Tag: war on terror

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom media and media people

Crime and Terror and Panic

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Many people think crime is going up. But it’s going down.

Similarly, many people think terrorism is “an existential threat” to our very civilization.

Could the latter folks be wrong for the same reason the former folks are?

Because news reporting concentrates on crime, covering it intensely, incessantly — if it bleeds, it leads — we get the wrong perspective on crime. The long-term trend-line shows crime going down since the early 1990s. Though we’re now seeing upticks in certain big cities, it’s simply not all getting worse.

This is not a reason to slack off. It is a reason not to panic.

How is terrorism different?

In 15 years, there has been no repeat of 9/11/01, or anything close to it. Granted, there have been horrific homegrown terror incidents. That threat remains. Though, thankfully, last weekend’s terrorist spree wasn’t more effective: One bomb fizzled, another killed no one, and the mad jihadist knifer was himself put down before anyone was killed.

Some might note that the number of deaths as a result of automobile crashes* is far, far higher than from terrorism. Why worry more about the very small number of terrorist outbreaks in a huge country like ours?

Here’s why: the terrorism is intentional, and could become worse for whatever reasons flip normal Muslim men and women into jihadist radicals. So our vigilance must not abate.

But there’s another difference. Terrorists, unlike normal criminals, want to be noticed. The more we panic, the more they are tempted to seek to cause us to panic.

Terrorism, whether going up or down, requires, along with vigilance, a certain resolute calmness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

 

* Deaths from automobile accidents have been decreasing for decades, a 35 percent drop from 1979 to 2005. However, last year the U.S. had the “highest one-year percentage increase in traffic deaths in half a century.”

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Accountability folly moral hazard national politics & policies

The Longest War

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Is there a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel?

President Obama announced, Wednesday, that he would leave more troops in Afghanistan when he exits office than previously planned. Instead of cutting the current troop deployment of 10,000 down to 5,500 soldiers, Obama will now keep 8,400 “in country,” continuing our longest war.

Entering the 15th year of armed conflict and military occupation, thousands of lives lost along with hundreds of billions in treasure spent to equip and train Afghan forces and build infrastructure — and buy off warlords — recent U.N. estimates find the tyrannical Taliban controlling more actual territory in Afghanistan today than before the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Don’t blame the military. Our all-volunteer army is the greatest fighting force on the planet. But militaries break things; building new institutions and especially new modes of thinking among a foreign population is more difficult.

No political magic exists capable of turning Afghanistan into Arizona. Not this year, not the next, a decade from now, or two decades . . . not even a century down the road.

We must never forget that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”

And the politics don’t add up. There’s no credible plan to “win” in Afghanistan. All our leaders can muster is the witless maintenance of a deadly charade: nation-building a nation that balks at being built, hoping the roof falls in on someone else later . . . in the other party.

Sometimes courage means recognizing reality.

Our men and women in uniform have better things to do than fight and die for decades in a no-win war.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: Joseph Swafford on Flickr, courtesty of DVIDSHUB

 

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Common Sense folly general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Case Closed . . . But Ticking

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Irving, Texas, authorities — I use that term loosely — announced yesterday that the case has been closed. Over. Finito. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

What case? That of the 14-year-old clock-maker assumed to be a potential bomb-making/let’s-err-on-the-side-of-panic terrorist.

Perhaps it didn’t help that the youngster had the wrong last name: Mohamed. Or that his family had immigrated from Sudan.

Ahmed loves to tinker. On Monday, he brought one project, a clock, to school hoping to impress his engineering teacher. His teacher mistook the clock for an improvised bomb, and told Ahmed not to show it to anyone. When the clock’s alarm went off later, his English teacher took the clock and told him to pick it up after school.

Later, the principal pulled Ahmed out of class. Five policemen then interrogated the lad, eventually handcuffing and marching him to juvenile detention.

A police spokesman admitted there was never any threat made. And, of course, no bomb. Ahmed’s engineering teacher clearly wasn’t scared. Yet, this 14-year-old was still treated like a . . . terrorist.

Before being released.

Some charge this is a case of obvious bias against this student’s race or religion. Maybe that’s why even Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for the student and why President Obama invited Ahmed to bring his clock to the White House.

