You live under a corrupt, disorganized government that diverts the aid supplied by the free world into their own pockets, leaving you hungry and staring at a bleak future. You attend a school (financed by the Saudis with our oil dollars) where you are taught that your miserable condition is the fault of the United States and their allies in the free world, whose freedom is the cause of your oppression. (for the moment, we’ll leave out the terrorists that come from wealthy families – they don’t fit the politically correct template)
If a young person hears this enough – especially from those he respects, he might be expected to believe it. If you seem to be a weak-minded sort, you might be chosen as a possible jihadist and given the tools and training necessary to enable you to vaporize yourself, preferably on an airplane full of women and children, for the glory of your religion.
What would keep you from doing this?
We’ll allow that the universal prohibition against murder may have been softened by your “religious teachings”. You might see nothing wrong with murdering infidels, so that’s no longer a problem.
Perhaps you might be a little concerned about what might happen to you if you’re caught by agents of the “Great Satan”. After all, we are the home of the dreaded CIA, reported to have unleashed HIV/AIDS on the world and the alleged home of a multitude of inhuman torturers. They’re supposed to have secret prisons all over the world, where people can be expected to disappear once all useful information has been wrung from them.
Or perhaps you’ve heard about the Guantamo Bay prison, alleged to be so bad that it aids in terrorist recruitment.
Well, we’ve recently fixed that for you.
The President of the United States and his administration are doing their best to see that you no longer have such concerns.
The punk in the photo above, a child of privilege, failed to detonate a bomb intended to kill a planeload of innocents for Allah.
How has he been treated?
We’ve arrested him and charged him with a crime. He’s in a prison, treated with the full rights of an American citizen. The taxpayers, including those on the plane that he plotted to murder, are picking up the cost of his medical treatment and his legal defense. There are no CIA spooks with brass knuckles and needles, looking to coerce information from him. He’s receiving treatment for his self-inflicted burns and getting advice from his lawyer, who has advised him to shut up.
That’s not so scary, is it?
President Obama has promised to close the dreaded prison in Cuba, which comes with the tacit promise that anyone else caught trying to murder Americans by the hundreds will likely find himself as a guest of the state in similar circumstances as the recent failed panty bomber.
Sorta knocks out that scary option as well.
There’s a personal story that might apply here….
Back when I was in Jr. High, I was a skinny kid with a smart mouth. This served me well until I moved away from my friends. I found myself attending school with those that hadn’t grown up with me and thought (rightly) that I was a smart-ass jerk. One afternoon, I was on the playground being chased by a recipient of my latest witty remark. He was much larger than me and was rapidly closing on the skinny loudmouth with the hornrimmed glasses. As he caught me, his beefy hand grabbed one shoulder, spinning me around. I reflexively stuck out a fist that whipped around centrifugally and separated him from two of his front teeth. I didn’t even stop running, but left that guy bent over and spitting. This was more than a lucky punch (who could call that a punch?), this was a complete gift from above.
No longer did the skinny new guy have anything to fear. That one desperate poke was the insurance policy that covered not just myself, but also my little brother the rest of the way through our public school careers. (I’d like to think that I also moderated my wise-ass tongue a bit after that) Those who wished me harm after that were certainly restrained by the knowledge that tangling with that skinny guy from the east coast might cost them some teeth. Because they were afraid of the consequences, I was left alone.
Our president and his administration, by demonstrating that we will treat an attempted murderer of hundreds as we might a shoplifter, are doing nothing to deter further terrorist attacks. I think that this behavior will certainly encourage more of them.
Are we safer today than we were two weeks ago?
and don’t even get me started on health care….
Greg
celebrating the two-year anniversary of this blog
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