The New Republic

Yiglesias says: "You can grow horse talking about this,...." http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/01/peretz-obama-needs-harsh-view-of-islam-today.php Can you? Can you also grow a tail and run on all fours? Not even Gulliver grew horse talking to Houyhnhnms, nor did he turn horse. Yiglesias, the uber rational idealist, reminds me of nothing less than a Houyhnhnm. He has no horse sense. How can anyone take Yiglesias seriously, a man who grows "horse" talking to people.

- jacksondyer

January 10, 2010 at 11:21am

An interesting divergence of views on the degree to which al Qaeda is or is not a danger can be found on today's Washington Post OpEd page, along the lines that MP notes in his posting. Ex-TNRer Dana Milbank (here) is a bit contemptuous of al Qaeda, arguing that if the Underwear Bomber is the best that al Qaeda can do, then no big deal. The USA can handle that. It'll be a nuisance but he is skeptical that they will actually succeed in taking down many if any aircraft. On the other hand, Bruce Hoffman (a professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center) sees the recent spate of al Qaeda attacks as the adoption of a new "death by a thousand cuts" strategy (here). This strategy forgoes the spectacular "one-of" 9/11 attack in favor of many smaller attacks on soft targets both in the USA, and more critically against the USA's Western allies whom Hoffman rightly sees as the weak link in any conflict with al Qaeda that requires a lot of patience and staying power. Definitely worth reading both. Given Israel's long and didactic experience combating terrorism, the worst mistake one can make would be to underestimate both the abilities, determination, and staying power of al Qaeda. Keep in mind that al Qaeda still invokes the loss of al Andalus as part of the basis for their jihad which means they are taking the long view of their struggle. The tendency to dismiss these sorts of statements as meaning anything, combined with the Western inability to sacrifice for the long haul, makes the West an ideal target for jihadis willing to detonate themselves in order to strike terror in the hearts of self-indulgent hedonists. In other words, I agree with Hoffman & think that Milbank is a fool. BTW, relating to a previous post, I noticed that our bomber wannabe sat in seat 19A; that is against the fuselage which would have allowed him to maximize damage to the plane had his bomb properly exploded. Hershel Ginsburg Jerusalem / Efrata

- ginzy

January 10, 2010 at 11:36am

watch it jackson, you are stealing my joke from the other thread. As to Islamic fundamentalism posing a real, mortal threat to Israel and India, I am in total agreement (I believe the threat is greater to India, and can easily foresee a nuclear armed conflict between India and Pakistan in the next 10 years). However I disagree with ginzy, a thousand cuts to Israel is vastly worse than a thousand, or ten thousands cuts to the U.S. There were between 25,000 to 30,000 gun deaths in 2008, half from suicide the rest murders, accidents, and unknown. And the United States simply shrugs it off as the price of freedom to own guns. Since 9/11 how many Americans have been killed in the US as a direct result of Al Qaeda? Add in the loonly Major and the few other nutjobs, not a whole hell of a lot. And the death of a thousand cuts might work a little at first, until pretty much no Muslims from the Middle East will get visas, and we profile the hell out of every single Middle easterner coming from Europe. Even worst case scenario of Al Qaeda or any such nutjob organization setting off a nuke in the U.S. Suffice it to say it will be the shortest lived "victory" in history as I imagine whatever US president there is would lay waste to Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. Contrast this with the threat we had facing nuclear annihilation under the Soviets (and we came close more than once) and shit yeah, Al Qaeda are nothing but goat sodomizers in comparison (and in reality as well) Look, Israel has faced an existential threat from day one and it has not only survived, it has thrived, I am a little tired of Republican fear mongering that says we are not the equal of any Israeli when push comes to shove. Al Qaeda simply doesn't have a clue that people will only live in so much fear for so long, and that even when the fears are actualized, they still say screw it, I want to live, risks and all. I only wish the Republicans would grow some balls.

- blackton

January 10, 2010 at 2:59pm

I think some mystification can be created by deploying a sort of quasi-philosophical argument that sets up other dangerous or destructive tendencies (Americans are apparently willing to put up with a massive number of deaths by firearms/cars/obesity rather than control gun ownership/cell phones/Big Macs) as an ironic counterweight to terrorism. The fact itself is worth noting (and these things need to be addressed), but the crucial difference is that the terror attack is intended and malicious, which is not the case even for all firearms fatalities. I can't recall the figures, but I believe that in Britain as of 1943 the number of people killed in road accidents over the previous three years was higher than the number killed in German bombing raids. One can smile grimly at that disconcerting statistic, but to move on to suggest that cars were per se more dangerous than the Luftwaffe bomber aircraft would be to compound the oddness of the statistic with a false weighting of significance. What we are dealing with in respect of road accidents is a combination of human error, weather, alcohol, speed, car maintenance, highway design and the like. In contrast, what we are dealing with in respect of a threat to passenger aircraft or similar targets has at its core the dynamic of intentionality. We can't "trust" terrorists to decide not to carry out attacks that way we might "trust" law-abiding gun owners to do the right thing and keep it away from kids. We have to respond to the threat, but the job is complicated, as it's not the same kind of threat as German bombers over London. We have to both deflect each individual threat as it presents itself (not an easy job, as we've seen) and try to neutralize or suppress the core intentionality that drives the threat (even a more difficult job). To that extent, measuring the strength or weakness of Al Qaeda is an important part of this mission, but if the assessment of strength or weakess becomes a marker of domestic political orientation, we are in danger of fighting a war as if intelligence were a matter of personal ideological taste.

