The New War

Abstract

THE NEW WARTHE SUICIDAL COLLISIONS OF HIJACKED COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS INTO the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, entailed the most destructive terrorist attack in world history. Before the deaths of over 3,000 people in those attacks, the historically greatest single terrorist attack claimed the lives of about 380 people. The 2001 disaster took place at a time when experts had been defining a new form of terrorism focused on millennial visions of apocalypse and mass casualties. The catastrophic attacks seemed to confirm the previously unheeded fears of terrorism experts-that a qualitatively different form of terrorism was emerging.The State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism report revealed that the number of terrorist attacks has scaled back, even while the numbers of casualties have increased. 1 The late 1980s were a high point for terrorist attacks, with the number of attacks exceeding 600 in the years [1985][1986][1987][1988]. With the exception of 1991, the number of terrorist attacks since 1988 has decreased to below 450 every year, reaching their nadir in the years 1996-1998, when the number of attacks decreased to about 300. The number of attacks has increased slightly since 1998, when there were 274, but the numbers have not reached those realized in any of the years of the 1980s. This report is not a linear progression from large numbers to small numbers of attacks, but the trend revealed is one of a decreasing number of attacks.Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network of international terrorists are the prime examples of the new terrorism, but Islamic radicalism is not the only form of apocalyptic, catastrophic terrorism. Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese religious cult, executed its first major terrorist attack using chemical weapons on a Tokyo subway in 1995. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma revealed similar extremism by American right-wing militants. Other plots by Christian identity terrorists have shown similar mass casualty proclivities.

Did Winston Churchill suffer a myocardial infarction in the White House at Christmas 1941?

“…After dinner, Churchill had a meeting with the President and conducted the two-hour conversation with great skill, according to Beaverbrook. 5 At nearly midnight, Wilson received a message in his room at the Mayflower Hotel that Churchill wanted to see him 5 and he set out for the White House in one of the President's cars. He waited in his patient's bedroom for an hour and a half before Churchill emerged from a meeting with President Roosevelt.…”

“…He waited in his patient's bedroom for an hour and a half before Churchill emerged from a meeting with President Roosevelt. 5 Churchill apologised for keeping Wilson waiting, though Wilson surmised that Churchill had forgotten that he had sent for him. 5 Wilson asked, 'Is there anything wrong?'…”

“…5 Churchill apologised for keeping Wilson waiting, though Wilson surmised that Churchill had forgotten that he had sent for him. 5 Wilson asked, 'Is there anything wrong?' 5 Churchill replied, 'The pulse is regular.'…”

“…5 Wilson asked, 'Is there anything wrong?' 5 Churchill replied, 'The pulse is regular.' 5 As Lavelle 14 later commented, 'Churchill's immediate reference to his pulse could mean only that Churchill's pulse already had significance for both of them.'…”

“…Churchill asked if he could take a sleeping pill. 5 Wilson agreed that he could take 'two reds' (quinalbarbitone 200 mg, 15 a barbiturate hypnotic known also as secobarbital).…”