Crypto Blamed for US terrorist attack - World Exclusive

[Owen Lewis]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of Q G Campbell
> Sent: 12 September 2001 12:59
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: RE: Crypto Blamed for US terrorist attack - World Exclusive

> My naïve attitude is that there are no fundamental differences between
> the methods of the IRA and the terrorist organisations responsible for
> the NY atrocities except that the IRA commits atrocities against UK/NI
> targets and UK/NI citizens.
>
> As always this is a private view and my posting does not represent in
> any way my employer.

With all respect, there is a great difference.

For the last several years, the IRA has expertly used acts of 'terrorism' to
pursue doggedly a political agenda. In this they have been largely
successful, in part because they have been at pains to restrict their acts
to grabbing large headlines and causing discomfiture with minimum risk to
life.

The acts yesterday in NY, Washington and near Pittsburgh were purposefully
designed to kill very large numbers of people. The final death toll may
never be known with certainty but there is already reason to suppose that it
will not be less then 50,000. This is any act of 'terrorism' but an act of
war and the USA is now indeed at war though a declaration to that effect has
yet to be made.

Perhaps only those with experience of military operations will fully
appreciate the level of planning, discipline, expertise, coordination and
self-sacrifice required to conduct yesterday's operation so successfully. It
was a carefully organised and well run operation designed as an act of war.
It is reasonable to assume that one or more 'terrorist' groups were involved
in the implementation of the plan but it is improbable that such a plan
could be brought to fruition without the knowledge of it and connivance in
it by some state's government.

This is, truly, the warfare of the future, as most of those whose metier is
to study war have realised this long time past. Much now depends on how the
US reacts. My guess (and, sadly, my hope) is that those who already expect
that the reaction to be one of investigation, arrest, prosecution,
conviction and sentence, all according to the rules of criminal law, will be
and must be  confounded. We are, all of us and every day, now exposed to the
risks of a repetition of this type of act - and much worse besides - as long
as those who consider such acts a reasonable proposition remain alive and
capable of organisation.

Only one thing will minimise the risk of such an act occurring time and
again in the future. The destruction of those who have shown themselves
willing to commit or aid such an act and - of equal importance - the
destruction and taking under administration of any society, nation state or
otherwise, which causes or associates itself with such an act. Anything less
than this draconian act will be seen as impotence and laughed at by those
prepared to undertake such acts and it would only serve to encourage future
repetition and worse.

I think, in the short term, we all face hard, uncomfortable and distressing
choices. Better this by far than that the distress of so many in the USA
this week be visited interminably on millions of others.

We tend forget that liberty is bought at a price. The price can never be
paid in coin. It is found in the determination of men's minds to do whatever
is required that the basic liberty - a freedom of fear for one's life and
for the lives of one's dear ones and one's neighbours lives - shall be
maintained at all costs. That price is not a one off payment but a series of
payments by  instalment. The demand for the next payment has been received.

I sincerely wish that the American people and their Government deliver this
payment promptly, in full measure and without visible hesitation. In so far
as those of us who see that this difficult course is the only one that can
be reasonably followed, we owe to the US and its people such support,
comradeship and unanimity of purpose in this endeavour as we are able give.

Owen Lewis