are armed reservists. This obviously hasn't stopped
all the car bombings, etc. You can't really stop everyone who might
be determined to commit suicide and take some of your people with
them.
There obviously is also a role for central government planning.
For example, getting an epidemiological picture of a bioterrorist
attack requires that local data be quickly communicated to a 
center where it can be correlated. I just think that our response
thus far has emphasized the central over the local, and has
emphasized government action over citizen education and
empowerment. 
  

    

I was going to ask you about the other terrorist groups you list who share
some ideology with Bin Laden's loose network.  I thought about posting 
that I knew they were unlikely to be sophisticated enough to form an 
alliance...  then this morning I get a pointer to this.  They don't 
include Al Quaeda yet:

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/10/29/LatestNews/LatestNews.37154.html

                Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Tanzim have have
                formed an alliance under the leadership of
                Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, Col. Yosef
                Kuperwasser, head of the IDF's Intelligence
                Research Division, said today.

The selflessness you mention as being part of what makes terorists hard to
deal with might even extend to their groups.  I was just guessing that
they would have egomanaical cult-leader types with a lot of vanity around
any martyr stance, but that might be totally wrong.  

If most are lead by idealogues who are as "selfless" as the rest of 
there group, then even the processes of alliance might look different.
And martyrdom might be a lot less like the whiney metaphor and more like
historic accounts of people who just believed they were doing a humble
duty and dying for god.  That level of faith and conviction is so 
alien (and frightening) to me.  

Do you think more of these groups will band together?  Will jockying for 
leadership be the same kind of issue as in familliar political and 
business aliances?
  

    
I think the "egolessness" is one of the most difficult aspects in
dealing with terrorist groups. Conventional organized crime groups,
for example, often involve egotistic leaders who react to real
or imagined slights and create internecine battles that law
enforcers can take advantage of in various ways.

I'm not saying there's absolutely no egotism among terrorists.
The ego and the normal psychodynamics are still there in some
form, but buried beneath the overwhelming commitment to the 
cause and to the identity that committed terrorists have assumed.
(This applies mainly to religious and some political terrorist
groups, not more pragmatic ones like the old IRA).

As for cooperation, terrorist groups have cooperated for years.
Libya used to run a sort of "Terrorism University" where members
of IRA, Red Brigades, PFLP, and others trained and mingled and
no doubt compared notes. But I think the cooperation is likely
to be loose, and involve things like providing hideouts. I
wouldn't think they would actually set up a common timetable
for coordinated attacks. However many groups would want to take
advantage of the heightened sensitivity of the targets and get more
"bang for their buck" now when even a small attack is guaranteed
a great deal of publicity. There might be some sense of oneupsmanship
or competition (that "buried" ego functioning perhaps.)
  

    
 
 This is a first.  We've never had someone send a single e-mail to two
 different interviewees before.  I'm going to post a copy in each topic and
 see how that goes.
 
 E-mail from Ed Prell:
 
 this message is directed to John M. Ford and Harry Henderson.
  
 you two could do an incalculable service to humanity by collaborating to
 write, lickety-split, a gripping novel that would reach out to the
 america snoozing in the pickup-truck belt and other places and grab them
 where it hurts. the essential message i have in mind is that rednecks and
 similar types will be dead meat after their usefulness to the rightwing
 junta in amerika has run its course.
  
 this novel would get to the present moment (early 2002) about 1/3 or
 halfway through the book. this story line would follow true to history
 but add in very plausable but unproven dirty tricks. from the present we
 are taken, again very plausably, into a future that could be best
 described as a worse-case scenario.
  
 the fictional characters could be for instance a dysfunctional family in
 which the patriarch runs a material yard or trucking firm in birmingham
 or butte or points between. his sons assume the roles we would expect,
 except for the black sheep that becomes a radical labor organizer.
  
 as the big historical events take their twists and turns, our rednecks
 take and give some punches, often with heavy metal objects being thrown
 about. and eventually in their own way, they twist in the wind. done in
 by the very folks they aspired so much to be like.
  
 i am completely unqualified to write such a book. i hope a talented and
 knowledgable author(s) can produce a piece that reaches and wakes up huge
 numbers of folks. we, the already aware, do not have anywhere near the
 numbers to make a difference.
  
 thanks for your attention.