For example, a suicide bomber attacking a school may succeed in killing "only" a half-dozen children. To parallel the Professor's argument, what's a half-dozen children compared to the thousands killed by, say, drunk driving? Well, that isn't an argument that is likely to appeal very much to their parents, for one thing, but the objective wasn't to kill the kids, it was to place the fear of a similar activity into every parent's heart. It was to destabilize the existing society by proving that it cannot protect its constituents.
Now, a true believer in "proportionality" would respond by saying that assigning surveillance and SWAT teams and locking down schools is a disproportionate expenditure of resources in response to "only" a half-dozen dead children, and that a proportionate response to such a "low" number of casualties might properly be no response at all.
And that is where the argument from body count breaks down entirely. It implies that an aggressor who proclaims his intention to attack but who can only kill a few people must be tolerated. That is the nexus of the Professor's argument here, and it is the grand swindle of the entire "proportionality" approach - it means that a terrorist who tunes his attacks to take place under a specific threshold will be safe to continue them indefinitely. That isn't an academic argument, it's the way it actually has been for decades now.
Modern terrorism counts on this. In order to combat this evil game the response must be disproportionate. Two buildings down, two governments taken down. And Iran's frothing at the mouth despite, nobody wants to take the third building down at the cost of being the third government. And that's one reason nobody has. Disproportionality is absolutely the answer against terror and it demeans the value in human life of its victims to imply that they're only worth so much in the grand scheme of things.
You are COMPLETELY missing the point. Flight 93 was aimed, either at the Capitol or the White House. Think about THAT, pal.
Also...the Bush Administration has kept us SAFE all these years. Who knows what the "capacity" would have been???
Excellent analysis.
Outstanding response.
Very well put.
That said, however, I cannot even believe that somebody would be idiotic to suggest that there's a "tolerable" level of terrorist attack. I think he can only say this because there hasn't been another one since then and he's gotten pretty assured that he, at least, has little chance of being a victim.
And what has kept him safe???? One of the many questions a liberal will never answer.
Reminds me of the movie the “Untouchables” where they say if the criminals use fists use a stick, if they use a knife use a gun. Or from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where Ted Cassidy says “There are no rules in a knife fight.”
We have been taught this rule for years, yet this low class slime dares to lecture us on what is the proper or proportionate response.
From Patton,
"There are all kinds of low class slime who are trying and will continue to try to wreck this country from the inside. Most of them don't know it, but they are actually working for the Russians. Some of them do know it, though. It doesn't matter whether they call themselves Communists, Socialists, or just plain foolish Liberals. They are destroying this country."
Well said. Just had to keep a copy. Here is my reply to the L.A. Times, which is wat too long and way too un-affirming to the Professor to ever see the light of day.
At one time we used to refer to the Federalist Papers, and not foreign law, to understand our Constitution. Using that archaic source one could look to number 23, which says the powers of our government for the common defense “ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the corresponding extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances which endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed. This power ought to be co-extensive with all the possible combinations of such circumstances". Hamilton understood the powers for the common defense would be applied in relation to the danger to our safety and to an extent sufficient to overcome the danger. The powers were not to be applied subsequent to an evaluation of, and in proportion to, damage actually absorbed.
9/11 was a wake up call, because a realistic and vigorous evaluation of any threat to national security requires the analysis of both capabilities and intentions. The terrorists confront us with a technologically advanced Dark Age.
9/11 exhibited a quantum leap for innovative, creative killing. Terrorist converts easily accommodate academic excellence within cancerous philosophies appended to Muslim faith. Fifty-year-old technologies and stockpiles reside worldwide for weapons such as the Davy Crockett missile firing a 51-pound warhead yielding 0.02 kiloton and Astor nuclear torpedo carrying a Hiroshima size warhead. Chemical and biological agents emanate from dual-use facilities and cottage industries. The biological pathogens, which decimated Europe, still reside one step away in our food chain. Open societies provide excellent delivery means for chemical and biological agents where 2,000 to 20,000 people work and travel within closed HVAC systems. Human ingenuity, available resources, and receptive environments present terrorists opportunities as great as any threat our nation faced in WW II.
Regarding intentions, expatriate Muslim scholars relate we face terrorist threats independent of nationalist movements. The Wahhabi/ Salafi heresy rejects traditional Muslim allegiances to family, tribe and country, and embraces murder and desolation as both means and end. They believe Jews, Christians, other Muslims, and all other peoples are legitimate objects for slaughter. The Caliphate sought presupposes no particular human or physical remnant, leaving terrorists immune from diplomacy, containment or retaliation.