The killing will continue until the morals improve

Sad news has come from Canada over the past few days--two separate attacks have killed two Canadian soldiers.

The Harper government has been quick to condemn the attacks as ISIL-inspired terrorism. Unfortunately I am unaware of any investigation that has evidence to support this assertion. It seems likely that the attacks may be characterized as terrorism, but making a definitive statement linking them to a particular foreign group seems likely to skew the result of any investigation. Will the RCMP feel obligated to present conclusions that support the Prime Minister's assertions?

Like all Canadians, I too am saddened by these attacks. But it is important that we learn the truth behind the attacks, and act in a way to reduce their future likelihood. This will probably not mean that we should deport all Muslims; or that we should make Islam illegal; both of which are suggestions I have already heard from other Canadians.

We should not be afraid to investigate the possible role of recent Canadian foreign policy in these attacks. This means that we should ignore all the cries about "blaming the victims". The victims of these attacks are named Nathan Cirillo and Patrice Vincent. Neither the Canadian government nor the Department of Foreign Affairs are victims of this attack--investigating the connection between their actions and the recent appearance of acts of terror (both planned and realized) is not blaming the victim.

We are hearing claims of "radicalization" at the hands of Islamic clerics--but this has not been demonstrated. Nowhere do we hear of the possibility of "radicalization" due to the feelings of hopelessness and despair over injustices committed in our names in the Middle East.

There are many Canadians who are angry at the evolution of Canadian foreign policy, from "honest broker" to whatever it is that we are now. The vast majority of them will never raise their hand in anger against another. Their frustration has mounted, as their voices have gone unheard, and ever-greater acts of aggression are committed overseas in their name.

All over the world, I have seen the same thing. As long as there remains the possibility of peaceful change, peace will reign. But if the system is so heavily skewed that there is no possibility that your opinions will be heard, people eventually turn to violence.

Canada is about to embark on another mission overseas. Canadian soldiers will be placed in harm's way yet again. Some of them may become victims of attacks either here or overseas. The radicalization, one by one, of previously peaceful Canadians at home will also continue.

The killing will continue until the morals improve.

There's no terror like state terror

. . . we study the frequency and severity of terrorist attacks since 1968. We show that these events are uniformly characterized by the phenomenon of scale invariance, i.e., the frequency scales as an inverse power of the severity, . . .

                                             Clauset et al., 2007 (pdf)

As we enter this season of peace, I find myself reflecting on war. And scale invariance.

The work cited above is old, and has been digested for some time. To recap, the frequency of terrorist events varies inversely as the square of the severity (typically measured in casualties)--and this relationship is independent of time selected, targets, weapon type, or responsible group. Even massive attacks, such as the September 11 attacks do not represent outliers, but form part of the statistical continuum of "normal" terrorism.

I've extended this graph to include a few other events.

In this chart, D represents recent estimates of the deaths during the Dresden firebombing, N1 represents deaths from the nuclear bombing at Nagasaki, T represents deaths during one particular firebombing raid of Tokyo, H represents deaths from the nuclear attack of Hiroshima, and N represents deaths during the massacre of Nanking.

We commonly carry out similar analyses for the purposes of risk assessments for natural hazards such as earthquakes. If we know the recurrence interval for small events, we can estimate the recurrence interval of very large events, provided the size-frequency distribution is characterized by scale invariance. We can carry out a similar assessment here. Unfortunately, we don't really know the recurrence interval of an event like the September 11 attack--but let us assume here that September 11 represents the largest terror attack one would expect in any 25-year period.

If so, then the recurrence interval for a Dresden would be 2500 years; for Nagasaki, it would be about 7500 years; for Tokyo, about 10,000 years, Hiroshima 15,000 years; and Nanking, about 50,000 years. I note that all of these events happened in the last century.

It seems likely that these state-sponsored events happen on their own frequency curve, which goes to show that nobody can do terror like the modern State.

Supercomputation in the social sciences

At long last, the partnership between the NSA intensive computation group and the Institute for Complexity theory has come to fruition, and the result is a new computer capable of studying complex strategic and geopolitical issues. This new machine has two separate formal logic methods allowing it to accept as input all forms of available information. Thus, in addition to ordinary numerical inputs (number of kills, manufacturing indices, shipping information) this computer is able to break down speeches of important political figures, analyze and project trends in social media, and even use keyword counts from global emails as a means of determining the mood on the street.

Imagine the excitement then, as President Obama asked this new computer it's first question. "How far are we from a statisfactory resolution of our problems in Afghanistan."

For several minutes, the computer whirred softly. Out came the answer: "237,000 miles."

