Serious Threats Ain't What They Used To Be

By Cernig

This may just be the most idiotic thing I've read in a month:

The Soviet Union never killed 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania by crashing jets into skyscrapers. The definition of a "serious threat" is different today than it was a generation ago.

Yep, apparently Jim Geraghty at NRO has downgraded "serious threat" from one that could kill 90% of the population to one that can kill less than 0.0001%. Seriously, what in the phrase "Mutually Assured Destruction" does this guy not get?

In another two decades Geraghty fully expects a "serious threat" to be defined as "I might get a papercut". It wouldn't be so bad if these pantswetters didn't see negotiations as getting in the way of nuking what scares them into oblivion.

He has competition for most idiot rightwing pundit this month though.

John Bolton says that if Obama wants to debate foreign policy and national security with McCain he should "bring it on". No, really. He actually wrote those words. That should send the right message to the world, huh?

Update: Oh dear, how sad, I rained on the War Party's crusade!

But despite Geraghty's strawman update to his post, I didn't actually say 9/11 was just a papercut. It was a horrible event and is justly condemned - but it simply isn't in the same league as the Cold War prospect of nuclear destruction. Geraghty knows he was an idiot for saying so, so he's covering by strawman attacks. During the Cold War, the threat was the death of 90% or so of the entire population. You therefore had a 9 in 10 chance of dying if threat became actuality.

There's substantially greater chance of dying of gunshot wounds in the Texan city I live in than of dying in another 9/11. Around 1 in 10,000 of the city's population die every year from shootings. Yet there's no "War On Shootings", no "Axis Of Evil" comprising gun manufacturers, gun dealers and armed criminals. No one is saying they'd be fine with giving up civil liberties so that the government can conduct warrantless wiretapping on anyone connected with the NRA.

Just for an intellectual exercise, try seeing if any other single repeatable event causing or potentially causing 1 in 10,000 or more of the population to meet their death has created the same multi-year hyped over-reaction that the Right has made of 9/11. Like Rudy Guilliani on the stump, most can only repeat "9/11, 9/11" over and over as a mantra of fear to justify their mismanagement of the nation.

The point of terrorism is to cause terror. They say that some people are more susceptible to advertising than others - pantswetters like Geraghty are a terrorist's wet dream.

Update 2: David Brooks gets it.

I feel estranged," he said. "I just don't feel it's exciting, I don't feel it's true, fundamentally true." In the eighties, when he was a young movement journalist, the attacks on regulation and the Soviet Union seemed "true." Now most conservatives seem incapable of even acknowledging the central issues of our moment: wage stagnation, inequality, health care, global warming. They are stuck in the past...

..."The big defeat is probably coming, and then the thinking will happen. I have not yet seen the major think tanks reorient themselves, and I don't know if they can." He added, "You go to Capitol Hill — Republican senators know they're fucked. They have that sense. But they don't know what to do. (H/t Kevin Drum)

The rest just keep on banging on about how 9/11 changed everything.

Comments

[Eric]

So a serious threat is only one that kills over 3,000 Americans?
Suppose Iran provided Hamas and Hezbollah with a nuclear device. Would that be "serious" enough of a threat for you?

[mark]

I used to be a liberal. I was a liberal because liberals (I thought) believed in the rights of the individual. I left the liberal camp when I realized that liberals did not actually believe in the rights of the individual, but only cared about the interests of the Group.
CERMIG is just another example of the big lie of liberalism. Liberals should be angry that the rights of three thousand individuals (i.e. that most basic of rights - the right to live) were taken away by a cast of 19 Islamic extremists. Instead, Cermig brushes it all aside as inconsequential.
How sad. Please CERMIG, demonstrate the conviction of your words and travel to Iran to explain to them the error of their ways.

[fester]

Mark --- please when you whine against someone, please spell their name correctly --- it is CerNig not CerMig.

It is a matter of perspective --- 30,000 nukes on effectively launch on warning status vs. a de facto special ops attack capacity ....

[Go]

Well Mark, if nothing else Cernig is setting an example in one regard - he whines more than anyone on the net, yet his spelling is pretty good.

[RAM]

If you're really honest, you've got to count the Korean Conflict casualties as well as the Vietnam War casualties in the Cold War totals, which is 36,500 plus 58,000, which even I, a math-deficient person, can see is more than the 3,000 killed on 9/11.

