NYTimes blogger: Let’s play terrorist!
This blog post soliciting terrorism attack ideas by best-selling author/economist Steven Levitt at the NYTimes yesterday has caused quite a stir:
Inspired by an article about TSA restrictions, Levitt muses about terror plot possibilities: “Hearing about these rules got me thinking about what I would do to maximize terror if I were a terrorist with limited resources. I’d start by thinking about what really inspires fear. One thing that scares people is the thought that they could be a victim of an attack. With that in mind, I’d want to do something that everybody thinks might be directed at them, even if the individual probability of harm is very low. Humans tend to overestimate small probabilities, so the fear generated by an act of terrorism is greatly disproportionate to the actual risk…”
It goes on and on. You get the sense that conjuring up ways to kill Americans on American soil is really tickling Leavitt’s neurons. Gee, what a fun academic parlor exercise this is! Finally, he concludes: “My general view of the world is that simpler is better. My guess is that this thinking applies to terrorism as well. In that spirit, the best terrorist plan I have heard is one that my father thought up after the D.C. snipers created havoc in 2002. The basic idea is to arm 20 terrorists with rifles and cars, and arrange to have them begin shooting randomly at pre-set times all across the country. Big cities, little cities, suburbs, etc. Have them move around a lot. No one will know when and where the next attack will be.”
Putting on a public service posture, Levitt throws open a contest–he’s just being helpful, of course–to his commenters:
I’m sure many readers have far better ideas. I would love to hear them. Consider that posting them could be a form of public service: I presume that a lot more folks who oppose and fight terror read this blog than actual terrorists. So by getting these ideas out in the open, it gives terror fighters a chance to consider and plan for these scenarios before they occur.
The NYPost excoriates Leavitt in its lead editorial today:
Now, real terrorists probably don’t troll the Times for inspiration – though you never can tell. But, at the same time, America doesn’t lack for well-armed terrorist wannabes – to say nothing of plain old nut-cases looking to get their names in the Paper of Record.
Levitt probably is a smart guy – certainly “Freakonomics” is a smart book – but you couldn’t tell it from yesterday’s blogging.
That the Times indulged his pretentious nonsense is unconscionable.
I’m less concerned that terrorists will get ideas from the Freakonomics author’s blog than I am about the message Levitt’s flippancy sends.
We are at war. Leave counterterrorism planning and analysis to the experts who have dedicated their lives to preventing another jihadi mass murder.
This is not a freaking intellectual game.
***
If you are a survivor of a terrorist attack or relative, friend, or co-worker of someone injured or killed in a terrorist attack, how would you respond to Levitt? E-mail me (malkinblog-at-gmail.com) or leave a comment.
Consider it a form of public service. Sensitivity training for the NYTimes.
***
Reader M.S.:
I respect your question, but frankly what difference will the answer make to the New York Times? Regardless of the consequences, they have chosen defeat in the war on terrorism and defeat in Iraq because, at least in their view, it gives some liberal Democrat a shot at the White House. I am not a relative of those lost in the 9/11 attacks, but I am personally, intimately, and permanently involved in the war. I returned from Iraq seven months ago after suffering injuries at the hands of those emboldened by American publications such as the New York Times.
A better question is: Why is it now taboo to question the patriotism and loyalty of our fellow citizens when their actions are an obvious boon to the enemy? Or: When do people like Mr. Levitt begin to grasp the consequences wrested from their 15 minutes of fame?
I will live, enjoy the comforts of family and life, but some of my friends and many, many Iraqis who have placed their futures and lives in our hands will not.
Your question to the friends and relatives of the deceased is, “How does this make you feel?” A better question is, “Why is this still happening?”
***
AllahPundit gives it to Levitt like only AllahPundit can:
You’re conducting a thought experiment, dude, mostly for sh*ts and giggles; it’s not a crime, but if you’re going to do it, own it. If he was that concerned about the public interest, he’d have asked readers to e-mail him their suggestions and forwarded the lot of them to DHS.
