Re: Terrorism, about 50% Off-topic

John spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> A truck bomb doesn't care.  Very easy to park across the street, 
> assuming you've got a large enough truck, and blow an entire block to 
> hell.

It was parked in a parkade next door, and people multiple blocks away 
were injured.... incredible destructive potential. 

 Terrorist strikes can't be stopped easily--if all else 
> fails, the bad guys can borrow someone from the IRA to teach them how 
> to set up remote-controlled homemade mortars.  Not too effective at 
> causing mass casualties, but with nerve gas warheads. . . 

Of course, we've seen how accurate they are with mortars (remember 
when they tried to pick off Maggie Thatcher)? But Nerve Gas or 
Bioweapons make a whole new game. 
 
> CIA operation?  Heh.	Never heard of it--foreign journalists are
either 
> much better informed, or given to more loony speculation about what
the 
> CIA does than Americans.

Yes (in general, not this case) and yes. Although lots of yanks like 
to speculate about the CIA too. 

foreigners are rather ready to blame 
> anything and everything on a "CIA Plot".  Feh. 

Of course, they want you to think they're inept.... (heh heh)

> I tend to think of terrorism in the 22nd century as largely a function

> of the aftermath of planetary conquest.  Why?  Because the Big Boys on

> the block seem less constrained in retaliation by some of the picky 
> hangups the US & Europeans seem to have today.  If the LLAR set off 
> bombs in the NAC, I see them as responding in serious force like the 
> Brits did during the last century--"punitive actions" involving naval 
> gunboats and army flying columns rampaging through the offending 
> nation's country.  But on a planet which was invaded, at least some 
> degree of guerilla resistance would be expected, even if it is minor 
> and short-lived.

Don't totally agree. Terrorism might be the result of long running 
conflict (esp on a colony world occupied by more than one nation) but 
if you think about it, the reason we can't retribute against these 
b*st*rds with nukes is we aren't often very positive who did it, how 
to get a hold of them, etc. The same will be true in the future.  

Tom.