And as Cernig points out, the threat was that (despite our best duck and cover efforts) we'd all be incinerated one fine day. I remember reading in our local weekly newspaper back in 1964 (the year I graduated from high school) that Civil Defense had certified the local fallout shelter in the basement of the high school could hold 125 people. Since the township population was then upwards of 15,000, I couldn't help but wonder where everyone else was supposed to go. The Civil Defense guy said all families were advised to plan for their own survival. Sort of like the GOP's YOYO (You're On Your Own) healthcare plans these days.

[Andy]

I'm waiting for The Corner to declare war on Automofacism, because some 45,000 Americans die every year in car crashes.

[Andy Vance]

It's no use arguing with a civil defense siren. The only responses are either to a) call them out for what they really are, blustering poltroons, or b) derisive parody (i.e. whip out an ahmadinejad effigy and dry-hump it Ace Ventura style. Who's the TOUGH-guy NOW? Huh? HUH?)

[Chris]

I had friends who died on 9/11 in the twin towers. It has seriously effected my life and the life of those around me. To treat such threats as paper-cuts is insane. I know you want to defend Obama because he is your guy, but lets not get irrational here. A nuclear bomb built by paper-cut Iran, and smuggled on a plane by our friendly jihadis, and detonated over your home town effects everyone, Republicans and Dems, Clinton people and Obama people. To treat 9/11 as minor is to alienate a large section of the Democratic base who were directly affected by it.

[BJ Bjornson]

Man, reading comprehension not a strong point for some people.

Iran doesn't have a nuclear bomb, nor does it have the means to currently produce one, or to deliver one, which is somewhat pointless given that they, you know, don't have one. It also has a military budget less than 1% of what the US spends, and it hasn't invaded another country since before there even was a United States.

Now compare that to the Soviet Union, with millions of troops, high-tech weapons, thousands of nukes, with ICBMs and long-range bombers and submarines to deliver them all, along with a somewhat aggressive stance with more than a few of its neighbours like Hungary or Afghanistan.

How does the level of threat compare?

[matthew]

this is the difference when combatting an enemy that is fearful of mutual destruction, and an enemy that glorifies martyrdom. iran has hundreds of thousands enlisted in its martyrs brigade, suicide bombers. they are ruled by a radical ayatollah, and no matter how secular the population, the mullahs and their beliefs are the most powerful faction in the country. the soviets were terrified of us. the jihadists are not.

[Andy Vance]

an enemy that glorifies martyrdom

Shit, that ain't nothin'. We have a president willing to give up golf.

[Subsunk]

There's substantially greater chance of dying of gunshot wounds in the Texan city I live in than of dying in another 9/11. Around 1 in 10,000 of the city's population die every year from shootings. Yet there's no "War On Shootings", no "Axis Of Evil" comprising gun manufacturers, gun dealers and armed criminals. No one is saying they'd be fine with giving up civil liberties so that the government can conduct warrantless wiretapping on anyone connected with the NRA.

You must have missed all those folks in the police uniforms patrolling your town then. Funny, but I thought their major function in life was to perpetrate said "War on Shootings". Otherwise, we'd all be shooting each other just for shits and grins wouldn't we? The "Axis of Evil" appears to be the same folks listed in the wanted posters in the Post Office too, and the Amber alert signs on the highways, and the folks you see on the evening news raping and thieving and killing because they all "get along" so well.

Or maybe you think order just happens in the universe naturally. That people just always get along with their neighbors and their loved ones. There is no domestic abuse, assault and battery over feeling up somebody's date in a bar, and no drug trade in the cities.

As for your comments that all that worry and handwringing over terrorism is misplaced, it is so comforting to know that the loss of 3000 of your friends and neighbors at the hands of people who think their religion justifies putting women in head to toe robes, stoning for adultery, decapitation for not being of the proper religion anymore, amputation for petty thievery, and elimination of 4 million Americans lives (because that is how many Muslims have supposedly been killed by America's support of other sovereign nations....although just how we are responsible for what Arab dictators do to their own people, I'm not sure I understand. Maybe we should invade those countries and eliminate their dictators, eh?) just doesn't quite measure up to the seriousness posed by the former Soviet Union, who actually killed millions of their own people and thousands of Americans during its existence. So let's not oppose those minor thugs, by any means. They aren't a serious threat to us, until they actually, you know, kill some of us. And it's just bad luck if you happen to be one of those who does die at their hands. Law of Averages and all, though. We, as a country, shouldn't get upset or defend ALL of us in that case because it just isn't fair to oppose those tiny little countries who hate us and love to sneak up on us and kill a few of us every so often, and then run away like the cowards they are. Because it just wouldn't be fair to oppose them with the same tactics they use against us, or with even a modicum of determination to ensure what is Just for them, is also accorded to us. After all, it is more important to count every vote, and feed every mouth than to defend the lives of a handful of citizens who are just going to die in 50 or 60 yrs anyway. How lucky to be hungry or a Dhimmicratic voter you are.

