Terrorism quote

As a systems academic, I really enjoyed this quote:

Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems. Jurgen Habermas

I found it on Matti's blog. A functioning democratic society and economy requires that the people feel safe to go about their daily business. By disrupting the feeling of security, the whole complex system can fall apart. This is how we end up with Americans defending the Bush administration's right to torture captives without due process. Where are our principles? The terrorists have damaged a part of our "complex system", but they still haven't gotten any closer to achieving their goals. We both lose.

Yesterday's attacks in Pakistan were quite horrible, I must say. These types of attacks are becoming so common now that we barely even notice. That is sad.