Posted by
Patrick Henry on Friday, May 07, 2010 4:12:54 PM
After yet another attempt at mass murder by a real terrorist, the war of words is
raging about what should have been done and what can be done to prevent more
attacks targeting Americans on their own soil. Task forces, think tanks, counter-
terror professionals and politicians all want to weigh in. You'd think it was rocket
science. It isn't!
Neither is weight loss, If you want to lose weight just about everyone knows that
you need to stop gobbling the tasty goodies you love, eat generous portions of dirt
for awhile, get off your fat butt and exercise until the flab melts. In other words,
we're not fat because we want to be fat. We're fat because we're not willing to pay
the price for not being fat. No pain, no gain.
It's the same with terrorism, and I'm about to suggest the magic equation. But, like
diet and exercise, it's going to hurt and Americans, particularly those in political
power, probably would rather continue placing lives in jeopardy than pay the price.
1. We have to be honest about who and where the enemy is. No, the enemy is not
Joe Rightwing Nut, the little old lady from Pasadena or even little Mikey from New
Jersey. And he/she is not in Ireland, Latvia or the Barbados. The enemy is a radicalized
Muslim extremist who cherishes a fantasy about a world dominated by sharia law, and
is willing to do mass murder to bring that about. He/she lives, for the most part, in a
few Middle Eastern countries where a majority of people hate Americans. Until we
face that, say it out loud and accept it as fact we will NEVER stop terrorism.
2. We have to secure our borders -- ALL of our borders. No, I don't subscribe to
the theory that Mexicans are dangerous terrorists. But they have managed to figure
out that we're not serious about keeping them out, and if they've figured it out it's only
a matter of time before others join them at the sieve we jokingly call a border. If
anyone can get in any time, some percenatge of them will be criminals, as we've
already discovered. And some of them will be worse. Until we get really serious
about securing our borders, everything else is window dressing.
3. We have to take the handcuffs and kid gloves off our enforcement community.
That means we must admit that those planning or attempting to do us harm ARE
enemy combatants requiring military custody and interrogation WITHOUT Miranda
rights until they have told us everything we need to know in order to stop the others
like them. It means we must reinstate "provisional profiling" and stop wasting the
time and manpower to screen aged grandmothers and infants incapable of
comprehending, let alone waging jihad. If it walks and quacks like a duck, why
spend time and money trying to pretend it's a swan?
4. We have to identify and find every person from a country posing a jihadist threat
who has overstayed his/her visa (including student visa), and immediately detain and
deport them. The appalling ineptitude of immigration authorities puts all Americans at risk.
5. We have to declare a wartime moratorium on emigration from those same countries.
Yeah, that's right. We are at war. When their citizens stop trying to kill us, then perhaps
we can go back to letting some of them in. Until then, not. This means no more student
visas or guest worker permits for those folks, no more grandparents coming to check up
on little Najibullah,
nada.
6. We should mandate that with the exception of valid, registered humanitarian missions,
military and intelligence functions and diplomatic initiatives, all travel to those countries
is one way only, with exceptions on a case-by-case basis. (No one teaches people how
to build bombs in Wyoming, but they do it every day in Pakistan).
7. A real, foolproof, ironclad no-fly list must be developed and disseminated, and
countries refusing to enforce it economically punished by tariffs and sanctions. Airlines
failing to enfore it should be banned from landing in American cities. If the way to stop
illegal immigration is Draconian punishment of those who employ illegals, then the way
to stop terrorists is by making those who support and enable them pay through the nose.
That goes for governments too.
Now that is a common sense program to reduce terrorism. It is not politically correct,
but it is the truth (not that the two are ever confused by those with the capaciy for
discursive thought). Is our government likely to do ANY of these things? Probably
not. After all, making some in the world feel better about us is worth a few hundred
(or even a few thousand) dead Americans.
But one thing is certain. If this president and his dopey administration don't stop
making terrorist incompetence the first line of defense, a lot of us are going to die
for their gross stupidity and incompetence. It's not like they don't know how to stop
the terror. It's that they're not willing to pay the price.