Paris: Barbarians At the Gates

The Paris attacks ought to make plain some obvious realities, but to look at TV news coverage, whether it is CNN or Fox or CNBC, you'd never know it. The usual parade of pundits and politicians have all sorts of analyses and find all sorts of implications for broader conclusions from the attacks: Republicans say this proves American foreign policy is a disaster, that this never would have happened if President Obama had only followed their advice, which has been to disengage from the Middle East wars (Rand Paul) to put several divisions of American soldiers in the desert (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump) and bomb them (Trump especially) to establish a no fly zone (Carly Fiorina) to do whatever it is Mr. Obama has not done. 

The pundits are similarly all over the map with advice to engage, disengage, drop bombs, use more drones, stop using drones. 

Everyone has an opinion. Nobody knows what he is talking about.

This is one of those problems for which we are not currently equipped.  When the Twin Towers were annihilated on September 11, a few F-15 fighters patrolled over the skies of Washington, D.C. for hours, shaking our windows and rattling our walls, and I looked up in the sky and thought, "How absurd: As if scrambling those jet fighters is going to prevent anything now, as if they are making us safer. Those loud, menacing looking airplanes seemed the perfect image of American impotence and bluster:  Hey, we've got these big airplanes! Terrorists, aren't you afraid now?  

It reminded me of that wonderful scene in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" when an Arab prince, having seen his mounted cavalry decimated by the strafing machine guns of an airplane, and he chases after the airplane pathetically, brandishing his sword above his head, shouting after the airplane in impotent rage. So this time it was George W. Bush sending F-15's aloft, to vent his impotent rage.

The trouble is, we do not have a good strategy to insure the safety of our citizens against surprise attacks against civilians, armed or unarmed, in an open society which has for years allowed and encouraged its citizens to congregate in peaceful crowds. 

ISIS rages through the Middle East and we can use our guns and technology against their troops there. Only if they come out in the open in trucks,  is this  a war we are equipped to fight, we are trained to fight. But when ISIS slips its suicide bombers across borders, when they are cunning and sneaky and unpredictable, what do you do then?

Fact is: Nobody knows. Rush Limbaugh says he knows.  Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump all have plans.  None of them knows. 

The only worse thing than not knowing what to do is to pretend you do know what to do and to charge off with your sword raised, screaming vainly, "I'm gonna get you!"

Oh, Don't We All Feel Safer Now?