Comments

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  cristian.saracco [http://www.webjam.com/brand30] says:

  Shhhhhhhhhhhh... Probably a team of young CIA agents are right now trying to decodified this dangereous post....
  
  In certain way, this is incredible... They haven't learnt two issues:
  - Security systems are (and will be) always one step back (now we are designing anti-flight buildings.... but the Twin Towers were destroyed some years ago...)
  - You can't stop the Pacific Ocean with your hands
  
  BTW... They look like they do not have to much to do!... That's a problem!

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  chickerino [http://www.chickerino.com] says:

  I suppose that Sun Tzu would advocate anti-terrorist "specialists" going to terrorist training camps as part of their BSC courses - can't really see any of the aforementioned universities being forward thinking enough to put something like that in their curriculum! Amateurs!

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  paulsari says:

  Indeed government ministers are not always 100% engaged, as I can confirm from having taught one English. As I am sure you guessed, I was being a bit sarcastic with my last comment anyway. As I am a little too often
  
  Erm, I don't know if that's quite the logical conclusion in interpreting Sun Tzu's statement in this context. Or to be more precise what the guy making the comment was implying. I am not even sure if that is how Nasim Taleb would react to the above situation of researching terrorist threats. Thereby, I am making the assumption that you are indicating that there is a lack of ingenuity and "realism" to university research. I apologise if I have read you incorrectly. Please feel free to present your standpoint more accurately were I to have grossly misrepresented your commentary.
  
  Perhaps also, I am taking your comments more seriously than they were intended, chickerino.
  
  

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  paulsari says:

  p.s. I agree that they are overambitious in combating terrorism by force or by defence mechanisms. I think that discussion aka "diplomacy" is something which has been vastly underused in approaching "terrorist threats".
  
  "Diplomacy" is naturally an extraordinary complex field and teams of highly trained and no doubt very rational individuals are conducting talks that we never hear about. It is to be supposed and hoped that such meetings will one day lead to something regarding Palestine, North Korea, ETA, the Farq ... the list is enormous.
  
  Nonetheless, I strongly lament politicians' frontline dismissal of negotiations and meeting their "enemies" or members of the "Axis of Evil". Barack Obama is not popular amongst many sections of American society for proposing to talk to the President of Iran, Akmadinejad, whilst Bush has blankly refused to engage the democratically elected Hamas. Similarly, look at how Zapatero was heavily negatively criticised for talks with Batasuna and ETA. Now, the PP appears to be leading public opinion around that debate again, too. After one attempt at diplomcy!!
  
  It is not even that I am absolutely sure that talks between top-level politicians have much influence on actual policy. One thing I would be more certain of, however, is that politicians' discourses do have a large influence on the masses of us that often only receive very short extracts of news. That includes your average suicide bomber.
  
  News coverage these days is largely 24 hour and lacking much detail of any particular story; we really are in a soundbite culture. That, I believe, has an effect on the importance of quasi symbolic political gestures, such as whether the American administration talks to Hamas, or just to Abass.

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  chickerino says:

  yes i was only joking!
  
  obama is currently running for election - thus he has the problem of having to cater for the lowest common denominator in order to get elected - because as we all know, wisdom of crowds actually means the fickle idiocy of the crowd - thus in order to actually get elected, one must adopt the most inoffensive and conservative policy possible. Once you get elected however, you are free, at least for 2-3 years to pretty much do what you please (invade countries with lots of oil etc) before you have to start grovelling again to get re-elected. Repeat cycle. G

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  paulsari says:

  Sweet geeza.
  
  Yep, I am also nothing less than extremely scpetical when it comes to Obama. Watching a Hard Talk interview with his potential future Foreign Secretary (sorry, I can't remember her name), Stephen Sackur's questioning revealed that Obama's promise to pull troops out of Iraq (and I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing really, but it's one of the promises in his rhetoric) was based on a series of premises and, in effect, is about as likely as the Daily Mail recommending this blog on its front page tomorrow.

• 

  written on 22-Jul-2008

  chickerino says:

  yeah, that's not even a black swan event - by that i mean it IS impossible!

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