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Reason Express |
Welcome to REASON Express, the weekly e-newsletter from REASON magazine. REASON Express is written by Washington-based journalist Jeff A. Taylor and draws on the ideas and resources of the REASON editorial staff. For more information on REASON, visit our Web site at www.reason.com. Send your comments about REASON Express to Jeff A. Taylor (jtaylor@reason.com) and REASON Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie (gillespie@reason.com).
REASON Express
September 18, 2001
Vol. 4 No. 38
- - Veiled Threat - -
It is a truism that tragedy can bring out the best in people. An easy-to-overlook corollary is that it can also bring out the worst, as emotions or sheer adrenaline overwhelm whatever higher-brain functions hide lunatic thoughts from everyday view.
The fringe has already trotted out suppositions that explosives were planted in the World Trade Center, that because the United States is apt to draw closer to Israel after the attacks that Israel, ergo, caused the attacks, and that as Manhattan is full of Clinton-Gore voters, the Bushies have hatched a dark electoral plot.
But even more extreme are the musings of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who surmise that the week's horrors indicate God has lifted His "veil of protection" from the United States because of various transgressions. Those would include attempts to "secularize" the nation by pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Robertson later added that "rampant Internet pornography'' was to blame for God's anger. Falwell chimed in with, "If we don't repent, then more events might happen in the future.''
While they prepare for their imminent conversion to some fanatical Islamic sect--where their views on America's basic wickedness would be shared--the reverends might reflect on how the divine plan to punish the nation came to put San Franciscan Mark Bingham in a featured role.
Bingham was aboard United Flight 93, which went down outside Pittsburgh. He was a 6-foot-5, former University of California rugby player. He was also gay. His mother doesn't doubt he would've joined any effort to stop the plane from being used as a guided missile.
He may have thought about whom to blame for his predicament, but we know he thought about the friends and loved ones he would soon leave behind. Then he acted.
Turns out that Washington's "veil of protection" included a big, gay rugby player.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22085-2001Sep13.html http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2001/09/12/1 http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010914/us/attacks_robertson_falwell.html
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- - Will to Power - -
Commentators insist that whatever comes next devolves to a test of wills. But what is will?
It would seem to be the capacity for purposeful, goal-directed action in the face of adversity. Wills can be strong, like those required for 19 people to spend years crisscrossing the globe in hopes of one day killing themselves and thousands of others. Or they can be weak, like a gas station owner who gets spooked and raises his prices to $5 a gallon for no good reason.
There hasn't been much call for demonstrations of will on the national stage lately. The closest thing was Bill and Hillary Clinton's dogged grip on power in the face of scandal after scandal.
But Ronald Reagan displayed some of the most important will of the late 20th century by daring to think seriously about a nuclear warfighting strategy. Insisting on having an answer to the question of how the government would answer the phones the day after World War III helped make the Soviet system unsustainable.
Now, it takes a good bit of will on everyone's part these days to undertake the stuff of day-to-day life, to shop, to play ball, to turn off the TV, to buy stocks, get married, fly on a plane. That's the kind of will America needs the most.
REASON staff reflect on recent events and what it means for the future at
http://reason.com/terror.html*************************************************************
- - Intelligence Test - -
Predictably, the FBI has called for more power and has rushed a few more of its Carnivore Web sniffers into use. The bureaucratic response to fear is to call for more power and resources. But more bureaucracy doesn't make for more efficiency.
There have already been spectacularly wrongheaded calls to create the equivalent of a drug czar in the form of a counter-terrorism czar. Not only would another level of staff not solve anything, it is hard to see why anyone would want to emulate an office whose most notable undertaking has been covert script-doctoring to ensure that TV shows present the correct message.
Cosmetic fixes via organizational charts do not address the problem, which is an absolute torrent of information that seldom is aggregated into anything approaching knowledge. Such "intelligence" does not deserve the name.
Solid leads are sporadic and fleeting. The Central Intelligence Agency tracked for months two of the hijackers on the plane that slammed into the Pentagon. The Immigration and Naturalization Service noted their entry in Los Angeles. Then they disappeared.
Similarly, last month a man turned up at a flight school for 747s in Minnesota, wanting to pay cash for lessons on how to fly level, but not land or take off. He was taken into custody on immigration charges, but no follow-up ensued.
A modern relational database that allowed for the retrieval of relevant bits of information across all their various sources would help prevent important facts from floating away into the ether.
That is what happened with the disparate warnings that came from overseas intelligence about movements of bin Laden associates. The raw data existed, but was not at the fingertips of anyone that could use it.
This is because of another hallmark of bureaucracy, the turf war. In the absence of clearly defined goals or measures of success, the human tendency is to hoard information and resources. The very good news is that these issues can be addressed without any harm to civil liberties.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41070-2001Sep16.html http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200191241929.htm http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46747,00.html
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QUICK HITS
- - Quote of the Week - -
"Are you guys ready? Let's roll." Todd Beamer, to fellow passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, moments before they stormed hijackers on their plane. Beamer leaves behind an expectant wife and two sons, ages 3 and 1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41095-2001Sep16.html
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