Just for an intellectual exercise, try seeing if any other single repeatable event causing or potentially causing 1 in 10,000 or more of the population to meet their death has created the same multi-year hyped over-reaction that the Right has made of 9/11.

Right. Let's discuss the Global Warming phenomenon, or lack thereof, shall we? How long have you been pushing that gravy train? How many deaths have humans actually caused by burning wood in our fireplaces, and gasoline in our cars? Who is susceptible to advertising now?

I feel estranged," he said. "I just don't feel it's exciting, I don't feel it's true, fundamentally true." In the eighties, when he was a young movement journalist, the attacks on regulation and the Soviet Union seemed "true." Now most conservatives seem incapable of even acknowledging the central issues of our moment: wage stagnation, inequality, health care, global warming.

Right. When's the last time inequality and wage stagnation killed sombody here in the US of A. How many lynchings you seen lately? So many folks who never get a raise! They just keep on working the same dead end job and for some reason their pay doesn't miraculously go up year after year for doing the EXACT same thing they did the year before. And such atrocious health care here. Why it is simply criminal that so many illegal aliens can run to the emergency rooms in America and get free treatment (because they surely don't pay for it, do they? That would mean they would have to pay for their health care! And they don't want to get a Social Security Number to allow them to be detected by the fascist police and Bushies, now do they?) which saves their lives and enhances their ability to live here, while in Nicaragua or Panama they have so much better health care than we do here. Such clean hospitals, pure water, healthy diets, and fresh air they have outside the US, and what a cess pool we live in. It is amazing anyone would live here atall. At least in Nicaragua they have better exercise programs, so much of their labor being physical-manual labor and such.

You are some piece of work, kiddo. I laughed my ass off the whole time I read your prose.

Subsunk

[Subsunk]

It is a matter of perspective --- 30,000 nukes on effectively launch on warning status vs. a de facto special ops attack capacity ....

Posted by: fester | May 19, 2008 at 05:24 PM

I believe the correct number of US nuclear warheads is limited by treaty to less than 3,300. And there is no launch on warning status in effect and hasn't been since 1992. Our weapons are pointed towards open ocean areas and are not spun up. And no launch may be effected without specific message direction from the National Command Authority, after being properly validated by two people, properly authenticated by two people, and properly directed by the NCA (which means President of the US, or the succession authority if he is dead... a wet dream of your own I'm sure you have every night.)

The Iranians have an actual army and navy. Their irregular terrorist groups (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) is actually quite large and well advanced and trained for the sole purpose of spreading terrorist attacks amongst the enemies of Iran, anywhere in the world. They have managed to kill several hundred Americans over the couple of decades, all without retaliation.

Really, you folks ought to check your facts sometime.

Subsunk

[Steve Hynd]

Hi Subsunk,

Kindly refrain from assuming you know the contents of our wet dreams. Such speculation will get you a ban next time (if you're not just a drive-by commenter).

The War On Shootings gets a miniscule fraction of the budget and hype that the War On Terror gets every year, despite more deaths in the former.

I didn't actually say that smaller threats shouldn't be defended against - I've consistently argued threats should be defended against commensurate with their scale. To suggest otherwise, as you do, is to construct a strawman to try to save an otherwise hopeless case that Islamic terror presents a bigger threat now than Russian nukes did then.

Oh, and BTW I'm a Brit - we know what it's like to have a city flattened by airstrikes and we know what it's like to live with multiple terrorist attacks, and the two are not remotely comparable.

My own belief about the correct response to terrorist attacks is a matter of record. The idea is that assymetric attacks deserve an assymetric response and the post is entitled "Prescription - One Bullet, Repeat As Needed."

Lastly, the treaties on arms limitation only restrict the number of weapons on front line standby to 3,300 - there are over 30,000 nukes still in the US arsenal with a lag-to-use of between 24 hours and a week. Really, you "ought to check your facts sometime".

Regards, C