I had heard the "one wooden bomb" story from WWII before.
"For months, Berlin has been camouflaging its streets, squares , parks and lakes to confuse Allied fliers," reported Donovan. "All of Unter der Linden is now covered with giant colored nets under which the traffic moves... A simulated village has been erected in the center of the lake, of painted canvas on thin laths. To show contempt for this German effort at camouflage , a single RAF plane flew over the 'village' last night and dropped one wooden bomb."There's a whole history of the use of deception in WWII -- but I never knew that one man was at the heart of it: Major Jasper Maskelyne, professional magician and the man who made the Alexandria Harbor disappear. (Site found via Rogue Semiotics.)
This got me thinking a bit (not much more than a bit, so don't expect any revelations here) about information and the War on Terror. Once the battle for information becomes more important the physical battle (cf. Cryptonomicon, etc.), how then do we fight against guerillas? Doesn't the very presence of our large army in Iraq necessarily mean that the enemy will know more about us than we know about them?
| WWII | Magic | Iraq | Netwar | War on Terror | Asymmetric Warfare |
Here something that has been purculating in my mind since right after 9/11: war is the wrong word. At first "war" seemed liked an appropriate metaphor to capturing and bringing to justist the terrorist, just like the war on poverty, drugs, etc.. But as the overt military got more involved it became apparent that America means war in the literal sense. It's a flawed use of the term on so many ways, but the the most important way is this: Wars need soveriegn billigerents that can negotiate a peace. Obviously America could not have negotiated with OBL (ie UBL), just like we would not negotiate with a traditional mass murderer. Then we expanded the metaphor that became reality to Iraq. We wouldn't negotiate with Hussian. He either had to lay down his weapons and turn himself in or we would go in after him. And that's what we did. And now we have turned the insurgents into criminals who are not protected by the Geneva convention, but not protected by US laws either (like the commonest of streets thugs here). Bush said this a war unlike any other wars. But why is it a war at all?
Comment #1 :: link :: October 27, 2004 05:24 PMFunny, Alex asked the same questions back in Sept 01. Looks like we've never answered them.
Comment #2 :: link :: October 28, 2004 11:43 AMI think people like to go to war because wars are finite, winnable things. Even for losers, wars end. Japan and Germany started wars, they lost, they rebuilt, now we are all friends. Not so with poverty, drugs, or terrorism.
Comment #3 :: link :: October 28, 2004 01:37 PMI think people like to go to war because wars are finite, winnable things. Even for losers, wars end. Japan and Germany started wars, they lost, they rebuilt, now we are all friends. Not so with poverty, drugs, or terrorism.
Comment #4 :: link :: October 28, 2004 01:40 PMThe wooden bomb--I discovered on visits here
http://www.milvehtechfound.com/
that wooden shells were used to practice loading weapons and the like.
The wooden bomb--I discovered on visits here
http://www.milvehtechfound.com/
that wooden shells were used to practice loading weapons and the like.
The museum has a pretty good line in training items.
Comment #6 :: link :: November 2, 2004 02:16 AM
