Dresden ???? some are still trying to figure out what this achieved. ----------------------------- I don't think it achieved anything whatsoever. I think rather it was an example of a buraucracy going on autopilot. Germany was already conquered and barely had enough government left even to surrender. I think Dresdan was simply "next" and no one thought of aborting.

8:26:14 PM He did use the word "targetted". As in, "aimed at, with the intention of hitting". Get it? ---------------------------- Indeed? well your probably right and this may prove that i am not quite infallible. In any case much of my anyalisis does remain correct. Much of the attacks against civilians is of the "what do you do with a drunken soldier" type rather than a specific strategy. However when it is done as an actuall strategy authorised by the command the usual reasons are either to hurt the enemies economic base, increase ones own(foraging and slavetaking)and effect morale. Much of attacks against civilians before have been attacks against civilian economy, rather than direct physical attacks against there persons. Even the allied strategic bombings were often of this category. As for the terrorists, they are essentially a combination of a crime syndicate and a cult and draw their strength from the methods of both. The killing of civilians that they do is the same sort of thing that Al Capone would have done if he felt his power slowly slipping away.

Absolute casualty counts are deceitful. They reflect the resources available rather than any actual change. Thus World War I would have had the same casualties with muskets if the same number of people are involved: changes in weapons technology affect the final decision of battle more than the butchers bill. And they only affect the decision if there is asymetry. If both sides have the same technology and both have a roughly equal tactical theory then the proportion of casualties will not change. As for civilian casualties the same applies. The number of civilians killed depends a lot simply on the ammount of stuff flying around, the number of starving, lecherous and ill-trained soldiers in a given province, or whatever. For a while big league millitary technology tended toward tremendous firepower in volume, and little accuracy. That of course meant an increase in collateral. However the trend among the big-leaguers is turning how toward accuracy. In the meantime minor wars continues with the neverending trickle of slaughter they always have. There civilian casualties come from the same source they always have. Plunder, plague, famine and the general disruption that comes from destroying the local law and making a massive increase in the local population at the same time. The "soldiers" plunder the peasantry. The peasants in turn either endure, form vigilante groups(which often evolve into warlord gangs themselves) or become bandits. And so the miserable mess continues. Just like Seven Samurai, except it doesn't very often have such a happy ending. -------------------------------------- I am not contridicting myslf. I am postulating a generalization(absoulute casualties reflect number involved rather then technology of weapons)and admiting an exception(tendancy toward rate-of-fire rather then accuracy created more collaterall in the twentieth century).

Forgive me if this has been addressed, I've only read the opening post... Civilians are the easiest to intentionally target. Added to that is a psychological dimension. Terrorism isn't for its victims as much as it is for its survivors. It's goal is to shake the faith of its survivors in the ability of their government to protect them from harm. It is the most sinister of political influences, because it turns cowards into collaborators.

Civilians are the easiest to intentionally target. Added to that is a psychological dimension. Terrorism isn't for its victims as much as it is for its survivors. It's goal is to shake the faith of its survivors in the ability of their government to protect them from harm. It is the most sinister of political influences, because it turns cowards into collaborators. ------------------------------------------- Actually the effectivness of terrorism/guerralla warfare depends a lot on how much the population identifys with the governments cause. The European empires post WWII lost because they were tired of empire anyway Batista etc, lost because they weren't liked very much anyway. The Palestinians are not going to destroy Israel because they give the Israelis no advantage in letting themselves be destroyed "what do you want us to do" "die"-Independance Day If the target is just as terrifyed of yeilding as fighting, then terrorism will just make them mad.

1)Because someone thinks it might accomplish their goals. This has two parts: a)It can cause an enemy to surrender. For all the denials of the Spanish government, the fact is that when terrorists bombed trains in Spain, Spain withdrew their forces from the ME. That looks like a victory to many of the terrorist groups. Terrorist attacks caused a country to change it's policy in a way the terrorists favored. b)It can gain support for the terrorists among their putative supporters. In the Islamic world, IOW. And, it has. 2)Because the terrorists are angry, and want to kill someone, but are afraid to fight the militaries of the people they hate. .

2)Because the terrorists are angry, and want to kill someone, but are afraid to fight the militaries of the people they hate. .----------------- that may actually be the best answer so far

