Crypto-anonymity greases HUMINT intelligence flows

Meyer Wolfsheim wolf at priori.net
Sat Sep 15 11:51:37 PDT 2001


On Sat, 15 Sep 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

> Thanks, but I'd go a bit further.  The percentage of humans who would be
> capable of such evil has to be vanishingly small.  Unfortunately, that
> percentage is not zero so this sort of thing continues to happen.

My point precisely.

> > However, if you assume lack of conscience
> > and moral indifference, this does become a
> > cost/benefit situation.
>
> We have to assume it because it demonstrably exists.  The trick then is, to
> make the costs greater or the benefits less.  Easier said then done, but
> those are our only alternatives.

Have there ever been any large-scale terroristic attacks where profit was
the only motive?

Bin Laden's organization has religious reasons. McVeigh had his own moral
justifications. I'm not sure we've ever seen such an action for a pure
profit motive. Can anyone think of examples?

> I think a much strong argument can be made that those who do not believe in
> an afterlife would be more deterred than those who do.

Heh. Perhaps the suggestion that such terrorism could be stopped if
everyone were to be converted to Christianity wasn't such a crazy idea.

Nah. We'd have followers of Jerry Falwell attempting to smite San
Francisco.

> And so far, unsupported by the facts.  Time will tell.  In the mean time,
> Meyer, I'll bet you, or anyone on this list, a C-note that this is the work
> of Bin Laden.  Any takers?

That's a fool's wager. We will never know with total certainty whose work
this was.

I'm certain that our investigators will link these actions to bin Laden,
however. And I suspect they'll most likely be correct.


-MW-





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