Terrorism, sociology, and personal freedom

It’s human to look for connections. We do it when we hear that a friend has cancer. And we do it every time an individual—or two brothers in Boston—go out and succeed in killing total strangers. Raising concern for the “root” causes of violence if you’re a Canadian Liberal, or the possibility of bureaucratic negligence if you’re an American Republican, is unsurprising; it’s human nature, it sounds constructive, and it is widely associated with analytical and sophisticated thinking.  

Nevertheless, liberal-minded people as well as libertarians should actually be comforted by Barack Obama and Stephen Harper’s focus on the crime of terrorism and the resolve of their governments to punish those individuals found guilty of willfully taking their politics out on the lives of others.

Harper’s complaint about “practicing sociology” was partisan and, consequently, politically untimely. And Obama’s reluctance to talk about “radical Islamists” is being exploited by his opponents. Nevertheless, is it reasonable—and, more importantly, is it safe—to imply that the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15 just might not have happened: if our national governments paid greater attention to minority-group individuals, their politics, and their grievances, or, on the other hand, if they more aggressively monitored edgy individuals and damned extreme rhetoric and radical movements?

Should our governments connect what people think and how they express themselves peacefully—in a free society—with acts of premeditated violence?

The implications of choosing "yes" are not any safer than lashing out emotionally.

Should we contemplate shifting our alliances in the Middle East in the hope of mollifying potential domestic terrorists? If America drives some individuals crazy, should Canada try to be less American? Should all of us be less hostile toward the political and religious points of view we despise in order to avoid terrorist violence?

In democracies, minorities—gays and French Canadians, for instance—can persuade majorities to retreat from and surrender old policies by persuading them that those old policies are unjust. Is terrorism simply politics on speed?

Senator Lindsey Graham wonders whether the US security behemoth “let its guard down” in Boston because it did nothing about the Tsarnaev brothers even though the older brother, Tamerlan, had already said hateful things on YouTube about living in a nation of “Christian infidels.” Yesterday, the New York Times ran a profile of his younger brother, Dzhokhar. It found hints of a “dark side”; a smart, promising, popular 19-year-old who’d, nevertheless, “alluded to disaffection with his American life and the American mind-set.”

Keep digging. He may also be hooked on Wire and Mad Men.

Should Obama and Harper hire more sociologists, political psychologists, and computer engineers to daily monitor the private utterances and activities of a far higher percentage of American radicals and landed immigrants? If radical Islamist thinking causes middle-class North Americans to commit murder, do we make radical political utterances a crime too?

In a free country, a young man needn’t mask his “dark side.” Our governments shouldn’t be told by us to respect our privacy and, at the same, be expected to know what everyone is thinking—if they don't happen to think like us.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky spent a lifetime struggling to understand how individuals decide to commit cold-blooded murder. We shouldn’t ask our politicians, their scientists, or their unbelievably powerful computers to try to figure us out now.

Libya: another uninspiring victory for no-drama Obama

Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham can’t help but enthuse about the fall of Tripoli. It’s increasingly dangerous to be an interventionist in the Republican Party. But, it’s less dangerous to be one when liberators are seen closing in on a tyrant.

They can stand with NATO and freedom fighters in Libya. But acknowledging Barack Obama’s un-dramatic staying power was too much to swallow:

“This achievement was made possible first and foremost by the struggle and sacrifice of countless Libyans, whose courage and perseverance we applaud. We also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.”

Click on: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=ef07da62-0100-107e-d7ac-08531bd793e5

It’s that damnable balanced approach of Obama's again.

Instead of backing French and British leadership in an intervention they initiated, Obama should have invited them to stand aside after a couple of weeks and taken charge of a blatant over-reach of the mission’s UN mandate. Americans could have dropped all the bombs, taken all the risks, and been accused alone for hundreds of further civilian casualties. Instead of Kaddafi railing against “Christian” and NATO invaders he could have concentrated on “US imperialists.”

McCain and Graham should be relieved that the Libya campaign is coming to a successful conclusion. They were becoming increasingly isolated in a Party that is increasingly isolationist. (House Republicans had already voted to cut off funding and the grass roots had already started talking about impeaching Obama over abusing his executive authority.)

 An Obama failure on Libya would have been—as an Obama failure on the debt-ceiling showdown would have been—a dangerous setback for moderates in the Republican Party.

It’s mean-spirited to begrudge the President any place in the immanent success of the Libya operation—a success that will be achieved without extravagant sacrifice and with careful attention to America’s broader interests.