Debugger--Over the last few decades we have seen an increase in the targeting of civilians over military personnel. Why? And what can we learn from history on this subject Vapid--An Answer: Earlier this month the Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote, "As the late Susan Sontag bravely pointed out in a New Yorker essay published right after Sept. 11, 2001, those terrorist attacks were in response to American policy in the Middle East - not, as Bush has said repeatedly since, because Islamic radicals cannot abide freedom." And Patrick Buchanan - allegedly on the other side of the ideological spectrum - has declared countless times, "Osama bin Laden and his crew up there in Tora Bora did not stumble on a copy of the Bill of Rights and go berserk that Americans are free in the United States." In short, the notion that America is in a war for freedom over tyranny has elicited bipartisan snickering and guffawing. In the wake of Bush's inaugural, the chorus of complaints intensified. And understandably so, given the fact that his address was the most forceful articulation of his "freedom" vision to date. But before the cackles could reach their crescendo, the naysayers hit an inconvenient snag. Musab al-Zarqawi, the "prince" of Al-Qaida in Iraq, appointed by Osama Bin Laden, came out and agreed with President Bush. "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," Zarqawi declared in a statement. "Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion," he said, and that is "against the rule of God." You can almost hear Cohen and Buchanan snapping their pencils "Darn it, stop stepping on my message!" Zarqawi's declaration came after a statement by Bin Laden himself in December, in which he pronounced: "Anyone who participates in these elections . has committed apostasy against Allah." Now, this doesn't mean that Bin Laden and Zarqawi aren't motivated by less lofty - or merely different - principles than an Islamist rejection of democracy. To be sure, Bin Laden's initial grievances included America's relationship to Saudi Arabia, Israel and all the usual complaints. But underlying these gripes was an ideology - and remains an ideology - opposed to freedom and democracy. The intellectual founder of Islamism, Sayyid Qutb, wrote in 1957: "In the world there is only one party, the party of Allah; all of the others are parties of Satan and rebellion. Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of the rebellion." If you peruse the incalculably valuable website Memri.org - which translates articles, manifestoes and broadcasts from across the Arabic world - you will find countless declarations from Islamist groups declaring that democracy is an "atheist" heresy that replaces the law of God with the law of man, and that anyone who advocates elections is ipso facto an infidel. In his December statement, Osama Bin Laden "ruled" - as if he has any right to do so - that Iraqi forces who aid the upcoming elections "are apostates who should not be prayed over upon their deaths. They cannot inherit, and they must not be inherited from [after their deaths]. Their wives are divorced from them, and they must not be buried in Muslim cemeteries." Sure sounds like someone hates democracy to me. Those who pooh-pooh the notion that our enemies hate freedom believe that such ideologically totalitarian movements can exist within their own borders indefinitely. All we have to do is treat them like a hornet's nest and don't upset them (no matter that they topple their own governments and seek ever more conquests). Unfortunately, we live in a world where a bunch of antidemocratic and homicidal zealots can make life dangerous for all of us. "Not our fight," the president's critics seem to say. But if they're wrong, thousands or millions could die as a result. And, like it or not, that fight is in Iraq right now. For the first time in a hard-fought, bloody, and at times metaphysically depressing couple of years, it looks like there's cause for optimism there. Indications are that turnout will be high in Sunday's elections. Sunni leaders now say they want a role in constructing the new constitution. Zarqawi's prized bomb-making lieutenant was captured, and interim Prime Minister Allawi is gaining support. But the best news from Iraq in a while is Zarqawi's forceful and forthright rejection of democracy and freedom as a principle. He doesn't want a more "authentic" democracy, he wants to kill it. This alone gives Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis he claims to represent, a stark choice: Accept the painful but promising path of elections, or side with the man most responsible for the car-bombings of mosques and markets, who would replace Saddam's nationalist totalitarianism for a new religious one ruled by foreigners like him and Bin Laden. Given that choice, who can doubt the Iraqis will vote w

Call for New 'Manhattan Project' to Fight Bioterror Thu Jan 27,12:31 PM ET By Ben Hirschler DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The world needs an effort similar to that behind the creation of the atomic bomb to tackle the multi-faceted threat of biowarfare, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday. "We need to do something that even dwarfs the Manhattan project," Frist told the World Economic Forum (news - web sites) in Davos. The Manhattan project was the codename for the United States's World War II effort to devise an atomic weapon. "The greatest existential threat we have in the world today is biological. Why? Because unlike any other threat it has the power of panic and paralysis to be global." He predicted that the world would experience another bioweapon attack within the next decade, following the limited casualties seen when anthrax was sent through the U.S. mail system in 2001. Next time, the death rate could be a much, much higher, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites) Professor John Deutch. An attack using the smallpox virus is overwhelmingly the largest risk, he believes. The disease was officially eradicated three decades ago but Deutch said it was possible former Soviet stocks were still at large or even that small quantities could be extracted from graves. "Every country has a vulnerability here," he said. VACCINE In a bid to protect citizens, the U.S. government has ordered millions of doses of smallpox vaccine as part of a wide-ranging security drive in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Other governments are also following suit in stocking up on smallpox shots. But experts warned that other avenues were open to would-be terrorists, with diseases such as plague and Ebola (news - web sites) hemorrhagic fever virus options for weaponisation. More worryingly still, sophisticated groups might in the future use genetic engineering to produce hybrid microbes against which there are no defenses. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute, said such developments raised the question of whether there should be restrictions on publication of some scientific research in biology. Physicists are already limited from sharing information on atomic weapons technology. Collins said openness was the best strategy but he suggested there could be specific information about protocols used to create dangerous super-bugs that might, in future, be classified.

Chechens 'vow Beslan-type attacks' Thursday, February 3, 2005 Posted: 1455 GMT (2255 HKT) Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, seen in a 1999 file photo. RELATED Gallery: Beslan captors videotape siege -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Chechen 'claims Beslan attack' • Basayev: Russia's most wanted man • Maskhadov: Chechnya's defiant ex-leader -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Gallery: Bloody end to school siege • Gallery: Victims mourned • Interactive: School grounds map • Timeline: How siege unfolded • Timeline: Russia terror attacks YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Russia Beslan Vladimir V. Putin or Create your own Manage alerts | What is this? LONDON, England (AP) -- Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last year's brutal terrorist attack on a Russian school, was quoted as saying Thursday that the separatist rebels are planning more such operations. More: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/03/chechnya.ap/