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"The next war will be fought in virtual territory. Land's not at stake anymore, information is."
Ah, precient words from a fictional character. The bombers got what they were after: a gruesomely spectacular image of American symbols of power crashing down. If i were a deranged psychopath, i couldn't have asked for better hard copy myself.
Given that the United States has no nation-state to actually declare war on, those words ring increasingly true every time i see Colin Powell open his mouth. we can nuke those dastardly Afghanis till they glow, but these terrorist cells will just slip away and wait for us to let our guard down again. and so i keep hearing all this talk about a different kind of war, fought not just with infantry and bombs but with financial task forces, information-gathering brigades, and diplomatic SWAT teams.
i'm a political science major, and i always thought that all this talk about the decline of the nation-state, the primary actor on the global scale, was more academic bullshit.
but Tuesday and all the talk that followed is slowly changing my attitude. This is "Jihad vs. McWorld: The Movie." Are violent extremist groups and supra-national security networks the new big men on campus? shit, i don't know. could be. but then maybe this is just the media flavor-of-the-month, just like Gary Condit was last summer, George Bush the months before, the election last fall, Elian in the spring of 2000.
i'll quote him again, then continue listening to Faith No More: "land isn't at stake anymore, information is."
morrison, you scare the hell out of me. where can i sign up for your fan club? |
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