Terrorism is much more about fear than it is about actual risk.

Discuss...

(this will be interesting to me as i have a decent background in risk management, ****, etc.)

 

Not much to discuss, plain facts aren't very interesting you know dre.....

 

yeah but some idiot will bite on it... i have faith in one thing in this world..

The continued expansion of idiocy in people

"Nothing in life is certain except death and idiocy"

BenjaDr3 Franklin

 

True by definition.

 

How about in 1775, American's were viewed as insurgents and, what?, 50 years later viewed as imperialists.

Actually, maybe I'm dense but I don't get the point of that statement. Who's fear? Who's risk? It's obviously a mathematical statement but it doesn't add up because the factors aren't divisible by each other in that they are mutually exclusive. Terrorism = capitalists/imperialists fear < insurgent's risk?????

In our society right now, it's almost traitorous to legitize terrorism as a weapon or a extension of diplomacy much like conventional military action...but that argument could be made.

If Johnny Joe Rottenteeth is a 6'7", 260lb bully who hates my 6'1", 190 puny butt and has made it clear that he WILL be beating on my ***, it would be suicidal for me to fight him toe to toe (not really, but you get my meaning.) Is it wrong for me to develop a course of action that some may consider as being p***y? Like a brick or a gun or hiring another 6'7" 280 dude?

Personally, it isn't something I'd do, but like Chris Rock would say.......I understand.

So, am I saying that I don't fault the 9/11 attackers? Absofrickenlutely not! Wrong or right. Criminal or justified. It don't matter. As a soldier, I took those attacks as a an afront in that I am not doing my job. I think that the military, the intelligence community, the decision makers were asleep at the wheel and we got awoken in a most violent manner. Unfortunately, a recently awoken sleeping giant is listless and slow to learn. We haven't taken advantage of a terrible experience and grown from it.

That part of your post is actually more interesting to me since it's an integral part of an Infantry leader's job.

What I like about risk management is that it is a very specific decision matrix-like tool. Whenever you're attempting to decide which is a better, safer course of action, you always have to weigh probability vs. gravity, ie. the probability of a helicopter suffering terminal malfunction with 11 soldiers & 3 crew onboard while inflight vs. the gravity of it crashing in that situation...probability is actually very low but the gravity is obviously very high, so no matter what risk abatement measures are put into place, flying in a bird will always be high risk.

I apply that same sort of thing in my daily life. If I do this, what are the worst possible outcomes and what are the probability that they happen.

I was required to give safety briefs to my soldiers prior to any long weekends and my intent was to instill in them one word which would culminate an entire change of paradigm for them....THINK.

In wording that everyone could understand, I tried to use the risk assessment model to help them steer clear of dangerous or illegal situations...when I nor none of their leaders were there with them.

You could make a good argument that almost all of my fistfights after the age of 21 normally occured at a pool table in a bar when some chucklehead would try to say that his quarters were in front of mine. Ha ha ha.

You know, if I'd have stopped for one moment and took stock of the situation, I imagine that no blood would have been shed. If I were to have only asked myself, "if I let this guy go ahead of me, what's the harm? Where's the shame?" Of course I was usually drunk and I enjoyed fighting so much that that approach would have been difficult, but if I somehow developed the self-discipline to 'get along' and abide by the rules/law, I would have had a much easier time (read: less waivers to get back into the Army.)

Anyhow, sorry for the ramble. Provacative statement, but the thesis escapes me.

Dre, have you used Decision Matrices a lot?

 

Not for work, but yes i have done them in the past.

 

Everybody should watch the BBC documentary series "The Power of Nightmares"

it is REALLY amazing stuff, once you see how it all works, this whole terrorism/political extremism "mass mind control through manufactured fear" thing our world is caught up in seems like such a childish game...

The sheer tragedy is staggering- so much money and so many innocent lives being shamefully wasted chasing ghosts and creating enemies that did not exist before.

anyway, don't take my word for it watch the show sometime for yourself.