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Terrorism: an odd scapegoat

The focus on Terrorism, by Trump and the media, is a mutated scapegoat. It allows a form of doubling by which we can shield our conscious thoughts from the depressing reality of things as they really are.

Do we really have homeless, jobless, poorly educated people in 'the most powerful nation in the world'? Do we really have a level of income inequality that is beyond simple calculation? Is our infrastructure really crumbling? Do we really have tax laws that provide largess to the richest? Do we really have such a long list of societal ills that we grow numb to their existence?

Concentrate. Concentrate on the threat of ISIS, Mexicans, and Syrian refugees, but whatever you do, don't you dare confront the causes of your own powerless, hopeless feelings. It's so much easier to ignore reality than to admit that you have to personally do something in order to change things.

Ethics, the NYTimes, and an on-air murder

The NYTimes was not alone in its rush to pander to the morbid interests of readers following the on-air murders in Moneta, Va. Publishing anything at all that the deceased perpetrator asked to be made public is immoral. Although knowing his name [Vester Flanagan aka  Bruce Williams] will aid further research, publishing a photograph of the dead killer serves no useful purpose.

This bad behavior is profitable since it attracts readers. It also creates martyrs of evil doers and may fuel copycats. None of this benefits society. The right to free speech is one of our most important rights. Curtailing it for any reason is dangerous. On the other hand, responsible self-censorship is commendable.The media have responsibilities aside from informing the public.They should also act in the interests of the greater good.

There has been very little scientific study of the impact of publicized murder with respect to increased violence, although one study found a rise in suicides after such acts. Funding should be made available for this effort.

August 28, 2015 by B. Wallace, 121Contact

 

 

 

 

Participatory democracy is forbidden for pious Muslims

August 28, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

Obama’s failure to support democratically elected President Morsi of Egypt lit the jihadist web with news, mostly views really, about recent events in Egypt and America’s hypocritical response. Bending the law to make believe there was no military coup in Egypt is only the most recent exposure of a nation saying one thing and doing another. Faced now with selecting actions to fulfill his promise to respond now that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, he is being watched closely by jihadists ready to pounce on any sign of hypocrisy and weakness in American foreign policy.

A critical element of modern jihadist doctrine is the absolute rejection of Democracy. Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, viewed by al-Qaeda’s al-Zawahiri as a “teeming ocean of knowledge and scholarship.” A study carried out by the Combating Terrorism Center of the United States Military Academy concluded that al-Maqdisi "is the most influential living Jihadi Theorist" and that "by all measures, Maqdisi is the key contemporary ideologue in the Jihadi intellectual universe".

So as we carefully thread our way through options in Syria, Egypt, and the rest of the restless Islamic world, we must be mindful of this fundamentalist notion, clearly stated by al-Maqdisi: “Participatory democracy is forbidden for pious Muslims.” Jihadists view laws built by men as an insult to Islam since the only legitimate lawgiver is the Koran (as interpreted by the jihadists).

Steal This Drone: Is Obama too late?

May 25, 2013, by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

President Obama reassures us that drone strikes will be less common because of legal and moral concerns. They may become obsolete before he gets a chance to modify the program.

In White Sands, New Mexico, 2012: University of Austin’s Professor Todd Humphreys and his students put on a demonstration for the Department of Homeland Security. There was a suspicion that Iran had, the previous year, downed a U.S. drone by jamming its signals. The experiment was successful. Humphrey’s team not only jammed the signals to the drone, they were able to take control of the unmanned vehicle. The process, called spoofing, took only $1000 worth of equipment. They repeatedly overtook navigational signals going to the GPS-guided vehicle.

One year later, only 2 days ago, a message on the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum suggested that jihadists use the simpler method of jamming the signal.  

"The idea is very simple and could be applied with great success, Allah willing, and this is due to the remoteness of the main source of the signal - the satellite - and its relative weakness. All we need to implement this attack is a jamming device for the "GPS" frequencies, which makes the plane lose control and forces it to land, like what happened in North Korea when it forced an American drone to land through jamming".(SITE)

Cyberoam reported that a recent hack attack “seems to have stolen data from several companies regarding all aspects of unmanned vehicles (drones) from research to design to manufacturing of the vehicles and their various subsystems.” We haven’t heard of anyone publishing detailed plans yet, but a featured article in al-Qaeda’s Inspire Magazine can’t be far off.

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Spoofing: The process of deception by which an unauthorized person causes a transmission or message to appear to come from an authorized user in order to gain privileged access to computer or network resources. IP spoofing, an integral element of many types of network attacks, involves creating TCP/IP packets that use false addresses, perhaps stolen from others.