[Infowarrior] - Capability =| Threat for Security Planning

[Richard Forno]

Excerpt from Bill Arkin's latest blog entry on WaPo.  Couldn't have said it
better myself......the full entry deserves reading......rf

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Terrorists have the "capability" to obtain illicit nuclear materials, the
"capability" to fabricate 10-kiloton nuclear devices, the "capability" to
smuggle not one but two nuclear devices into the United States,and the
"capability" to get one of those nuclear device to downtown D.C. and
detonate it.  A terrorist group has been given all of these "capabilities,"
by someone writing a fictional account of a non-existent organization.

Don't you get it?  "Actual terrorist organizations' capabilities" become
plausible threats through sheer repetition and the WMD stranglehold.  The
threats, realistic or not, influence policy and plans.  In turn, those
policies and plans makes the threats seem real.

The necessity for war against Saddam Hussein, a U.S. first strike on North
Korea, a suspension of U.S. law to fight the Universal Adversary -- pretty
soon just about anything can be justified to keep those mushroom clouds
away. 

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Thousands of federal government employees evacuate to their bunkers,
hundreds of federal state, and local officials "practice" disaster response
to a nuclear attack, the FBI and "Delta Force" like commandos take to the
domestic alleyways in Top Secret operations, all because a butterfly flapped
its wings in Asia.  It all ties in so nicely.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/06/the_attack_has_already_h
appene.html