Danger and Opportunity
On the one hand I think it's fine how Americans are responding to the lengthy delays they are experiencing at airports. Their patience, I mean. It's probably a good thing that they have so little company. The planes are empty, and the airlines, have announced layoffs exceeding a hundred thousand employees. Consider the ripple effect through the airports, which generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year in municipal revenues, and how now instead of paying taxes people will be receiving unemployment. And holding onto what they have instead of spending; there is no extra, if there ever was.
We plunged into this recession, or whatever it will be called looking back, instead of sliding into it. Mr. Osama shoved us off the high-dive. There are suddenly going to be millions more people out of work, tens of millions of people more buying less, and there is no reason to look for a lifeline in this descent into economic winter.
Will the government be forced, finally, to choose between spending money on missiles or on baby formula? Will we rename what was once the War Department, now the Department of Defense, the Office of Massive Retaliation? It's closer to the mark. Which brings up the question — Is retaliation enough? Is that what a third of our tax dollars should be spent preserving, the power to punish? Wouldn't we really prefer to prevent terrorism than weep and rail and rain bombs down on lotsa people who didn't have any say in what was done to us?
I'm all for rounding up every terrorist. Step one should be to petition the World Court to stop terrorism, enfranchising it with the power and resources to arrest, try, and punish world criminals across the globe. That way, the world would know that justice is being done, and we wouldn't have to suffer the victimhood of their revenge. Also, if they don't get them all, well, we can reconsider our position then.
Step two, we should publically re-examine our entire foreign policy. We should know where and why we are giving people reason to believe that terrorism is the only solution. If that's policy we want to maintain, sobeit, but at least give the American public — the current target — the opportunity to voice their opinion about why their lives hang in the balance. Let's say the State Department reports back in thirty days with our policy toward every country, every region, every people, and the world. Invite public comment. Then in every case, implement a policy that at least doesn't needlessly put our lives at risk. Maybe even get it right.
Step three, pioneer a technology that can detect a tendency toward heinous behavior. A mental detector that can read an EEG and say this person needs to be watched. Surely one could chart a unique set of peaks 'n valleys among psychotics that could define someone being prone to blowing up strangers in buildings with airplanes. All you civil libertarians go stuff yourself in a gym bag. Catch up with the National Rifle Association credo that guns don't kill people, people kill people. Realize that if we could tell dangerous people, it would be a lot less time consumer and much, much cheaper than searching for weapons.
What do you use to cut your mystery meat on the plane? A weapon, of course. You can't stop access to the tools of terror's trade, but you can probably, without a great deal of difficulty, determine who would use them. You have to think that there is something markedly different about "people" who could spend months learning how to carry out such acts, and then sit in a waiting room, looking about at dozens of people they are going to kill.
I'm not suggesting summary execution of people with the "wrong" EEG, but certainly we could look into their histories, quietly, and interview them, professionally. I'd bet light bulbs to lethal injections that we could find some patterns on death row. Check the guards, too.
The public has a right to be protected from those damaged minds who would perpetrate such horrors on their fellow human beings. This approach makes much more sense than bouncing the Kabul stones. We want to move forward. We must set our sights again on a world where people don't commit such unimaginable acts. Where you can leave your car or house unlocked, and tell a child if you are ever lost or frightened, ask any adult for help.
Scoff if you will, it was only so long ago as my childhood that the world operated according to such rules. We can do it again. The Chinese calligraphy for our word "crisis" is two symbols; one means danger, and the other means opportunity. We have seen the danger. Let us take the opportunity to do what's possible for ourselves, our children, and the world beyond.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.