Sunday, October 13, 2002

The Fractal Nature of Terror Fractals are geometric shapes that can be subdivided into smaller and smaller units, each of which is a smaller sized copy of the whole.  The news headlines this weekend, which include the continued attacks by one or more snipers in Maryland, the bombing of a shopping center in Finland, and the bombing of a tourist nightclub in Bali, show the fractal nature of the problem we are up against.   It also starkly illustrates the folly and misguided nature of the coming war against Iraq.  If a fractal shape could be made out of clay and smashed, it would produce thousands of tiny fractals.  Each one could reproduce the essential elements of the whole.   The global spread of terrorism is similar.  It can devolve from large scale (state sponsored terrorism, the attack on the World Trade Center) to small scale, like the sniper or snipers in Maryland.  The operating assumption is that the sniper is a psychologically unbalanced murderer.  But it is equally plausible that it is a terrorist sniper, who single-handedly has destroyed the sense of normalcy in Washington and the surrounding area.   The problem is that terrorism is not caused by a monolithic organization—which if smashed, will cause all terrorism to disappear.  Instead it breaks into smaller and smaller fractal units, which can terrorize large numbers of people with very small expenditure of resources.  The problem with the Bush approach to Al Qaeda is that smashing the terrorists into smaller and smaller units is like breaking a fractal image.  It cannot be done, because each smaller piece replicates the whole.   If the climate for the ideology remains fertile, the smaller units will simply continue to act on a smaller and smaller scale.   Our society is such that a single determined person can do a great deal to break the social bonds that keep terror at bay.  The events with the Anthrax letters and the Maryland sniper illustrate this well.   To be truly safe, we need to address the underlying issues that allow the terrorism to spread.  It is possible that terror is the true Achilles heel of globalization, and that those who are marginalized, but educated, who are cast aside by American power and subjugated, first support terrorists in their hearts—as do a majority of Arabs in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine.  Then some, a smaller number, give material support, money and other encouragement.  Finally, a few in this environment, actually commit themselves to carry out terrorist acts, even if they die in the process.   This is the failure of American policy.  Iraq is a diversion.  It is being attacked because it is there, visible, a political target of opportunity that diverts public attention from the true nature of the problem, and the total failure of George Bush to address it.   We are witnessing the dawn of a very dark age—where wrong choices will lead us deeper into social catastrophe.   How many people in Maryland would now support mandatory registration and fingerprinting of the population; or perhaps the implanting of tracking devices in individuals if it would prevent a rash of random shootings.  When pushed far enough by terror, many will support unthinkable totalitarian measures.  This is the dark path our leaders have chosen.   It is not that we lose bases or access to oil.  The logic of the global war on terrorism is that we lose our very freedoms because of our leaders utter failure to understand the problem we are facing.  12:12:45 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:30:55 PM.