Category: 9-11

In retrospect, it’s blindingly obvious.

The WTC is a symbol of American commercial power. Heck, it already had one terrorist attack against it. Obvious target.

Using a plane to kamikaze into a target. Also blindingly obvious.

In recent discussions of the Missile Defense Shield, the argument has been convincingly made that a rogue state (or terrorist) would be better off simply floating a nuke into a harbor aboard an old ship, and then set it off there, rather than using a trackable, technically more complex missile. Well, same principle applies here.

I’m not sure what we can do to prevent this sort of occurance in the future. Step up intelligence efforts, clearly. Tighten security, to at least some degree. But, hell, we can’t really mount SAM batteries at all our major cities.

About the only thing I can think of that we must do is rebuild. Do it at the taxpayer’s expense, if need be. Take away the symbol they’ve created. Restate the struggle in our own terms. “No defeat. No surrender.”

And get ready for a longer, rougher ride.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.
— Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)

1. If you let your opponent dictate where you are focusing, what you are acting on, what your agenda is, your opponent has already half-won.

2. There is no opponent so dangerous as one who doesn’t mind dying so long as you are hurt or killed, too.

I don’t know if that’s Sun-Tzu or not, but both items should be remembered as we’re thinking about today’s terrorist attacks.

If we let the terror of these attacks dictate to us what we should do — be it cave in or become more beligerent — then the terrorists have won. They’ve accomplished their purpose.

Should we react? We must. But we need to do so with care, in accord with our principles of freedom, justice, and fairness, and make sure that we don’t hand over a victory to those we are seeking to punish.

As I write this, news outlets are reporting (with ghastly pictures) that two planes have run into the World Trade Center. Given that each plane hit a separate tower, my initial assumption is that this was a deliberate terrorist act.

In an free and open society, there is no such thing as perfect safety.

Damn their eyes, and damn those who overreact to this.