It brings up a couple of 'what-if' scenarios I have been mulling recently. Firstly, what if the towers had not collapsed? Would the outrage have been as great, since most likely a lot fewer people would have been killed (the ones crushed BELOW the crash point, such as firemen and people in stairwells)? Also, in a larger sense, if we manage to stop a nuclear bomb from detonating by mere minutes, in, say, New York City or Washington, do you think our response will be as severe as it would if it DID go off and kill tens of thousands?
I ask this second question because I think we should be just as severe with retaliation for unsuccessful attacks as we are for those that do succeed. Just because Richard Reid failed, doesn't mean we shouldn't respond as though he succeeded. We shouldn't be giving the terrorists a break for incompetence.
I think you make an excellent point. The effort to strike us, whether successful or not, should be the benchmark.
I think we should be just as severe with retaliation for unsuccessful attacks as we are for those that do succeed.
I agree.
I never got the logic of giving less prison time to somebody convicted of “attempted murder” than we do for “murder”.
We should not be rewarding somebody who is evil, just because they are incompetent as well.