war talk

["Andrew Hagen" <xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bush vows to "rid the world of evil." What does that entail? The first
mission is homeland defense. To that end he will call up 50,000
reservists. The impending war will result in many deaths of American
soldiers, and further strikes against Americans at home.  The situation
is useful to the President, however. "This nation is peaceful, but
fierce when stirred to anger.'' Bush declares he has a "war mentality."
Congress has now passed two important pieces of legislation. The first
condemns the attacks. The second gives Bush $40 billion in funding to
fight the terrorists, and to clean up after the attacks. The third and
fourth are discussed later in this message.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010914/ts/terrorist_attacks_27.html

Bush has declared a state of emergency, as Macdonald Stainsby just
posted. I don't think it gives the President the power to suspend civil
liberties or anything. I think it's more of a power that gives the
President the ability to hurry administrative decisions along. Please
correct me if I'm wrong.

A Defense Department official now says that military aircraft were in a
position to shoot down United Airlines 93, the plane that crashed in
Pennsylvania. The DoD has not changed its earlier position that they
did not shoot
down.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts/attack_pennsylvania_military
_dc_1.html

The Taliban charge d'affaires in the United Arab Emirates has said that
while the Afghan government does not extradite criminals, Osama bin
Laden is free to leave Afghanistan of his o
volition.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts/attack_afghan_diplomat_dc_1.
html

The leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, is a recluse. Recently
he stated that to give up bin Laden would be to betray Islam. A
Guardian article speculates that this position is guided by the
Taliban's need to appease the foreign "guests" that are playing a key
role in the Taliban military campaign against the Afghan rebels. This
foreign legion includes as many as 6,000 nationals of Uzbekistan and
Pakistan, and residents of the Chechnya region. As an inspirational
leader and a foreigner to Afghanistan himself, bin Laden might be
regarded by the Taliban as their only hope of standing fast against the
rebels.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,552097,00.html

Afghan officials say they will resist a US attack, and will have their
revenge after successfully doing so. From the AP: "We have suffered so
much. Every night so many children go to bed hungry,'' said Zalmai, a
teacher who like many Afghans uses only one name. "What do we have to
live for? Let the rockets come and set this whole country on fire once
and for all.''

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010914/ts/attacks_afghanistan_4.html

The Afghan people seem to have learned that the US is angry with them.
Despite the exhortations of their leaders to stand up to the Americans,
many Afghans are fleeing the cities. Foreigners are all leaving,
except, presumably, for the ones in the Talib
army.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts
 /attack_afghan_dc.html

Eighty percent of Americans say they support military action. Seventy
percent say they support military action even if it results in a
longer, broader war, and costs many American lives.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010914/ts/attacks_polls_2.html

Colin Powell is attempting to put together a global alliance to fight
terrorism. (What was that mission again? Let's try to avoid mission
creep here.) The mission is to attack those who attacked the United
States. Who are they again?  This will be another grand alliance in the
tradition of "41," Bush the Elder. Powell has asked Pakistan to let US
planes fly overhead, but they haven't responded. A country of 140
million Muslims, Pakistan has its own fundamentalist movement to deal
with. The Pakistani government can't appear soft on America. Not
mentioned below, however, is the possibility that if hundreds of
Pakistani nationals are among the WTC dead, that could give the
leadership a good excuse to cooperate. In the end, the global alliance
could be less important militarily than it is politically. If enough
Arab states join it, Pakistan can, too. Although it is not an Arab
state, Powell has not ruled out inviting Iran to join. The subtext of
all this, by the way, is if Pakistan does not join or at least remain
neutral, they could be dragged into the conflict against the USS,
unless the US uses only the Russian and Tajikist
bases.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international/attack-usa-alliance.h
tml

Powell has sent diplomatic messages that, in the future, American
benevolence is contingent on opposition to terrorism.

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1198062270

In later reports, Pakistan will allow the US to use its air space, but
could not guarantee the safety of US troops in Pakistan, due to
potential civil unrest by radical Muslims. Pakistan's conservative
groups were encouraged by the US back in Cold War days, when Pakistan
helped stop the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As the Soviets
withdrew, so did American money to the region. The results are hard
times and desperation.

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1182652844

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34083-2001Sep14.html

The US is approaching Russia and Tajikistan (the latter borders
Afghanistan) for permission to use some of their bases. The Taliban
will declare war on Tajikistan if Tajikistan lets the US operate from
their country. As a caveat, this information comes from the infamous
"Pravda," villified in Cold War days.

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/14/15203.html

Russia doesn't want NATO troops in CIS countries, though. These
countries include Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Presumably
American troops alone would be okay. Or a combination of American and
Russian troops.

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=1089316062

In the third major piece of legislation passing through Congress, the
Senate has authorized Bush to use force, voting 98-0. This seems to
satisfy the War Powers Resolution of 1973 for now. If the war does not
go well, the Resolution will become a focal point of debate, however.
It was not a complete legislative victory for Bush. He originally
wanted preemptive authority to quell any possible terrorist initiative
that might occur in the future. The Senate Democrats kept out that bit
of ill-consider
language.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts
 /attack_congress_force_dc_2.html

The House has now passed the same authorization. Bush will probably
sign the bi
Saturday.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts/attack_congress_passage_dc_1
.html

Gays, abortionists, pagans, and feminists are partially responsible for
the attack, according to Jerry Falwell, because they are making God
angry with America.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20010914/ts/wtc_falwell010914_1.html

Ann Coulter implies that we should carpet bomb the Arabs. In any case,
after we hurt them real bad, she says, we should convert them to
Christianity. I guess converting them to paganism is out of the
question.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/printac20010914.shtml

Handgun sales in the US are taking off.

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=111653957

Esteemed British military historian John Keegan suggests that America
should use Russian bases to strike at the perpetrators of the attack.
He cautions against attempting to do anything else in Afghanistan. The
country is ungovernable, he says. He suggests approaching the conflict
like the successful British campaign in Afghanistan did in t
1870s.

http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/dt?ac=006026232037638&rtmo=LSx7N3Sd&atmo
=rrrrrrrq&pg=/01/9/14/do01.html

An Iranian in a German jail attempted to warn the US of an attack this
week.

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=1002333132

In the fourth piece of major legislation, Congress is debating whether
to give US attorneys the power to order ISP's to hook up Carnivore, so
every byte and bit that passes through the Internet provider can be
examined by the government without a warrant. A second major change
would require all encryption software packages to be equipped with a
government accessible backdoor, so you can keep your secrets from
peers, but not the US government.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46852,00.html

As a final measure, this bill will allow the CIA to hire people with
criminal backgrounds to spy on terrorists.

http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cta.091401.html

Quantum computing will soon change cryptography forever. It will render
almost all current encryption techniques useless (the only survivor
will be the inconvenient and risky one-time pad). A new form of
cryptography, based on quantum techniques, however, will make a new
generation of encryption possible. The inevitable result will be a race
to see who will control quantum encryption. Perhaps the NSA wants to
keep quantum encryption, once it becomes available, out of civilian
hands. With quantum computing available everywhere, and quantum
cryptography available only to the NSA, Echelon could work again, even
against terrorists equipped with non-quantum encryption.

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/13468.html

Finally, the SEC is using its emergency powers to relax many rules to
soften the blow to the financial system.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010914/ts/sec_markets_7.html


Andrew Hagen
xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx