How to win the new war

[Tim May]

On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 08:53 AM, Howie Goodell wrote:

> The U.S. and its citizens have just suffered the Pearl
> Harbor of post-national conflicts.

We are not "post-national." The "end of history" forecast by Fukuyama 
has not happened.
>

> America is frequently accused of being a global policeman;
> now is the time to do it well.

I can't speak for _you_, but *I* am not supporting "global copdom." 
Don't volunteer my money, please. Join the Foreign Legion if you want to 
fight in Sudan.

> This jihad also needs single-mindedness.  We are after
> terrorism, not ethnicity; we will cooperate with all
> governments and groups who can help us, and spare none who
> oppose us in this.  The stakes are too high to play
> favorites.
>

Shred the Constitution! Arrest those who speak out against this American 
Jihad!

> into account, but that world changed September 11.  Security
> must be a major design goal of many features of our
> society:  airplanes and airports, subways, stadiums, water
> supplies, product packaging, personal identification.  The
> vulnerabilities of existing systems need painstaking
> analysis.  Some upgrades will be expensive, in many ways.
> Creative engineering and thorough debate of the options are
> essential to keep the costs bearable and our brave new
> terrorist-resistant world livable.

Fatuous nonsense. Those who choose to live or work near "soft targets" 
should deal with the consequences, not those of us who understood the 
nature of soft targets many years ago and took steps to distance 
ourselves.

(Paying to "harden" football stadiums is a lot like paying to help 
people rebuild houses on beaches.)

>
> One example:  the IDs for airplane crews, and eventually
> everyone who travels or goes near an airliner, could be
> "smart cards" containing their owners' biometric identifiers
> -- like fingerprints, voice, picture, and retinal scan --
> cryptographically signed by the agency that collected them.

You are not a friend of ours. This is such a leap into the Surveillance 
State Void that I am speechless that any member of our list, even Choate 
or Farr, could advocate it.

> Maybe after this horror we should take the cause that
> undoubtedly drove these suicide bombers and make it
> disappear:  we should lose our patience with that little
> piss-ant real estate disagreement in the Middle East.  Give
> the Israelis and Palestinians a month to agree on a map, or
> we'll do it for them.  Then we add a 10-mile-wide corridor
> in the middle, let the Army Corps of Engineers give it a
> year of loving care, and announce we will blow away anything
> that moves in it for the next few decades.  Note the glassy
> pellets strewn along the middle:  their radioactivity is
> intense but short-lived.  30 years from now you might
> survive a crossing.  Jerusalem belongs to the U.N. now.  All
> rise!

You are dangerous to the cause of liberty. It is not *my* business as a 
free citizen of these united states to tell the Arabs and Zionists where 
there border must be and then to enforce it. Reread what George 
Washington said 200 years ago about foreign entanglements. Reread the 
U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.


It's scary that so many people like you are out there, screaming for 
intervention and crackdowns on liberty.

--Tim May