Terrorism

Where Motley is Worn – And Where it Isn’t

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In a post a couple of weeks ago, I linked to Michael Yon’s moving report of a heroic Iraqi who thew himself on a suicide bomber, taking the thrust of the bomb and saving the group of women and children standing outside the mosque toward which the bomber, dressed as a woman, was headed. Such self-sacrifice, unlike that of the martyr he died with, is one for life rather than death.

Today, Dan Henniger describes a similar heroism, this time in Viet Nam, in the acts of Maj. Bruce Crandall, who was awarded the Medal of Honor. As with so many commendations, he is praised for the lives he saved in a war zone. Henniger also notes this was buried in the New York Times.

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SOTU Links – Offered for Comment

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Bush’s State of Union (with streaming video).

Webb’s response. Also on Drudge.

Michael Gerson speaks for himself (though where his loyalty lies remain clear).    So often his precision, more articulate than Bush’s own,  led to our  understanding  the person who spoke them.   (Yes, I wish our presidents wrote their own speeches, but in the end it is Webb’s inconsistency rather than his hoary cliches that poses a problem.)

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Quote of the Day

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Imagine what the world would have looked like if, rather than clinging to Arafat’s big lie that he and his Fatah terror organization were central components of Middle East peace, the US had captured and tried Arafat for murdering its diplomats and worked steadily to destroy Fatah.


Imagine how our future would look if rather than stealthily admitting the truth, while trusting the media not to take notice, the US government were to base its current policies on the truth, and the media were to reveal this truth to the world.

–Caroline Glick

Prosecute the flying imams?

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Here’s one proposal (in response to this reasonable question). Newt Gingrich expressed a similar idea.

Nowadays anybody who makes bomb jokes in an airport security line or on a plane can expect to be arrested. So why doesn’t a group exercise in terrorism street-theater, which seems to be much more threatening and disruptive than are mere jokes, get the same response? Certainly the perpetrators of this incident have received a lot of public scrutiny and criticism, which they deserve, but they also have received a great deal of valuable publicity at little cost to themselves.

The implicit incentive structure here is not a good one. Politically protected groups should not be granted legal safe harbor to engage in abusive stunts while poor schmucks who say something stupid in an airport security line get the book thrown at them. If we are serious about security we should prosecute the imams — as punishment for disrupting the lives of many people who reasonably perceived them as threatening, as a deterrent against future such behavior and to deter real attacks. On the other hand, if we think it’s more important to be politically correct and not offend anyone, let’s eliminate the whole air-security charade.

I think we should be serious about security and prosecute the imams. Their behavior, unlike that of most jokesters, was clearly intended to provoke and did so convincingly. Unfortunately the official response to the incident makes clear that political correctness is our institutional priority.

Review of “Annihilation from Within”

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Annihilation from Within is Fred Charles Iklé‘s attempt to draw attention toward, and thereby inspire management of, the true geopolitical risks of the 21st century risks ultimately deriving from a great decoupling of science from the cultural constraints of politics and religion, a quarter of a millennium ago risks portended by, but utterly eclipsing, the events of 9/11/2001 risks almost entirely unrecognized by our current risk-management institutions, foremost among them the nation-state.

AfW is eminently worth reading and relatively likely to do some actual good in the world. But you haven’t grazed in here to read a blanket endorsement, and I’d be no blogger if I didn’t contend (with all-but-nonexistent credibility) with some portion of Iklé’s thesis; so for a thoroughgoingly unqualified critique, complete with annoyingly personal speculation and fuzzy intuition-laden commentary, read on!

(~2,700 words; approximate reading time 7-14 minutes, not counting lots of links.)

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