A Question of Intent

August 2009 CityView opinion piece

I wrote the piece quoted below for CityView before the nation's economy went completely to crap. (Or at least before we realized that it had.)  Looking back on it, I am even more of a mind to doubt the completely incidental nature of the downturn.  However, as an amateur student of Complexity, I also doubt that anyone anticipated the current situation.  I am increasingly of the opinion that what we did to the Soviets was done to us.  I think that whatever entity or entities responsible were successful exponentially beyond their wildest dreams.  I have no proof, but I also have very little faith in coincidence at this level.  If by some chance this really was all an accident, then we still need to be prepared for some ill-intentioned individual as smart as I am to exploit the potential.

CAFKIA

Let us briefly revisit the good ol' days of the Cold War.  Specifically, let's discuss the end of the Cold War.  Republicans are sure that St Archangel Ronnie of Raygun was the architect and contractor of the fall of the Berlin wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union through his policy of talking tough and checking his horoscope with his wife.  Intelligent people know that the fall and breakup were the cause of a complex set of happenings that crossed several executive administrations over decades.  However, the process may be arguably distilled to the idea that through our national and allied policies, we, the USA, induced the Soviet Union and her allies, to spend in preparation for war in such a fashion that their economies could not support.  Rather obviously, there was a significant sociological component to that as well but, it was the economic aspect of it that we notice mostly.  Ever more complex and expensive weapons systems and monitoring equipment along with the requisite training to operate them were at the core of the upheaval.

Even though Americans refuse to learn from our own history, others appear to not be so constrained.

I really am not a numbers guy.  I suppose that if I really tried I could find a fair approximation of the costs of the things I'm about to mention but, in truth, if the approximations don't do it for you, I very much doubt that the actual numbers will.  Imagine the costs to set up and operate a totally new cabinet level bureaucracy.  How many tens or hundreds of billions has the Office of Homeland Security cost us so far?  I'm only speaking initially about the start-up costs, stationary, offices, furniture, computers, folders, vehicles etc.  Then we have to consider the additional salaries, equipment maintenance, bldg maintenance, utilities, fuel, lawyers and Gawd only knows what.  Homeland Security Department was an undertaking that only a government could afford from the very beginning.  Imagine then, other places that money might be useful were it not tied up in a brand new bureaucracy.

Then you have to look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The vehicle costs alone represent the GNP of a moderate sized nation.  Estimates range as high as $1.5 trillion + (1,500,000,000,000.00 plus) as the cost so far.  The costs in human lives simply can't be quantified as the only way to know the real potential of a given human is to wait and see what they do.  We do know that the wars have cost several nations an unacceptable number of their "best and brightest".  Not just by killing them but, also by removing the motivation and or ability for huge numbers of citizens to fully participate in their societies. 

There are other costs of course.  The straining of civility between political parties, the strain on existing treaties and agreements, and the strain on scientific and industrial working agreements.  A hack like me has no chance of even coming up with a number but, that doesn't mean there isn't a monetary hit associated with those things.  I rather suspect that the number would be a surprisingly large (would Daimler and Chrysler still be together if German citizens had faith in the intentions of the U.S. and if we could get past the lack of verbal and material support for our ill-considered venture in Iraq) number.  There has certainly been a diminishment of faith in the objectiveness of the Dept. of Justice.  The opinions concerning torture alone that were written by politically motivated lawyers are a major source of bad faith in that department and the nation at large by our own citizens of a different political persuasion and by citizens of other nations as well.  Our very image of ourselves as the good guys, the white hats, is clearly at risk.

So, let's say you are a small, minimally-funded concern who is in opposition to a large well funded concern.  What if you had a strategy which was basically to level the fiscal playing field by forcing your opponent to spend huge amounts of their funds.  What might the reality of your strategy look like?  It would look like the current United States of America.  From overtime pay for run of the mill local cops, to additional equipment and training for swat teams and explosive ordinance disposal teams, to Transportation Security Officers, to additional responsibilities on state Bureau's of Investigation, increased incidents requiring reaction from the FBI, to all of the costs I noted above, every time a possible or suspected terrorist does anything, it costs us money.  How long can we keep it up?  Who knows?  I for one, would not be completely surprised if these expenditures weren't the goal from the very beginning.  You see, "Make them spend all their money." isn't a particularly complicated or original plan or concept and, it doesn't take a mastermind to come up with it.

It does help to have a large crew of complicit idiots in the target concern to make the plan work really well

Comments

[Cork]

Great day Steve - I thought only right-wing kooks were conspiracy theorist, but you have proven me wrong my friend! Too much Koolaid man! I love ya' anyway though.

[CAFKIA]

So, you don't think that is what we did to the Soviets? Or is it that you consider it impossible that some one could do that to us?

I stated that I thought that even if that was their plan, they succeeded far and away beyond their wildest dreams. Still, it is not hard for me to see that as their dream. They minimized their costs including using our own tools of capitalism as weapons against us. Our costs, even if we had not gone to war, were huge, The physical structures, the additional security measures, the lost revenue from the flight stoppage, the business interruption, and above all, the loss of life, all represented a cost ratio drastically in favor of the terrorists. All they would have needed was a few more attacks that successful and we might well be at our current fiscal mess anyway.

As I say, I have no proof and no, I do not think this outcome was anticipated. I just think that the attack was not intended to be an end, rather it was to be part of a process the goal of which was the destruction of the nation.

Your Milage May Vary.

[Crane Trucks]

Yeah, You're right.