Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!
Again, what's your point? You seem to be hinting that there's a solution to the threat of terrorist attacks that is significantly different from what we're doing now. What do you mean?
"There are asteroids. Some could be on a collision course with the earth."
"I agree. That's why we should have deep space scans and figure out how to deflect incoming asteroids."
"Don't you realize that last asteroid could have killed us all?!"
"Huh? We agree. But how does that have anything --"
"FOR GOD'S SAKE, WE COULD ALL HAVE BEEN KILLED!!!!!"
"?"
Giving a terrorist a fair trial (instead of feeding him into a wood chipper) is admirable. It does nothing to prevent future attacks, except perhaps at the margins.
Actually I think we're doing about all we can (probably too much overlap) to protect ourselves. It's just this idea (as suggested by Senorita Incompetance) that because the panty bomber's bomb didn't work, it reflects favorably on the efficacy of our "system." "The system worked."
Are we actually supposed to feel more seccure because the TSA is screening passengers before boarding? I haven't seen a poll, but I'm confident the vast majority of Americans don't. I believe the vast majority of Americans understand that the bad guys can probably smuggle a canoe on to an aircraft while our TSA guardians are frisking granny.
Sky marshalls, reinforced doors to the flight deck and armed pilots make us safer in airplanes. The rest is mostly window dressing.
The other agencies involved are so secret (NSA, etc) that it's next to impossible for us to evaluate how they're doing. The absence of another major attack is one sign that we must be doing something right, notwithstanding the obvious incompetence of the terrorists we've popped. My only teeny tiny point is that we can't rely on their incompetence forever.
What was the line the con used in the original "Scared Straight?" "The cops can make a thousand mistakes, you can only make one." That's us. There will come a time when the history of this period is written, it is then we'll be able to gauge how good a job we're doing.
Although I think we're doing pretty well, that doesn't mean we can't do better. And as I've said, giving them fair trials after we capture them is admirable but really unrelated to preventing attacks. And this idea that just about any criticism of Islam is "bigotry" or "Islamophobia" or whatever is repulsive. I assume there are Islamophobes out there, just as there are anti-Semites (see: Sanchez, Rick), but the left's instinct to demonize anyone who disagrees is well documented. We're bigots, racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, misogynists, etc. Anything to change the subject and not engage in the issues. But that's for a different post.
