Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?
Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong.
It took a handful of men to crash each airplane involved in 9/11. The power technology can grant to small numbers of people to injure multitudes is huge, and will only grow as technology improves.
There are growing numbers of things that can destroy us. The Roman Empire lasted a lot longer than the United States has lasted, and yet it too was destroyed.
Millions of lives were blighted for centuries thereafter, because the barbarians who destroyed Rome were incapable of replacing it with anything at all comparable. Neither are those who threaten to destroy the United States today.
The destruction of the United States will not require enough nuclear bombs to annihilate cities and towns across America. After all, the nuclear destruction of just two cities was enough to force Japan to surrender-- and the Japanese had far more willingness to fight and die than most Americans have today.
How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?
Heinlein wrote that there are only two ways to avoid being blown up by a nuclear bomb: Not be there when it goes off, or arrange the world in such a way that no one will set one off where you are. I think it's worth noting that some of these arrangements are more satisfactory than others. One arrangement that is not satisfactory is appeasing the terrorists.
The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.
They want our soul-- and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.
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