In France, because of the Friday slaughter in Paris, they have a state of emergency unheard of in the last five decades. This should be a reminder of what happens when a war against terrorists drags on without end. Just what is enough security?
As I wrote back in 2003, and have touched on now and again since then, we need to win the war against jihadis in order to secure our freedoms here:
As long as we fight our enemies our civil liberties will be reduced. That is what happens in war. One of the mundane aspect of this threat level hit me yesterday. I received a rejection letter from a defense journal for an article I submitted (oh well, I'm one for two for the submissions I made in the fall). What really struck me were the two copies of my paper that they returned. They were yellowed. Then I remembered, oh yeah, as a government outfit they would have to zap every mail package with whatever device they use to neutralize Anthrax. This process yellows the paper.
This is just one of the prices we pay for defending against terrorists. And if we are to pull back into fortress America, how many police and soldiers will be needed on our streets? How many questions will we need to answer as government security people question us wherever we move? How many public places will be closed off to the public to keep terrorists from destroying our monuments and buildings?
Loss of privacy and freedom are the prices we will pay for letting our enemies live to plot against us. And every time they strike, we will crack down more. By sitting on the defensive, we guarantee that our enemies will eventually strike us successfully. Defense can only slow the pace, not end the attacks against us. Would these opponents of war say that we should do nothing to prevent attacks? Will they say that exploding malls and occasional plagues are the price we should pay to arrive at the airport five minutes before our flight?
If we want our liberties back fully, if we want the luxury of not having our mail irradiated because nutballs would kill us by mail, we must take the offensive and go after our enemies. Al Qaeda and the states that support them because of their common hatred of America must be destroyed.
Then we can debate our civil liberties and go on with our lives.
Let's finally get serious about the war. We give our enemies time, and as Paris and Beirut and the Sinai and countless other places around the world (remember #bringbackourgirls in Nigeria?), they use it to kill innocent people. Let's actually defeat them. And then we can take the steps we need to fully protect our civil liberties without unduly risking carnage in our streets or in our skies.
That quoted post is from my old Yahoo Geocities site. I cut and pasted it into Blogger. But if you want to see the original you can go here to the Undead Archives and scroll down.
