When you listened on TV to public spokespeople explain what was going on after two bombings, three deaths, more than 170 injuries, you felt — to the extent possible — comforted. You heard good sense being spoken, an avoidance of anything panicky, care not to come to premature conclusions and ironclad determination to capture the guilty.
Guard against disaster
Being ready for a disaster is a big part of what we need. There are dangers of biological and chemical and even nuclear terrorist attacks that we can never be assured we can stop, no matter what our military does abroad or how incredibly well our intelligence agents and police perform. Since 9/11, we have thwarted some murderous schemes, but then there was Fort Hood and now there is Boston, and we have to grasp the importance of containing the tragic possibilities.That containment could be the difference between hundreds of lives lost and tens or even hundreds of thousands. At sessions on the terrorist threat sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in recent years, I’ve been convinced we’re moving forward but not fast enough and with too many hitches. One expert, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel named Randall Larsen, believes a major hit is inevitable, but that the answer is not to waltz in fear. It’s to act practically.
I’ve liked it that President Barack Obama has not practiced what he preached as a candidate in 2008. We still have indefinite detention, we still have Guantanamo, we still have the Patriot Act, we still may have tough interrogations of terrorists — if conducted by other countries. I myself think Obama has gone too far with drones, but I do think this president became another George W. Bush when he was in office for a very practical reason. He learned if he wasn’t, we could lose a city or two or three.
I have not been impressed by the responses to the tragic shootings we’ve had in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo. I am not against limited magazine capacity for firearms and background checks before their purchase, but I do not think these steps will do boo to prevent more killings. We have 300 million guns in this country and criminals don’t usually secure theirs legally. I think the answer of the National Rifle Association — to park a cop in every school — is also so much hot air. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see why that would not work short of still more steps that would make schools facsimile fortresses — not an America I want.