Posted on 09/12/2001 9:43:09 AM PDT by Fury
NEW YORK, Sept. 11 — The first commandment of any crisis is to be cool. Don’t panic. Don’t do anything to make it worse. There is plenty of time to assess blame and figure out how to respond in a manner and moment of our own choosing. Nothing could dishonor the dead quite as profoundly than to kill more innocents in the name of vengeance and let the true perpetrators get away with their crimes.
WE ALL KNEW this was possible. All modern cities are vulnerable to terrorism; indeed to chemical and biological attacks that can do as much or more damage than Tuesday’s achieved. The politicians and pundits who conducted their dreamworld debate about missile defense and space weaponry against as-yet imaginary opponents showed precious little interest in these more arcane threats that any number of nations and terrorist groups already possessed. Now we are paying the price for the unreality of our political debate.
Our vulnerability to low-tech earth-based threats was no secret. But it was not sexy and hence, $70 billion has been wasted fighting a threat that is so far nowhere to be seen, while this one was starved for both funds and attention.
A CHANGED WORLD Now we have to figure out how to react to a changed world — a world where Americans do not have the luxury of feeling invulnerable any more. What, if any, civil liberties are we willing to relinquish in order to feel more secure? (Once citizens relinquish a given right, be it to privacy, freedom of speech, or freedom of movement, it is generally impossible to retrieve it later.) What kind of inconveniences are we willing to experience? How many metal detectors are we willing to walk through? How many hours do we want to spend waiting on line to get on planes, or even to drive through tunnels?
THE PRICE OF UNILATERALISM Unless, as seems almost unimaginable, this terrorist attack is another home-grown threat like that carried out in Oklahoma City, then it is safe to conclude that whoever did carry it out, did so because they wanted the nation to pay a price for its foreign policy. After all, nobody targets Switzerland for terrorist attacks. Perhaps this is also a debate we should be having. Just what price is the United States willing to pay for its current level of world involvement as an independent actor, outside the purview of the United Nations? Many will say that even to raise this issue is to give in to terrorists. But an open and democratically conducted debate and discussion can be considered appeasement. I think it our duty as citizens. Everything about American politics and media needs to come down to earth. The cheap and easy media coverage of supposed sexual scandals allowed us to ignore and obscure the really important issues.
Tuesday’s attacks demonstrate how much we need to grow up as a nation — how important politics can be even if we prefer not to pay attention. It’s time to have a serious debate about the nation’s priorities and to make tough decisions involving difficult trade-offs. There is no way to wish away our many vulnerabilities as a society. But we can address them sensibly and democratically, if only we face up to the fact that we never had any innocence to lose. We merely acted as if we did.
What we need now is to flex some US muscle and kick some Afghani ass!!
We KNOW they are housing Bin Laden.
We KNOW that they have extreme Anti-US sentiment flowing in their country
The price we pay huh??
Its time to collect our change...
Good Lord, what a jackass. This is a top-5 candidate for most asinine commentary post-WTC.
Like the bombing wouldn't have happened if our policy was (per Clinton) to roll over and do whatever the U.N. says? That if we ceded all sovereignty to the U.N., Arab nuts wouldn't hate us anymore.
This has to be the absolute dumbest analysis I've ever read. And he has the gall to suggest that becasue America was distracted by Clinton's fly for the last 4 years, we were unprepared for this. His blame, naturally, is on we stupid people, not Clinton for caring more about tossing off in the Presidential sink than protecting our national security.
Alter has sunk to a new low, and uncharted depths of idiocy.
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