Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk
It must suck to go thru life constantly scared of what's around the next corner. I feel pity for you.
For some reason, I am not sure how much sincerety there is behind your comment. A sad state of affairs, eh?
Taking your comment at face value, yes, it is indeed unsettling to be walking through Rockefeller Center on one's way to work, to come across two or three policemen wearing helmets and body armor, carrying semi-automatic weapons, who are just hanging out and shooting the breeze (figuratively of course). You wonder what kind of intelligence they had to be deployed there.
It is indeed unsettling to have multiple attempts made on your life: the car bomb in Times Square that did not explode, the two teenagers arrested on their way into the city with a van full of pipe bombs, and of course the planes that hit the Twin Towers. That was a frightful day to live through, wondering if I'd ever see my wife and children again. The ruins were smoking for weeks, every day crossing 5th Avenue and looking south, seeing that plume of smoke rising from the rubble day after day.
To top it off, my daughter was a volunteer at the Boston Marathon last year as well, and my brother lives not far from the site of the explosion there. Another wonderful three days of memories, eh?
No, I cannot afford to be glib and complacent and condescending. So far, ISIS has done everything they said they were going to do. When they say they plan to carry out terrorist attacks within the US, there are very good reasons to believe they mean it. They have certainly graduated from "junior varsity" to major threat # 1.
None of this of course means we need to unilaterally send in massive numbers of troops. I've never once suggested we should. But to ignore this threat entirely is naive and foolish. it is exactly like gangrene: either you stop it early on, or you stop it later, but it is inexorable: if you do not stop it eventually you are a dead man. i assume you are not okay with them killing you and your friends; i assume you also are not okay with them killing people you don't know.
It would be interesting to hear a serious and thoughtful response from you about what you think we should do to stop them. it appears that you are proud of your ability to tear down others, i don't see you offering much on how to build constructively. Here's a chance for you to dispel this impression.