The President and his advisors all considered this answer carefully. But nobody understood what it meant. Perhaps the computer misunderstood the question. So they tried again.

"How  far are we from achieving victory in the war on terror?"

Once again the computer went to work, and the answer: "One million miles."

One of the programmers interjected. "Perhaps we should have the computer show us the information used in its calculation." And so it was done.

Today we are one step closer to the establishment of the US-Afghan strategic partnership. Most importantly, today we are one step closer to our shared goal and vision of a secure and sovereign Afghanistan

                           - General John Allen, April 8, 2012 

The improvement we have witnessed recently in Iraq represents marked progress in the Global War Terror and brings us one step closer to eradicating terrorism establishing another democratic ally in the region

                          - Senator John Boozman

The following timeline highlights ten drone attacks which resulted in deaths of al Qaeda operatives or other militants. These deaths take us one step closer to victory in the war against terror. [series of drone strikes follows]

                       - an Express Tribune blog posting 

While our fight against terror is far from over, I am hopeful that bin Laden's death will bring us one step closer to peace

                        - Congressman Mike Thompson 

Book review: Beyond the Blue Gate

The interrogation of persons engaged in security threats and subversive conspiracies is not an invitation to a dinner, as Mao said of revolutions. It is a very serious matter. No person would implicate himself if he can help it. It is therefore necessary to break down the defences which a suspect automatically builds around himself. To discuss ISD's [Internal Security Department] methods of interrogation is to risk reducing their effectiveness. The government makes no apology for their effectiveness in uncovering the truth without torture. And they have been varied and improved from time to time.

                                   - Chin Fook Leong, in Far Eastern Economic Review, Nov. 12, 1987

Beyond the Blue Gate: Recollections of a Political Prisoner describes the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of the author, Teo Soh Lung, for "taking part in a Marxist conspiracy" (according to the Internal Security Department). The book also deals with the arrests of her "co-conspirators", who appear to have been arrested for making statements critical of legislation passed by the government headed by Lee Kwan Yew.

The book should be viewed as a cautionary tale--about government agencies with virtually unlimited power and no oversight.

In the mid 1980's, according to the government, Singapore's democracy was under threat of imminent violent overthrow by Marxists bent on creating a Communist government. In support, on 21 May 1987, some two dozen individuals (including the author) were arrested in connection with this conspiracy. Not a single gun, bullet, knife, or slingshot was presented as evidence--however, as we have seen in many places since, once security directorates have made such a claim, they will go to extraordinary lengths to cover up their errors. If that means that a few dozen individuals lose their reputations and businesses, the government views that as preferable to its own loss of prestige.

Ironically, the People's Action Party (which was and is the ruling party in Singapore) originally began as a socialist party allied with pro-communist trade unions.

The loss of reputation is a grievous blow, particularly when there is no chance the government will admit to a mistake. The author describes how, during her arrest, she saw one of her neighbours standing outside, but the moment they made eye contact, the neighbour disappeared inside. It is a scene reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn (though unfortunately not as well written)--the arrest in the wee hours of the morning; the neighbours pretending not to know you. And during the interrogations, the dropped hints of arrest or punishment of your friends and family--and the long days and weeks in isolation, never knowing.

I recall dimly hearing of these events at the time, and smugly thinking that such things could never happen in any North American country. I viewed it as evidence that Singapore was not a "real" democracy.

Reading this book in light of the War on Terror, and the prospects for unlimited detention (or even assassination) on the basis of an assertion by an executive authority has broken my earlier smugness. Instead there is a mounting horror of what is happening in what I used to think were real democracies.

They, too, do not apologize for the effectiveness of their interrogations.

A lesson for Al-Qaeda

The Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) is a militant group which participated in the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 as well as attacks against American targets prior to 1979. Subsequently they came into opposition with the Islamic government there, and carried out attacks until 2001.

The MEK is still recognized as a terrorist group in Canada. However it has recently been announced that this designation is going to be removed in the US. At least part of the reason for this change is that MEK is now working with Mossad to kill Iranian scientists. Additionally, the MEK has lobbyists working Congress and have paid for speeches by at least one ex-state governor.

As often happens, the lesson is there is a political path off the terror list that does not necessarily include renouncing terror.

Take the test: See what kind of terrorist you are (Canadian edition) - updated

Fintrac puroports to protect us all.

Test is available here.* Sorry if you love animals or trees. A partial screenshot appears below.

We're not distrustful of the government on this blog, nosiree!

*Update: Strangely enough, the site seems to have been taken down or had its address changed. If I can find it (if it still exists) I will post a new link.

Update 2. The missing page has not reappeared. But there is this.