Sunday, January 10, 2010

Brutal is as brutal does?

Or, alternatively, if your enemy is using asymmetric warfare against you, then killing him quickly and publicly becomes an effective deterrent. Because then there are fewer of them.

If a "knicker-bomber" tries to kill me, my initial gut response is to want to take him out onto the tarmac and put one between his eyes in front of about 100 media cameras. Because the point will be made much more effectively that barbarous acts deserve barbarous responses. This we don't do.

If a regular, garden-variety thug attempts to forcibly enter my home, steal my stuff, or threaten my life, I have a legal and moral right to defend myself and stop the attack. Even if stopping the attack means that I stop the thug's life in the process. Because, actions have consequences. Why should our national policy towards terrorist thugs be any less direct?

"They" have declared war upon us and our way of life. At what point do we acknowledge this and react appropriately? At what point do we respond in a manner that they understand, and give them a response that they will respect? Do we really want to stop this war upon our way of life and act like a real country, a superpower? Or, should we just continue to arrest them, let them lawyer up, and then spend the next two or three decades going through our civil appeals processes as if this is a law-enforcement issue?

Does continuing down this current path serve another purpose than "keeping us safe"? Is it really, instead, about power over our citizens by our elected officials? From something far more sinister from within? Think about it.

Pax,

Newbius

No comments: