I would like to make two remarks at the onset of this exegesis of control theory in complex social dynamics

1. Opposition of the Bush program for the control of terrorism does not mean that one supports those who destroyed the WTC....neither I nor anyone I know argues for such deadly and counter-productive gestures.

From the time of Sir Issac Newton and his Principia Mathematica, we have thought that, with an adequate knowledge system and an adequate response system, we could control both nature and society...indeed, Comte called his new science, social physics for a while.

But, since Chaos theory came along some 50 years ago, we know that only a few systems behave with enough precision and predictability for humans to control them. Indeed, all natural and social systems move toward uncertainty and uncontrolability as bifurcations in key variables occur. Feigenbaum mapped this elegant procession toward disorder and, along with Lorenz and Mandelbrot, gave us a new, postmodern philosophy of science that does not encompass the kind of control imagined by Mr. Bush and his advisors. More about this at

http//www.tryoung.com/chaos/001intro.html

The simple fact is that as the social context in which terrorism becomes ever more complex, control efforts become evermore difficult...ever more costly and ever more unsuccessful.

Chaos, Complexity and Control of Terrorism.

The most salient point to make in a critique of the Bush plan to prevent terrorism is that any effort to control the behavior of unknown others in a complex social context would require a control apparatus far larger than all the police forces, armed forces and reserve forces available to the government of the United States. I would like to review the complexity of such control efforts

1. Air Travel. The Bush Plan begins with a leak-proof system of surveillance at airports around the country. Every passenger and every piece of luggage will have to be carefully searched. Hundreds of flights per day from Chicago, New York, Dallas and Las Vegas with tens of thousands of passengers will require a monitoring apparatus larger than the airports themselves...if the planes and passengers are to depart in timely fashion.

2. Bio-terrorism. every water purification plant, every factory, every building and every food product plant will have to be equipped with very expensive, high-tech equipment to detect and to control germ warfare. Again the cost of the control effort exceeds the cost of present inspection systems by orders of magnitude.

1. The Bush program makes it easier for the F.B.I. to monitor every telephone and internet message. NSA does the same thing now with respect to communications between European countries; between Asian Countries and points in between. The technology is there but think a minute. To do the job, the F.B.I. will have to have an army of translators to make sense of every message in every language in every call...with no guarantee of a fail-proof system of surveillance.

2. The Bush program makes it easier to search and seize in private homes. There are about 130 private homes in the USA. There are about 4 million Muslims in America; each with a home carrying potential opposition against the US government. To effectively watch, search and seize every home, every day, for years to come requires another huge army of technicians equipped with high-tech and costly monitoring apparati.

3. The Bush plan makes it possible to detain every visitor to the USA for an indefinite period...days, months, years. Think of the chilling effect on travel to the USA if one comes from any Islamic country or from any one of the 80 countries that the Bush administration claims shelters terrorists.

If all terrorists would wear Arabic clothing; would speak broken English, would look guilty, would wear full beards and would have the dark completion of one from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Syria, Somalia, or Pakistan, then terrorist profiling might be possible at every border crossing on every road between Canada, Mexico and the USA...and on every flight coming in from Europe, Africa, Asia or South America.

And indefinite incarceration of every visitor with some animus against US foreign policy would fill more jails and prisons than now exist in the USA. The last time I looked the INS had three prisons in which to hold detainees.

The simple fact is that, in a complex social context, social control is progressively difficult with every new variable one decides to monitor. A monitoring system with one, two or even three variables might work...but with the addition of even one more profiling cue; one more surveillance system, one more line of attack, or one more source of terrorism, control systems cascade beyond any hope of success.

One can lean more about multi-dimensional dynamics and the cascade toward chaos by reading any one of several hundred books on chaos and complexity in your library...or one can skim over

www.tryoung.com/chaos/016socialcontrol.html

The sad fact is that, given the present course of the Bush War on Terrorism, we are in danger of bringing far more terror on far more people than died in New York or Washington, D.C. The Bush plan does much to bring discredit on the greatness of America...an America which, with all its social problems, still provides much in which to take pride.

The sad fact is that, to finance the costs of such policy, the Bush administration--and his successor--would have to tap into social security funds; would have to put aside medicaid and medicare programs, would have to cut educational programs and would have to invest ever more in military goods as the war against terrorism expands from Afghanistan to Iraq, Somalia and the Philippines.

The sad fact is that, to train people to handle such high-tech equipment, crash courses in every major university would have to be instituted...and thus distort the mission of higher education in America. Religion, philosophy, social science and literature have already fallen on hard times in universities given over to training people in finance, manufacture and administration in a globalized economy.

The sad fact is that there are better ways to deal with terrorism....ways that have not been examined by the Bush administration and which are not central to the public policy process in America.

Nicholas Abbey has a better plan--far better than the Bush plan. Those who really oppose terrorism might well consider his program...at

http//www.tryoung.com/terrorism/prevention.html

Summary Prevention and control of terrorism becomes every more difficult as the social dynamics found in terrorism---and efforts to control terrorists--become complex. Such efforts increase in cost and decrease in efficacy. There are better ways to understand terrorism; better ways to name it; better ways to prevent it than by enlarging a police capacity at home and abroad.

TR Young