See what others have said
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jrl, No Lambeau Leaps this early in the Season, We need you in the Starting Lineup….enjoy the comments…
Even tho you’re a Pack fan 
The WMD issue is very valid, in the context that by all accounts, ours and internationally – both Democrat & Republicans – Saddam had WMD’s. And with the attack on 9-11, came a renewed sense of what any enemy of the US would do if they gave WMD’s to terrorists.
Saddam had already shown his propensity to sponsor terrorism many times over. He was under UN Sanctions, including a no-fly zone enforced by US forces, which he violated and thumbed his nose at for how many years?…With no response or consequence.
If the WMD argument is a ‘trojan horse’ to carry us into Iraq – then, by that logic, all the cries of WMD danger from the liberals leading up to the invasion, going back into the Clinton administration, must have been a showpiece for the Democrats, trying to shine up their ‘hawk’ image, correct?
You can’t blame Bush for WMD lies, yet say the calls before Bush for Saddam’s ouster were justified.
If a member of some group picks a fight with me – I can’t just fight that one individual and forget about the rest of the group. That’s a good way to get blindsided.
Yep. And it makes me NUTS to think these idiots out there are treating it as some sort of elite salon discussion. This wont change until (God Help us!) we are attacked again and it is more horrible than before. Only then will these fools wake up and then it just might be too late!
Image: Bear1909 sitting on a ledge overlooking all the battlefields where Americans have died in combat.
War has indeed made us who and what we are as a Nation, for better and for worse, in every conceivable aspect.
But ask yourself, what were the likely consequences of not taking to the battlefield in every instance that we did?
On a separate point from lgm’s fog bank-
Irrational fear?
What is that exactly? Fear is an authentic primary emotion. Fear by its very nature is *NOT RATIONAL*.
The rub for most of us is that our brains “memorize” emotions, and replay them for us, anchoring them inside new experiences causing us to “feel” afraid.
But that is fundamentally different from the instinctive response to Islamic killers training in our countrysides and lying in wait for the order to come out shooting, gassing, and dirty-bombing us while we are told by the Left, Mikey Chertoff, elitist writers, lgm, and others that it is just an “irrational fear” that we have.
One thing I should have added to that list of lessons last nite was:Fear your enemies. It’s a healthy response to the reality that they want to kill you.
It impresses upon you that you must take them and their stated intentions seriously.
Then move past it into the business of readying oneself for the conflict that is here and going to escalate beyond anybody’s fantasy about this just being “irrational fear”.
As I sit on this ledge, I vivdly see the Northerners from DC who took their carriages and picnics out to Manassas to “view” that early battle of the Civil War, and who didn’t have any “irrational fear” about the war. And within minutes as the carnage became real and they watched men being butchered at point blank range, heard their screams, and smelled that smell, authentic fear gripped them and they fled the scene all the way back to Washington. Some knew they had been duped by their “sensibilities” that there was nothing to fear about their enemies from the South.
History ryhmes today with so many pieces of the American past, the human past. All I can say to folks like lgm is use the time you have left to learn something outside the comfort zone of memorized emotions from yesterday’s world.
My salute to the Fallen Heroes. Aho!
We don’t have the metrics, as Donald Rumsfeld would say. There may be countless American lives lost in the future because of Bush’s unprovoked invasion of a Moslem country, which turned pretty much the entire Moslem world against the U.S. This would seem to be the logical conclusion: the more angry Moslems, the more terrorism.
Back to Levitt, there are so many ways to make mischief there is really no defense against terrorism. Putting so much of our resources into airline security is emotion speaking, not logic.
OK so you answered the point about whether or not the WMD argument is valid. But getting back to the issue, just answer me the question of if (again, God forbid) we get attacked again, would the Iraq War still be justified? “We’re fighting them abroad so we don’t have to fight them here…” etc.
Are there any circumstances that you will look at the Iraq War and say “In the end, did we make the right choice?”
If that’s what you feel, it’s a free country. I’m just trying to understand where you are coming from. No, I won’t make the assumption that your answers are a reflection of all conservatives.
labwrs, I hope you are wrong and I fear that you’re not.
