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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen the Next Terrorist Attack Comes, Will We Be Capable of Keeping Our Heads?
When the Next Terrorist Attack Comes, Will We Be Capable of Keeping Our Heads?PAUL WALDMAN SEPTEMBER 29, 2014
As we start a new war, it's worth considering the question now.
Imagine its six months from now. A 19-year-old manwhom well later learn was in communication with members of ISIL in the Middle Eastwalks on to the Mall in Washington on a weekend afternoon. Groups of tourists are walking about from one monument to another. He takes his backpack off his shoulders, reaches in, and removes the semiautomatic rifle he bought a month before at a gun show in Virginia, where he didnt have to submit to a background check (though it wouldnt have mattered, because his record is clean). He opens fire on the crowd, and before U.S. Park Police are able to reach him and put him down, he has killed six people and wounded eleven others. In his pocket is a note announcing his devotion ISIL, and that he is striking at the United States in retaliation for its illegal war on the true Muslims building a caliphate in Syria and Iraq .
Most of us appreciate, at least intellectually, that our chance of dying in a terrorist attack is approximately zero, and even if it increases, that increase would mean it has gone from approximately zero all the way up to pretty much zero. But thats not how we act and react. So lets go back to that attack, and consider what would happen in response. It would be the biggest news story of the year, every report emphasizing that it happened just steps from the White House and the Capitol building. The news media would amp up the fear to levels we havent seen in the last decade, encouraging everyone to look for sleeper cells lurking down at the Piggly Wiggly. Republicans would of course unite behind President Obama in our time of mourningkidding! Theyd go on TV to denounce him for being so weak that the evildoers struck us in our very heart, and proclaim not only that the blood of the victims is on the hands of every Democrat, but that more attacks are coming and were more vulnerable than weve ever been. Dick Cheney would emerge snarling from his subterranean lair to warn us that this is only the beginning and we really need to start bombing at least five or six more countries. Senator Lindsey Graham, who has already said about ISIL that this president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home, might just tear off his shirt and scream, Were all gonna die! Were all gonna die! right on Fox News Sunday.
And the public would follow right along. In a recent CNN poll, 41 percent said they were very or somewhat worried that they or a member of their family would be a victim of terrorismwhich, to repeat, is about as likely as they or a member of their family getting hit by a falling piano. This number hasnt changed much in years (five years ago it was 36 percent), all accumulated evidence to the contrary. But one successful attack is all it would take to push that number comfortably past a majority. In the last year, the number of people telling the Pew Research Center that government anti-terror policies have not gone far enough to protect us has increased from 39 percent to 50 percent (among Republicans its gone from 41 percent to 64 percent), despite the fact that the only terrorist attacks in that time came from a crazed man who wanted to kill TSA agents and a couple of right-wing extremists in Nevada.
http://prospect.org/article/when-next-terrorist-attack-comes-will-we-be-capable-keeping-our-heads
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When the Next Terrorist Attack Comes, Will We Be Capable of Keeping Our Heads? (Original Post)
kpete
Sep 2014
OP
"When the Next Terrorist Attack Comes, Will We Be Capable of Keeping Our Heads?"....
Bigmack
Sep 2014
#1
Well first they need to figure out how to at least lock doors at the White House.
gordianot
Sep 2014
#8
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)1. "When the Next Terrorist Attack Comes, Will We Be Capable of Keeping Our Heads?"....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... us?.... Keep our heads?.... Like in the past?...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (to infinity)
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)2. We kept our cool after Boston.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)4. A major city shut down. Shelter in place. Cops searching door to door.
Militarized police staging in a parking lot for one 20- something year old. I wouldn't call that cool.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)6. I mean we didn't go to war after it.
But you make a good point.
Response to morningfog (Reply #4)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
Logical
(22,457 posts)10. +1000! Shut down a city for 2 people! Nt
Response to kpete (Original post)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
Vattel
(9,289 posts)5. Americans are mostly bat-shit crazy when it comes to national security issues.
I see no sign that will change soon. So, no, we won't keep our heads.
gordianot
(15,247 posts)8. Well first they need to figure out how to at least lock doors at the White House.
Compared to the lousy job the Secret Service does at the White House my home is a fortress.
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)9. K&R (nt)