Via Boing Boing, a highly opinionated piece representing terrorism as auto-immune warfare:
Specifically, auto-immune war is a strategy, but its tactical implementation is the creation of false positive responses. Security obsession gums up the economy with inefficiencies. Terrorism terrorises the public; security theatre keeps them that way. As Kilcullen points out, every day, millions of travellers are systematically reminded of terrorism by government security precautions. Profiling measures subject entire communities to indignity and waste endless hours of police time. Vast sums of money are spent on counterproductive equipment programs and unlikely techno-fixes. National identity cards and monster databases are the specific symptoms of this pathology in the UK, just as idiotic militarism is in the US.
This goes to the argument that antiterrorism has to work 100% of the time, whereas terrorism itself only needs to work once. It also reflects the overcompensation inherent in the 1% doctrine. I think it’s highly likely that we scare ourselves with our responses more than terrorists are able to do so, and it is obvious that we pour massive amounts of money into the attempt to protect ourselves 100% of the time. Terrorist incidents–we all know the big ones–are horrible and tragic, unsettling in the extreme, but at the same time we should consider that our responses are highly asymmetric and often destined to fail.
Am I saying we should drop counterterrorism? Not at all. I am saying that a measured response is the preferred strategy. Most of us know the saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin about sacrificing freedom for security, even as freedom is what we say we’re defending. When I fly, I don’t feel free. Looking across the plaza at the bunker that is the US embassy here, I don’t feel like I’m looking at the freedom and confidence of the most powerful force on the face of the planet. The unintended consequences of security undermine its aims.
The author’s point that we perpetuate what the terrorists started is well-taken.
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Week in Public Organizations, 15Jun2009 « PublicOrgTheory // 15June2009 at 3:57 pm |
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