A Gesture or Something More?

"Around 10 gunmen attacked the vehicles when they were parked at an ordinary truck stop on the edge of Shikarpur town shortly after midnight. They forced the drivers and other people there to flee before setting the fires, said police officer Abdul Hamid Khoso. No one was wounded or killed."  AP

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OK.  I told them so...

The real question is whether or not this represents an actual change in strategy by Islamic militants or is it a gesture of displeasure on the part of Pakistan, a warning. Time will tell.

A second order danger in this that should now be evident to all those whose territory or airspace is necessary to the supply of NATO that they have tremendous leverage if they wish to exert it.  pl 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101001/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

 

 

Comments

[Jake]

I don't know what the hell this "logistics" is that Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it. - Admiral E. J. King

Eh? Who ain't getting this?

[Jane]

Jackie:

I thought it was probably tongue in cheek but given what some neocons have shown they are willing to do I was not entirely sure.

McCain is a odd duck and I do not fully understand how he makes decisions. For another example, he saw that the economy was in trouble and suggested a bipartisan stop to campaigning and a return to Washington to try and fix this. Obama resisted and when he did go back apparently dominated the session with a bunch of grandstanding questions while McCain sat there. So much for bi-partisanship.

[Fred]

Jane,

What bi-partisanship has Obama managed to get out of the Republican party since his inauguration? McCain missed his true chance at being president in the 2000 election.

[Jackie]

Jane: Thanks. Please, never mistake me for a neocon, I can't tolerate them.

As for bi-partisanship, what Fred said would have been my response.

[The Twisted Genius]

WILL said:

"There is one nation state in the world w/ enough technical ability to build the worm, and enough geopolitical stupidity to unleash it."

I have to disagree with you on this one. Stuxnet is an ingenious piece of code, but it's creation is well within the abilities and resources of a small, talented group of hackers unaffiliated with any nation state or large corporation. It is coded in C, C++ and the assembly language specific to a certain type of Siemens PLC hardware. A single skilled hacker could have written all this code although collaboration among several hackers is just as likely. Many years ago I taught myself 8088 assembler code, MSDOS disassembly and code modification without any nation state assistance… and my background was in anthropology! All the characteristics of Stuxnet that many others are using as proof that only the resources of an NSA or Mossad could produce it are within the capabilities of a band of resourceful, ingenious and determined hackers. Trust me on this.

Stuxnet is pretty large for malware… as large as many operating systems. It's loud and messy. Although Iran suffered the most infections early on, China now seems to be suffering a rash of infections. That's a lot of publicity and collateral damage for a nation state sponsored computer network attack. Symantec has published an excellent technical analysis in their recent W32.Stuxnet Dossier. IMHO, I think they also jump to conclusions when they attribute it to Israeli state sponsorship. Trying to determine the who and why of Stuxnet (or any other serious malware) is a lot like Vizinni and Westle sparring over which cup has the poison in it (The Princess Bride). I think there is probably a lot of intentional misdirection and obfuscation in the creation and release of Stuxnet. Mossad may be the culprit, but it's way too early to jump to any conclusions on this one.

I guess this is off topic, or perhaps it's just another question of "A Gesture or Something More?"