Or Why We Can’t Win the War If We Let the Other
\n Guys Make the Rules<\/strong><\/p>\nSomewhere in a cave in Afghanistan or a high rise in Riyadh
\n or a houseboat bobbing lazily on a canal in Amsterdam, Faruk and Faisal
\n are plotting against America. They are sitting at a computer, because
\n these days whether one is in a cave or a penthouse or a boat, the internet
\n is just an antenna away. They are also smoking that good gray hashish, because
\n their religion forbids alcohol and Afghanistan’s finest export is still
\n bubbling through the distribution network, in fact funding ongoing operations.<\/p>\n
"We’ve got to do something really dastardly to the infidel invaders
\n this time," muses Faruk as he takes a deep draw on the Hookah. "Something
\n that will cost them dearly, and expose them as the quivering cowards
\n they really are."<\/p>\n
"I have thought of just the thing," slyly intones Faisal. "It came to
\n me in a dream last night. All the information we need is right here on
\n this web site!"<\/p>\n
"Let me see," crowed Faruk, craning his recently shaven neck at the
\n computer screen, expecting to see some National Security site that Faisal,
\n who was something of a geek, had hacked into. "Wait a second. That’s
\n just the Orbitz travel site! Planning on taking a trip?"<\/p>\n
"You must think me an idiot! Flying’s too dangerous these days. No,
\n look here. These are all of the flight numbers of the flights
\n from London and Paris to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. So I copy and
\n paste them into a list. Then I make up a simple code. 223 kumquats.
\n 2445 kilos of dates. 661 camel blankets. Now I wrap it up in a semi-sensical
\n email and all we have to do is make sure it gets to the right recipients."<\/p>\n
"And how do you intend to do that?"<\/p>\n
"Easy! The infidels are tapping so many phones and emails they barely
\n have time to do anything else. Why do you think they are finally
\n trying to do something about Spam? We just create a one-time email account
\n on a Tanzanian server and send this message to a few people we suspect
\n are being watched. Like Amira, whose husband blew himself up in
\n Baghdad last month, or the Hamarubi Brothers who run that Hawala in Hawaii,
\n or Sheik Zabouti, who we KNOW is talking to the Chemical Brothers. Then
\n we just sit back and watch the fun!"<\/p>\n
Total cost of this terrorist operation – $2.95 in connection time.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in a windowless room in a basement in Virginia, or a wardroom
\n in an antenna bedecked destroyer, or a top secret room in an anonymous
\n front company in an out-of-the-way strip mall, a clean cut analyst with
\n an Ivy League degree and a million dollars of electronic circuitry beneath
\n his fingertips shouts out. "Bingo! Chief, I think I found something!"<\/p>\n
"What’s up, Webster?" The crew-cut chief dork ambles over for a look.<\/p>\n
"This email, Chief, forwarded to us by the Chemical Brothers in Islamabad,
\n is supposed to be about an order for an upcoming wedding, but it doesn’t
\n hold water. There’s no way a wedding party could eat TWO AND A HALF TONS
\n OF DATES without some serious diarrheic consequences!. So I ran the numbers
\n through our top secret "Cross-Check" program, and guess what! They all
\n correspond to flight numbers of flights from Europe to Los Angeles on
\n Christmas Eve!"<\/p>\n
"Great Cesar’s Ghost! This is what we’ve been looking for! Quick, get
\n Director Ridge on the phone. Tell him we are declaring a Code X-Ray!
\n Get me the CEO’s of the airlines involved. Cancel those flights! Get
\n armed guards on all of the OTHER flights from those cities! Raise the
\n threat level! Scramble the jets! Ready the No Fly Zones! This is
\n the break we’ve been waiting for. Those bastards won’t catch us off guard
\n again!"<\/p>\n
"Yessir"<\/p>\n
"You’ll be getting a promotion for this one, Webster! Good
\n catch."<\/p>\n
Total cost for our response: $287 million plus indirect costs of lost
\n revenue and public paranoia.<\/p>\n
Conclusion: Relying on technology is fine, especially when you have the best in the
\n world. However, when it results in such ridiculously disproportionate
\n expenditures, it gives your enemies an opening in your lines of defense
\n big enough to drive a cement mixer filled with C-4 through. Lets rethink
\n this one.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Or Why We Can’t Win the War If We Let the Other Guys Make the Rules Somewhere in a cave in Afghanistan or a high rise in Riyadh or a houseboat bobbing lazily on a canal in Amsterdam, Faruk and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}