Dear Lord, I pray that it does not come to that.
DarkKnight- you raise an excellent point earlier in your message re blame for an attack on law enforcement.
However, funding the Iraq War did not create shortfalls in first responder budgeting.
DHS and the morass of agencies involved with the law enforcement aspects of this situation are bleeding money.
The TSA is a $45 billion case in point.
The war in Iraq is something more than just the mantra “The US invaded a country that didn’t attack us.” The financing of the war is something more complex than writing checks to pay for what we want to accomplish over there.
This war is being underwritten by taxpayers- yes. But not solely. There is not room here to elaborate.
The question for us here is, can we discuss it beyond the mantras and cliches that control the present debate?
Always good to read you.
On any given day, the World Trade Center contained over 50,000 people. The fact that only 3,000 died was a miracle. The saddest part of the 9/11 story is how rapidly the left has been able to shift the blame from the Islamic terrorists to Bush. If I hadn’t been here to witness it, I would have assumed that it was some type of fiction like Brave New World or 1984.
Well, following the invitation to play this little game, if I were a terrorist, I would remember the first rule of terrorism: it’s not how many people you kill, it’s how big the media plays it up. Ergo, the most bang for the buck for budding terrorists would be to attack the New York Times. They could start by plinking a few high-profile columnists, then work their way up to blowing up their print distribution centers or even crashing a jetliner into the NYT headquarters building. Imagine the worldwide headlines and frenzied news coverage. The terrorists now are going after US, their allies!
Mind you, this is all hypothetical, but since the NYT asked for all such ideas, I think that this indeed would be the most cost-effective strategy for terrorists to create the most terror possible. Yup, the NYT itself.
Yes. They are many in number. And my standard is high.
For me it is whether the Iraq front becomes the anchor of the effort to:
1) destroy the government of Assad in Syria,
2)bring about the absolute destruction of the Ayatollah Kameini’s mulla-ocracy in Iran,
3)initiate and support the savaging and utter destruction of Hezbollah and HAMAS,
4) precipitate the abdication of the House of Faud in Saudi Arabia,
5)inspire the obliteration of N/S Yemeni power structures,
6) ultimate the eradication of Khaddafi in Libya,
7) trigger the destruction of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and
8)motivate the deportation of every proven Muslim jihadist *supporter* from the shores of this Nation to their country of origin.
And who says liberals are hateful?
is there a reason you didn’t include the Khobar Towers bombing of 1996 which killed 19 U.S. servicemen or the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 which collectively killed over 200 people and wounded another 4000. Should we ignore these terrorist attacks just because they only killed a few dozen Americans and happened on foreign soil? Don’t tell me you are one of those people who think that if we catch bin Laden then all terrorism around the world against U.S. interests will suddenly stop. Remember that this is a War on Terror, that means all terror, not just a war on Al Qaeda or bin Laden.
DarkKnight:
As to the Iraq War – as you pose, “In the end, did we make the right choice?”
I don’t know….that’s my honest answer. Since we aren’t at ‘the end’ – it’s impossible to say.
I’m sure that even in such clear-cut actions as WWII – some asked that same question DURING the conflict. But, truth be told – we won’t have that answer for a while.
My greater point is – while Iraq did not invade us on 9-11 ( despite what many liberals think we conservatives believe ) – and Al Qaida were the attackers that day – Al Qaida is not a country. The greater threat is overall world-wide terrorism.
Whether it be Al Qaida or whomever. We made the right decision to go into Afghanistan, obviously. But the problem is that – liberals can’t disseminate that Afghanistan and Iraq, while tied to the OVERALL war on terrorism ( Afghanistan due to Al Qaida / 9-11, Iraq due to Saddam Hussein’s sponsorship of terrorism and potential possession of WMD’s, not to mention his UN sanction problems ).
*falls out of my chair*
Oh my goodness, someone paid me a compliment on here.
