Great article from Brett Stephens @WSJ: Life During War Time = BLUF Armed Citizens are the answer

Discussion in 'Politics' started by AD1, Sep 21, 2016.


  1. AD1

    AD1 Monkey+++

    Life During Wartime
    Global View Columnist Bret Stephens on the security and political implications of weekend terror attacks in three states. Photo credit: Zima Press.

    By
    Bret Stephens
    Sept. 19, 2016 7:42 p.m. ET
    Long after I returned to the U.S. after living in Jerusalem I kept thinking about soft targets. The peak-hour commuter train that took me from Westchester to Grand Central. The snaking queue outside the security checkpoint at La Guardia Airport. The theater crowds near Times Square.

    All of these places were vulnerable and most of them undefended. Why, I wondered, weren’t they being attacked?

    This was in late 2004, when Jack Bauer was an American hero and memories of 9/11 were vivid. Yet friends who were nervous about boarding a flight seemed nonchalant about much more plausible threats. Maybe they expected the next attack would be on the same grand scale of 9/11. Maybe they thought the perpetrators would be supervillains in the mold of Osama bin Laden, not fried-chicken vendors like Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the suspected 23rd Street bomber.

    Life in Israel had taught me differently. Between January 2002, when I moved to the country, and October 2004, when I left, there were 85 suicide bombings, which took the lives of 543 Israelis. Palestinian gun attacks claimed hundreds of additional victims. In a small country it meant that most everyone knew one of those victims, or knew someone who knew someone.

    To this day the bombings are landmarks in my life. March 2002: Cafe Moment, just down the street from my apartment, where my future wife had arranged to meet a friend who canceled at the last minute. Eleven dead. September 2003: Cafe Hillel, another neighborhood hangout, where seven people were murdered, including 20-year-old Nava Applebaum and her father, David, on the eve of her wedding. January 2004: Bus No. 19 on Gaza Street, which I witnessed close-up before the ambulances arrived. Another 11 dead and 13 seriously injured, including Jerusalem Post reporter Erik Schechter.

    Living in those circumstances had a strange dichotomous quality. Things were absolutely fine until they absolutely weren’t. Memories of bombings mix with other memories: jogs around the walls of the old city, weekend outings to the beach, the daily grind of editing a newspaper. The sense of normality was achieved through an effort of will and a touch of fatalism. Past a certain point, fearing for your own safety becomes exhausting. You give it up.

    But it wasn’t just psychological adjustment that made life livable. Israelis recoiled after each bombing, mourned every victim, then picked themselves up. Cafe Moment reopened weeks after it was destroyed. The army and police could not provide constant security, so every restaurant and supermarket hired an armed guard, every mall and hotel set up metal detectors, and people went out. More than a few attacks were stopped by lone Israeli civilians who prevented massacres through the expedient of a handgun.

    As for the Israeli government, after much hesitation it did what governments are supposed to do: It fought. In April 2002 then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent Israeli tanks into Jenin, Bethlehem and every other nest of Palestinian terror. He trapped Yasser Arafat in his little palace in Ramallah. He ordered the killing of Hamas’s leaders in Gaza.

    All this was done in the teeth of overwhelming international condemnation and the tut-tutting of experts who insisted only a “political solution” could break the “cycle of violence.” Instead, the Israeli military broke that cycle by building a wall and crippling the Palestinians’ capacity to perpetrate violence. In 2002 there were 47 bombings. In 2007 the number had come down to one.

    What’s the lesson here for Americans? This past weekend’s terrorist attacks hold at least two. One is that there is a benefit for a society that allows competent and responsible adults to carry guns, like the off-duty police officer who shot the knife-wielding jihadist in St. Cloud, Minn. Another is that there is an equal benefit in the surveillance methods that allowed police in New York and New Jersey to swiftly identify and arrest Mr. Rahimi before his bombing spree took any lives.

    These are lessons the political left in this country doesn’t want to hear, lest they unsettle established convictions that weapons can only cause violence, not stop it, and that security is the antithesis of, not a precondition to, civil liberty.

    See the rest here Life During Wartime
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2016
  2. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    Excellent article! @AD1 Well done! And, thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention.
     
    Seepalaces, Motomom34, AD1 and 2 others like this.
  3. AD1

    AD1 Monkey+++

    I saw the interview this AM on FOX with the author and went and grabed the article.
     
    Seepalaces and Ura-Ki like this.
  4. Yard Dart

    Yard Dart Vigilant Monkey Moderator

    It is a great article.....
    My only issue is with his second bullet point... there are over 8,000 cameras in NY..... over-saturation of the police state.... is that what we want to be, a society with big brother watching us on every corner... or do we as a people stand up and protect each other without big brother watching over our shoulder on every corner as they would like to do?!.
     
    Seepalaces, AD1 and Ura-Ki like this.
  5. marlas1too

    marlas1too Monkey+++

    I'm not a Christian but I support all religions except the cult of islam . and its amazing that America lets these attacks go and not see the root of all these attacks----ISLAM is the source. it should not be allowed to flourish in any civilised country or around people IMHO
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2016
    Seepalaces likes this.
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