- ironyroad

January 10, 2010 at 4:12pm

Btw ginzy, I wonder how Abdulmutallab got seat 19A. If he didn't book online, he couldn't have selected the seat on the display you can access once you've paid with your credit card. He must have asked for a window seat at check-in, and indeed toward the forward/middle area of the plane (should that have raised a flag?). I can't think of anything else -- but there may be something I'm missing -- as the statistical likelihood of getting a window seat in the middle of the aircraft just by chance seems slim.

- ironyroad

January 10, 2010 at 4:18pm

Irony, you are missing my point, scarcely a day goes by without some deranged nut killing a bunch of people, all of these attacks are intended and malicious, and yet we have the NRA fighting for the rights of lunatics to buy guns from vending machines. (I am not even sure if this is an exaggeration). There were about 9,000 people murdered by gun violence last year. And just where is Al Qaeda going to get these people to do their work, most of them are complete mental defectives, such as that sorry lot that went to Pakistan. The nut who is angry at life and is determined that they make us pay is far more dangerous as a daily reality, and these people are far more numerous and far harder to detect than some teenagers who attend a radical mosque and up and decide to "vacation" in Pakistan. If Al Qaeda is at war with the US, they flat out have sucked.

- blackton

January 10, 2010 at 4:31pm

blackie, I take your point, but I you might see it a little differently if 3,000 of that 9,000 had all been killed on the one day. I am absolutely against projecting a kind of nightmarish potency onto AQ, but even the lone nutjob as in St Louis a couple of days ago didn't try to bring down a plane landing at St Louis airport. I may not have gotten your point, but I have the feeling you don't quite get mine.

- ironyroad

January 10, 2010 at 5:07pm

irony, I live in Mexico, even with all the narco terrorism going on, people still go about their daily lives. Yeah, they might not be taking down planes, but they are taking out law enforcement. My point is that Al Qaeda has no idea the capacity of people to live with such shit is far greater than they imagine, hence they can never win (whatever it is they are trying to win)

- blackton

January 10, 2010 at 6:02pm

Blackie, I didn't make myself clear. But first let me emphasize, I am not a Republican. I am also not a Democrat. I have no party loyalty because I don't give a whit about political parties per se. I do care a lot about public policy and individual candidates, but not because of the party that is running any given candidate for office. No party (or politician for that matter) has a lock on wisdom, foresight or legislative or administrative abilities. I realize this may be considered heresy for magazine web site revolving around politics (as an Orthodox Jew I'll be the first to recognize heresy) but so be it. BTW, one of my great frustrations with the Israeli political system is that with a few exceptions and for the better and for the worse , voting is by party "list" and not by individual candidates. I never said to let terrorism control one's life. As one who has probably lived with more terrorism and its consequences than everyone here combined, the first thing I say is try to keep life as normal as possible. That is what we do here in Israel. We don't deny it is there, we don't minimize it, we use everything available to fight it with determinism and we publicly mourn its victims and give succor and support to the survivors (the older of two daughters did her national service with the "One Family Fund" organization that focuses on giving material, legal, and emotional support to terror victims and their families). And what should be most obvious, I am still here. In other words, we don't run. Some years back, just before Bush W. invaded Iraq and we were getting ready to be peppered by Saddams missiles (as Israel was in 1991) and the IDF distributed gas masks to the entire population, in case a chemical warhead was used. My neighbor's daughter was getting married and we joked about whether or not she could get a mask to match her wedding gown & assorted other black humor. Life must go on. All the above said, we also have learned never to underestimate your enemy, its abilities, and its determination, and in view of the foregoing do what needs to be done to foil (to the extent possible) their efforts. Kip Hawley, the former head of the TSA put it succinctly in a recent Washington Post OpEd piece: I am often asked why we can't have an aviation security system more like Israel's. We can and we should. But the key ingredient of Israeli security is not that their technology or staffers are better -- they are not [HG: I disagree but that is another matter]. It's not profiling or having just one international airport. It is willpower. Israelis as a nation have coalesced around the fact that they are in a deadly generational conflict that extends to their everyday activities, such as traveling. Attacks and casualties are unavoidable, yet unflinching determination and take-the-offensive mentalities are hallmarks of Israel's reaction. Because of this fundamental national consensus, when there are security breaches Israel does not wander down self-destructive paths, more focused on sound bites than results. The United States must come together and recognize that this battlefield is not someplace far away, battles fought by somebody else. We are all involved and at risk. In other words determination yes, but flippancy no. And Milbank's piece was stupid and flippant, a combination that will lead to laxity. The combination also is arguably symptomatic of self-indulgent, hedonistic societies, societies which eschew any sort of sacrifice. Western Europe arrived at that point in the post-Soviet 1990's. Ditto for some parts of the USA. The Jihadis live and die by their belief in sacrifice. So who is more able to win an armed conflict. The entity that is willing and able to sacrifice or the entity that rather eat, drink and be merry and avoid the fight? hg