LI doesn’t think that, at this point, reason will prevail about the so called war on terrorism. Still, it is a good idea to repeat: the U.S. is spending about 400 million dollars per terrorist head. Mostly, the terrorists are illiterate, unemployed guys like the ones profiled in the NYT Magazine article by Jonathan Mahler. Mostly the money is dispersed to National Security industry types who spend it hosting conferences in chic hotels about distributing largesse in Wyoming and such. We know exactly where most of the terrorists are – we don’t even need to tap phones for that. They are practically listed in the phone book. We’ve known where they are for the last five years. We have no intention of actually spending any money or real effort to get rid of them. We prefer them to be on tap. Nothing is better for a large security industry than a couple of attacks per decade. Not of course that the Bush administration’s incredible inability to do almost anything real about terrorism since 2002 is simply dishonest. I’d credit them with massive stupidity, too. Never let it be said that LI is unfair.
And, due to unemployed taxi drivers in Yemen, it appears we have to crush the Bill of Rights like a dirty Dixie Cup and trust Dick Cheney.
LI doesn’t think you can fool all the people all of the time. To do that, you need objective journalism. But even with all the Washington Post’s editorial writers and all the King’s men, eventually Americans might wonder why we are fighting people, on the one hand, and preserving a terrorist organization, on the other hand. It might begin to make no sense.
Not, of course, that nonsense has ever been a bar to policy.
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Just how serious a threat do you think terrorism can be? Going by the most sober accountings, an attack such as the one on 9/11 takes years of preparation, a great deal of luck and some unusually dedicated incompetence by the "good guys". The way the Bushists are handling it, the threat would actually be reduced by nothing at all. The Democrats promise a more active and effective policy, which would almost certainly make things worse. Any competence from them would cement the idea that there really is a war.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few dozen criminals who need to be arrested, some state actors who need to be threatened and some relatively modest policy changes that need to be enacted. The culture of self-important hysteria is the most serious threat.