Terrorism, about 50% Off-topic

You wrote: 

>Apparently the American embassies in Africa are not as security 
concious as >the ones here in Europe.  A friend of mine works out there 

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.  But the point is well taken--in Europe during the past few 
decades there have been scads of terrorist attacks from homegrown 
terror groups (See:  Any organization referring to itself as a "Red 
Brigade")  African security threats tend to be in the form of street 
demonstrations.  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. . . 

>walk away.  On another poiint, what was this CIA operation about that
>stirred whoever it was to launch the attack?

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.  Take Bahrain, for instance.  The Akhbar 
Al-Khalij printed the following question in regards to Miss Lewinsky. 
"Is she a bait dropped by the CIA to damage the picture of the 
president because he crossed the red line?"  Given that sort of 
international picture of the CIA, foreigners are rather ready to blame 
anything and everything on a "CIA Plot".  Feh.	The CIA can't organize 
a buffet line (True!  Of course, story was related to me by a fellow 
Southern Baptist, and we have very high standards for buffet lines.  
We're the only denomination that considers fried chicken a sacrament.) 
much less some of the antics they are credited for.  Besides, blaming 
this on a CIA operation "stirring up" the Egyptian Islamic Jihad would 
be too much like saying State Department deserved to have it's 
employees blown to bits because another branch of the US Government was 
rendering assitance to a friendly government (Egypt) in tracking down 
some murderous thugs, likely at their own request.  Remember, this is 
the outfit that for fun uses machine guns on busloads of tourists.

>On the point of SG2 scenarios and tying in with something that was
>mentioned earlier is it likely that there would be interstellar 
terrorist >organisations in FT universe?  The LLAR seems close in as 
far as it is very >Mercenary based.  Would smaller nations be involved 
in acts of sabotage and >so on against hostile major powers?  Is it 
this sort of brushfire war that >the UN might be involved with in the 
core systems?

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.

John M. Atkinson