Skip to main content

New Terrorist Threat Levels

The old system of threat levels with various colours including Black Special was not exactly straightforward. However, we now have a new system of identifying a threat level.

These new categories are:
LowAn attack is unlikely
ModerateAn attack is possible, but not likely
SubstantialAn attack is a strong possibility
SevereAn attack is highly likely
CriticalAn attack is expected imminently


The current UK Threat level is Severe

We have now had about 5 years of the "war on terror". During that period the combined actions of the UK and US governments have been to create additional global hatreds such that now the situation is far worse than it was.

Dealing with actions in an asymmetric conflict is quite different to that in a symmetric conflict. Whereas there is a good argument that you need to be tough in dealing with law breaking where it is about self-interest. It is quite clear that, unless the underlying issues are dealt with, situations that result in terrorist attacks will continue to do so.

Furthermore if disproportionate acts are taken to deal with such conflict we actually end up with greater conflict and more acts of terror than otherwise.

That is why International Humanitarian Law has been developed over the years. If states follow those rules then it is possible to resolve conflicts without waiting for generations. The actions today of Bush and Blair will generate hatreds that will last for generations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Its the long genes that stop working

People who read my blog will be aware that I have for some time argued that most (if not all) diseases of aging are caused by cells not being able to produce enough of the right proteins. What happens is that certain genes stop functioning because of a metabolic imbalance. I was, however, mystified as to why it was always particular genes that stopped working. Recently, however, there have been three papers produced: Aging is associated with a systemic length-associated transcriptome imbalance Age- or lifestyle-induced accumulation of genotoxicity is associated with a generalized shutdown of long gene transcription and Gene Size Matters: An Analysis of Gene Length in the Human Genome From these it is obvious to see that the genes that stop working are the longer ones. To me it is therefore obvious that if there is a shortage of nuclear Acetyl-CoA then it would mean that the probability of longer Genes being transcribed would be reduced to a greater extent than shorter ones.