** thinks: “Don’t let it go to your head… don’t let it go to your head…” **
Well bear, I thank you. It’s reassuring to know that there are plenty of good people on the net who can debate without saying things that they know would be insulting. Sometimes I read things said by people like gayle (not all things, gayle, but there are a few) who say things that they might believe, but they say it anyway knowing it is inflammatory and will cloud discussion.
So, again, thank you.
NOW, back to the discussion. I guess I will say in response to planetgeo that I am always afraid of venues where there are large amounts of people like sportings events or something. It’s scary sometimes. I keep on flashing back to McVeigh, etc. Then I tell myself “I’m not going to go, it’s too risky.” Then I tell myself, “if you don’t go, they win.” So I end up going.
But honestly, I think that sports venues need to be extra vigilant because they are the safe haven for Americans (remember Yankees baseball after 9/11?).
There are no circumstances under which I will change my mind about Saddam deserving what he got. He had it coming for years, and we gave it to him. It was the right thing to do. As to the difficulties afterwards, some could have been prevented, some not. The fact is that Saddam was an Arab Stalin, only he did not get the luxury of dying a natural death, insulated from his own people by his paranoia.
They broke through and he got what he , and Stalin, deserved. Look at Japan today. Who could have hoped that the maniacal regime in Japan would be replaced with a free ally, and economic powerhouse? South Korea is also a close ally and economic partner, after we saved them from the Norks. Was that worth the blood and treasure? Many people at the time said it wasn’t, and Truman paid a political price. But South Korea is far more prosperous than anyone hoped 50 years ago. Odds are that your cell phone or LCDTV was made in South Korea and somebody there is supporting their family in more wealth than that people had ever known before.
Who can say that in 10-15 years Iraq won’t be the freest, most prosperous country in the Mideast? Will it have been worth it? Ask the Iraqis.
Please olblueyes, do not make any assumptions about me without reading my posts in context. I am going to believe that you made an honest mistake and missed what my post was in reponse to. jrlgreenbay’s post in #79 mentioned only the attacks in 1993 and then the USS Cole.
It is foolish to think that our freedom has only been attacked twice ‘93 and ‘01 and ignore all attacks in between.
But it would just as foolish to ignore attacks since 9/11. The Iraq War did not stop the 7/7 bombings in England, nor the Spain Bombings in 2004.
I only asked jrlgreenbay in good faith about the 7 year span that he used as a backdrop for his argument.
DarkKNight – I’ll compliment you too…
As for the mention of two incidents – those were the ones that stood out in my mind as the most glaring. I haven’t forgotten about the others in between – nor the attempts here on our homeland since.
No – the war didn’t stop London, Glasgow, Spain or others…. it is not logical to think it would. We’re talking about a global effort of terrorism.
However, I’d rather be moving forward than sitting still.
If – and at this point, it is still a big if – we do see success in Iraq, with an ally state in the Middle East and a diminished rivalry between Sunni / Shia / Kurd – then yes, it will have been worth it.
If we don’t – then we’ll have to evaluate things then. However, I am glad Saddam is gone. So are thousands upon thousands of Iraqis whose family members were tortured and killed by his regime.
An important point – the biggest failure in Iraq right now is not ours – it is the Iraqis themselves. Their political rivalries are the greatest obstacle and most glaring reason of our continued involvement. However, without our involvement at this point – they have very little chance to reconcile in a productive manner, and without wholesale slaughter and genocide being the result.
ok, I’m tracking. Sorry, I may have jumped the gun a bit as I didn’t fully read jrl’s earlier post.
My take on the attacks since 9/11. well obviously Al Qaeda wasn’t targeting the U.S. but instead our allies in hopes of them pulling out of Iraq. It worked with Spain and not with England. They may actually be smart enough not to attack us again on the homefront fearing we will unite again and put aside the politics as the dangers become more real. perhaps they are just waiting for a democrat to be put in office so the repercussions aren’t as severe. Who knows if it is not a combination of law enforcement, intelligence and military operations abroad which are all having a cumulative effect on detering and disrupting attacks in America.
Just checking back, a lot to respond to, some very good comments, some very clueless. I do not have the luxury of having my own post to link to (like Dark’s, yes, I do read you
so I will attempt to sum it up somewhat briefly.