Though prejudice may be part of this story, I doubt it’s the main issue. Many students not named Mohamed have been treated similarly — for bringing a butter knife to cut an apple at lunch, or gnawing a PBJ sandwich into the shape of a gun, or (horrors!) “shooting” pointed fingers at classmates.

Public school’s zero-judgment zero-tolerance is equal opportunity insanity.

Not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Why Police-State Tactics?

Law Corrupted

What do the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and campaign finance law have in common?

Police-state tactics.

Most folks now understand how the War on Drugs and the War on Terror can erode civil liberties — but how does campaign finance law fit in with the other two?

My weekend Townhall column explains.

Several years ago, Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker sought to tame public unions in his state, and against much opposition — quite a bit of it national — not only succeeded in changing law but beat back a recall vote as well.

So Democratic Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm orchestrated a crack-down on conservative groups supportive of Walker’s reforms, complete with night-time SWAT-team raids on the homes of activists who were, they judged, “on the wrong side.”

The thin rationale was possible campaign finance violations, the idea that citizens and their organizations “coordinating” with the governor to advocate for public policies is somehow illegal.

The police state tactics were used because they were available. And obviously thought to be politically acceptable. That the courts have now ruled the means — indeed, the whole probe by prosecutors — unconstitutional doesn’t negate the terrifying fact that the state used such horrific methods to attack peaceful people.

Clearly, people in government have used understandable fears regarding drugs and terrorism to erode our liberties, even when the “crimes” they fight with such illiberal overkill have nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with drugs or terror.

Except the drug that is — and the terror wielded by — out-of-control government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Law Corrupted

 

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general freedom national politics & policies

Promises of Murder

Thought Crimes

Senator Lindsay Graham kills me.

The hawkish Republican from South Carolina isn’t exactly standing up for limited government. His latest oration, on the presidential stump in Iowa, warned Americans far and wide that, were he sitting in the White House with his finger poised above The Button and “you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL [Islamic State] — anybody thinking about that? — I’m not gonna call a judge.”

Adding mucho macho-flash: “I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you.”

Like you, it never crossed my mind to join either the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. So, a big “meh,” eh?

Neh.

The attacks on civil liberties, committed under the cover of fighting terrorism, must end. I hope that Section 215 of the ridiculously-named USA Patriot Act will expire. I also want to halt the secret, process-less, law-less, global drone-strike program.

And I don’t think I am asking too much for the next president to not regularly threaten audiences with wider, more gleeful and less accountable use of drones.

Remember, Sen. Graham said “thinking about.”

Even with the NSA tracking our every key-stroke, government could still make a mistake about what we’re thinking.

Moreover, even if you disagree with me — perhaps wanting the War on Terror to be fought with more fury — it still seems counter-productive for the wannabe POTUS: (a) to imply that Americans must be bullied out of joining the latest jihadist gang in the Middle East and (b) to suggest the Prez has the dictatorial power to summarily execute an American on the mere suspicion of a thought crime.

Graham, president? Don’t die laughing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought Crimes

 

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national politics & policies

Ending One War for Another?

The most important thing we could do to protect the American people and win the War on Terror would be to end the War on Drugs.

That’s the logical conclusion from what Admiral James Stavridis, the former head of U.S. Southern Command and then NATO supreme allied commander, wrote for The Washington Post on Sunday, in a column titled, “The dark side of globalization.”

The admiral didn’t actually call for an end to drug criminalization in the U.S., or even for a less militaristic approach to it. But he did importantly warn us that, after 40 years as a Navy officer, what “keeps him awake at night” is the “convergence” of narco-terrorism.

“Drug cartels use sophisticated trafficking routes to move huge amounts of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. Terrorists can in effect ‘rent’ these routes by co-opting the drug cartels through money, coercion or ideological persuasion,” wrote the admiral. “These organizations can then move personnel, cash or arms — possibly even a weapon of mass destruction — clandestinely to the United States.”

Preventing the delivery of mayhem to our shores, “a weapon of mass destruction” being top of the list, ought to be Job 1 — right up there with scrutinizing the non-profit status of tea party groups and paying Lois Lerner while she’s on leave.

Seriously, if we can remove the most likely nasty network for that dark delivery in one fell swoop, why wouldn’t we?

Plus, according to one estimate, we’d save more than the $17 billion we’ve already spent this year on a losing police-and-courts approach to a health issue.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.