Friday 8 July 2005

SimTerror 05

Recently, the blog Silent Running conducted a mini exercise on how to deal with Terrorism in a western society.

Some of the initial events:
Reports are starting to come in of two powerful explosions in central Sydney.

Fifty minutes ago, as the commuter rush hour was getting underway, a commuter train in the central city which had just commenced its run was derailed after one of its carriages exploded.

Emergency services were quickly at the scene, and an operation is now underway to rescue trapped survivors.

Sources have spoken about several bodies being taken away, but details are not being released until next of kin are located and informed.

Some of the bodies are said to be unrecogniseable.

Meanwhile, only twenty minutes ago, another explosion occured at the Macquarie Center, a popular shopping centre in the city's North Shore.

No details about that incident are available, but we will bring you the latest information as soon as it becomes available.
And soon thereafter
A third explosion has just occured in Sydney.

A school bus which just a few hours ago had been full of children on their way home from a a rural high school just outside the city was badly damaged in a blast.

It was parked at the bus company's premises in Sydney's far west.

There are no reports of anyone being hurt.
Attacks on transport infrastructure are particularly effective in causing maximum inconvenience and economic hardship, while being very difficult to defend against except by draconian measures.

Given recent events in London, the contingency plans seem to have worked even better in reality than they did in the simulation. It remains to be seen whether UK PM Blair's policies will match as closely those of the (simulation) Australian PM. But I think his speech on the subject may be close to this one:
The Terrorists who hide behind a Human Shield of devout and pious Muslims have already attacked us many times before.

They attacked us on the 11th of September, when innocent Australians died with the collapse of the World Trade Centre.

They attacked us again, this time in Bali, where hundreds of innocent Australians and Balinese died.

Both of these attacks occurred before the Liberation of Iraq.

There is no evidence to show that changing Australia's foreign policy by kowtowing to terrorists would prevent future attacks.

Should Australia convert to Islam overnight, it would just make us a bigger target: for Al Qaeda and its minions have killed far more Muslims than all other religions combined.

8 Million Iraqis have given us an example of courage under fire from these evil people. We can do no less than they did, when they voted in their hundreds, thousands, and millions despite threats of the most dire sort.

Our future actions will speak louder than words ever could, so our reply will be brief, cogent, and unchangeable.

The answer to Al Qaeda, a bi-partisan answer which echoes from the complete spectrum of Australian Politics is, quite simply, No.
In the meantime, to all those affected by the bombings, my condolences. I have relatives who may be amongst the casualties too.

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