For those of you who do not know factual history, the dynamics of the middle East, or fail to understand that the radical Islam has been ’successfully’ marching towards world domination since WWII. Please understand, these people want to either kill us, or dominate us as slaves.
There is no debate with radical Islam, no appeasement, no understanding, no living side by side, no getting along, nothing. They simply want us dead. Period.
This did not start with 9-11. Nor did it get worse with Iraq. Look what we have lost since the 70s. We had Iran on the way to democracy. We impeached Nixon. Ford dropped the ball. Carter pulled the support from the Shaw. Radical Islam takes over Iran, Kills thousands (where is Iran’s middle aged, did they evaporate, think about it?) Using OPEC they attack the U.S. in the free market. They take the oil money and finance terrorism throughout the middle east.
Lebanon, a prime example of Iran financed terrorism. It used to be a free nation, now it is controlled by Iranian backed terrorists. This didn’t happen as a result of Iraq.
Libya and the line of death. Not related to Iraq.
Saddam sponsored terrorism throughout the middle East as well. Paying 10,000 bounty to the families of bombers. The only reason we didn’t take him out in 90 was we needed him to offset Iran.
Try to end this here with, we have been attacked by radical Islam over 100 times in the last 40 years. This didn’t start Yesterday. Regardless, it will not end tomorrow no matter how the liberals attempt to appease the disease.
BTW: Dark, though I do not agree with everything you write, you do write some great stuff
Bear & Brian, good stuff too
LGM – for the record, I don’t believe a word of your BS. I don’t know of anyone in the city who would say that 9/11 did “relatively little damage” to the US. Especially someone that lost a friend. I also don’t know of anyone who was at the scene “or rushed to the scene” and actually saw the trauma who would refer to the collapse of the WTC and the loss of life as “relatively little damage.”
Would you tell your friend’s mother that you thought 9/11 did little damage?
I also showed one of my co-workers here who lost a family member on 9/11 your comments. She said one thing:
“Sick bast*ard”
Enough said.
Sir Knob! Thanks much. These blogs are a blessing of freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Glad you are here.
Well said edDantes, Rushed to the scene my a** He’s pathetic.
Well, I suppose we should have just went to war with Japan. After all, Germany didn’t attack Pearl Harbor.
I second that. Thank you Sir Knob, bear1909, jrl… and Raging Republican… sometimes. j/k
Sir Knob, a well-reasoned and factual post. I think that many people are now aware (at least I hope they are by now) that the definition of “winning” the war now varies depending on who you ask. You could ask Sen. Biden and he’ll tell you about “3 countries and a central government.” You could ask BOR and he will tell you when the Iraqis step up and take the lead allowing the Americans to leave. You could ask bear1909 and read post #107 for his definition of victory (and if all of those things happen, Bush will be heralded as the greatest president…ever).
This is what is concerning because (as you note) the Middle East has been in turmoil for a long, long time. So when does the cycle stop? I don’t know. As jrlingreenbay said in #110 and #114 (thank you for being honest), there aren’t a whole lot of people who are sure when we can look at this thing and say “yep, glad we did that.” It could be 5 years. Could be 50. Could be never. Geraldo takes credit for the “never” POV by the way.
olblueeyes, that is the root of my question when I asked “what exactly is keeping us from being attacked again?” Is it the War? If it is, then the statement “attack them there so we don’t fight them here” would absolutely work. But then it also could be domestic intelligence that is doing a great job. So if we get attacked again (God forbid), whose fault would it be? I wouldn’t blame the military, that’s for sure. Because they are following orders. But I just fear everyone would point fingers because that is what I think this whole situation has deteriorated into.
So what would you evaluate? And what would you change?
This is notwithstanding the “very big If” things get better in Iraq.
Let’s play worse case scenario for sake of argument.
DK-
*When the 8 eventualities come to pass* from #107 it will be attributed to the resolve of a very simple-minded, determined, unlikely President of the United States and the CITIZENS who stood by him and fought for their country- on the battlefield and in their own communities againt jihadist violence and jihadist intimidation.
