Terrorism

When 9/11 happened, we were stunned by how could a small band of people bring an entire nation to its knees. Not only those attacks killed more than 3,000 Americans but it also ended up costing vast sums of money.  This was the opening move of a different type of war.

As we all know, in retrospection, that these tragedy could have been prevented. The perpetrators had taken training in how to fly commercial jetliners. The cabins of the airplanes were not locked so anyone with bad intentions could have walked in. The effectiveness of security apparatus was not up to the par. The murders had left enough clues that they could have been caught prior to committing their heinous acts.

In the ensuing years, steps have been taken to prevent such tragedies. The airport security has been beefed up, sophisticated databases have created of suspected terrorists, and their movements and conversations are routinely monitored to identify potential plans being hatched. Besides, cockpit doors are now locked preventing hijacking of an airplane.

In response, the terrorist changed their methods. The attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando were surprising because otherwise ordinary people, not on anyone’s terror lists, perpetrated them. Instead of sending men with bad intentions, they just converted local folks to commit crimes.

These tragedies could not have been stopped by tighter law enforcement. There are lots of people being tracked by our fine folks at Homeland Security and local law enforcement agencies. However, it is almost impossible to find needles in haystack, or even worse, as the head of FBI said, identify hay that might become a needle.

Preventing all Muslims from entering our country is such an asinine idea that it is not even worth discussing. Besides being unconstitutional and so very un-American, such a move would not have caught these murderers…they were American citizens, not foreign nationals.

The only thing that can be done to prevent these terrorist acts, or at least their severity, is to make it impossible for civilians to lay their hands on assault rifles. Such a law is long over due, and would have passed if not blocked by our homegrown coconspirators, those fine folks at NRA.

The reverse argument, to let everyone have guns is as stupid as banning all Muslims. One would not be able to separate good guys from bad guys when the shooting starts and there would be a total Western movie style shoot out, resulting in an even larger tragedy.

Now, with the terrorist act in Nice, we are confronted with even more challenging environment in which a radicalized terrorist used his truck as a weapon. What can be done? You cannot ban trucks. Perhaps you can install temporary truck barriers whenever a group of folks are going to gather on streets. However, how strong will the barrier need to be to stop a massive truck at full speed? How feasible would it be to install such barriers every time a group wants to congregate?

I think the only option at this stage is to prevent ordinary folks from becoming radical. This process of radicalization does not seem to require personal contacts, say at places of worship or travel to hotbed countries. If it did, it would be relatively easy to monitor.

Radicalization is done largely through the Internet. As I understand, there are huge numbers of videotapes and websites available on-line for the disenfranchised person to tap into to reinforce his/her budding hatred toward the Western way of life. We have to strangle that channel hard.

I am sure that Homeland Security is doing the best it can but they are probably stymied by our desire for privacy. One of my ex-colleagues, working in the defense industry tells me that Ed Snowden, the traitor, gravely damaged our ability to listen in. We have to give permission to people we trust for keeping us safe, so that they are able to go into the entire Web, the part we see and part that is considered “dark,” and shutdown every source of radicalizing material available on-line.

I am reminded of a science fiction movie, “Invasion of Body Snatchers,” in which the aliens try to conquer earth by secretly converting ordinary citizens into aliens, with no change in outward appearance. This is what is happening now. The only way to make a difference is to deny distribution channels to the “aliens” even if it means invading our privacy.

We cannot go on living like this, in constant fear of our friends and neighbors getting infected and becoming rabid murders.