When it comes to this war, GWB has been on the same page as the men and women fighting it: See it through. He is our Commander-in-Chief with very simple wisdom.
But he has not been well-served by his lawmakers or the elite in the civilian and military brass a President relies on to see it through. (To back up this statement we need only examine the behavior of a Clintonesque CIA, Secretary of State and emeritus foreign service elites, the Congress, Pentagon, and Veterans Administration among others.)
IMO, this is the worst case scenario- disunity to the point of desecrating the authority of the Commander-in-Chief and the spirits of our fighting force.
The authority of battlefield commanders and their chain of command trumped by Judge Advocate Generals, and sensationalistic journalists- who said this is how war is to be fought? No one seems to know- power in America is so diffuse as to be reduced in strength to the point of a useless mist of no consequence.
Our Commander-in-Chief, endowed by law to execute a guerilla war as he and his advisors deem fit, is constrained to conduct it in a virtual theater not much unlike a criminal court in the United States.
Our soldiers are expected to make life and death decisions countless times each day based on rules of evidence, with the constant deterrence to their instincts to fight and win coming from the enemy’s propaganda and disinformation campaigns here in America.
Our enemies saw off the faces of civilians with piano wire. Our legal elites say nothing.
This is a worst case scenario.
We face a desperate enemy that we cannot engage with full military might. This is a worst case scenario.
Our enemies do not fight with one hand behind their backs. They do not have to figure out how to manage excess capacity of personnel, resources, and firepower. They do not have to control their line of fire. They do only what they can do; what we are allowing them to do (using IEDs because they cannot field standing armies with equitable firepower to their adversaries). They die by the hundreds each week.
Our enemies are pinned downed and contained in tight coordinate settings in every theater around the world. Their “combat” operations require the utmost secrecy, living in spiderholes, using the most brutal tactics to coerce the cooperation of simple civilians. They have to bury their munitions. They have to cut off peoples’ heads to control civilians who feed and shelter them. They control them with the ever present threat of violence, the lowest form of human association.
Imagine if we as a Nation were unified and paying attention to the lessons of history, observing time-honored principles of leadership and unity?
The worst case scenario is that we even need to entertain this question.
Why speculate about the worst case scenario? The fight that we are in- the fight for our national integrity and survival- has presented us with a real worst case scenario: a sizeable faction within our country does not a) understand the stakes or the complexity of this fight; and, b) does not have the will to fight it.
Speculating about what might be the worst case scenario for this fight of our National lifetime is folly. It is folly because it diverts our attention from the very important process these forums give us access to: sharpening our thinking, clarifying what we value and what we are willing to forego, and sharing the best of ourselves with each other to prevent isolation and fear of loss from paralyzing our national will to win this fight.
We must build further our resolve to prepare our communities to suffer deprivation and hardship, to sacrifice and endure the costs of war on the magnitude that has yet to arrive.
The confusion fomented and foisted into our midst, by the Left and those whose stated agenda is to destroy the United States, has taken root in our National soul to the point that this war will come home- that we will fight it here, until it is won.
We must win here, first, the war of ideas, the war for our Constitution, the war for the heart and soul of our very communities.
If we do not show up to fight, do not show up to fight and win, then the ultimate end game scenario will ensue. Try getting your head around that.
Yes, by all means, let’s not only open the boarders for them to waltz right in, but let’s have national sweatbox sessions so as to creatively brainstorm approaches to terrorism for them and disseminate those creative terrorism ideas all over the world.
I say if any terrorist act is manifest which seems to follow something borne of that thread, then the fellow responsible should be held up on criminal negligence at the very least. There is still a crime called treason on the books, and we should be brave enough to say its name more often.
Amen to that Mr. C_C.
DubiousD- do you have the link to the NY Slimes article where they exposed armor weakness?
A great answer to the Worst Case Scenario question.
But I also asked about what you would “evaluate.” What WOULD you evaluate (your exact word) should things not fall the way we plan?
DK- They are outlined in the answer. Each element was clearly identified.