Mark, you’re hopeless. Like the bloggers linked in this post, we know what you’re against. Tell us what you’re for doing to stop terrorists.

I’d still like to know why the U.S. handed Arar over to the Syrians, but I guess that can wait.

My anti-terrorism plan:

Border security, including ports. It’s a legitimate function of the government, and it can be done without breaking the law or violating civil liberties. All of Bush’s talk about “listening to X to protect you” or “spying on Y to keep you safe” doesn’t mean crap if terrorists can just walk across our borders or ship a dirty bomb through one of our ports. San Francisco (of all places) is taking the lead here, doing long distance radiation scanning of the port.

Bringing the fight to them. I don’t believe Iraq had any significance to the war on terror initially, but we had a legitimate reason to resume war with Iraq, and now that we’re there, it has become the center of the fight against terrorism. The “flypaper” strategy works. Zarqawi was allegedly planning a terror plot on U.S. soil before our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq… we kept him busy over there.

Working with governments (Pakistan etc) to get them fighting their own mini wars on terrorism in their own backyard. I don’t think we’ve pushed Saudi Arabia hard enough. The vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudi Arabia continues to be a breeding ground for militant extremists.

Pushing for nuclear disarmament of nations with extremist bases. #1 Iran, #2 Pakistan.

Allow commercial pilots to carry guns (this may have happened already).

Refocus TSA to look at people and behavior instead of wasting time confiscating water bottles and iPods. “Yeah, but what about white female terrorists?” We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now we need to focus on who they are and how they act. Our scanning technologies aren’t good enough, and likely never will be. There are too many ways to take a plane down that can’t be detected.

I think that’d be a good start.

You’re against surveillance unless it goes through FISA, which can’t cope with modern technology.

Bush signed an amendment to FISA in October of 2001 and said “This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.”

And yep, I’m all for it.

You’re against any kind of interrogation of terrorists beyond pretty please.

Not applicable to me. I’m on board with “tough, but not torture,” as Bush put it, assuming he’s talking about what we all think he’s talking about.

We do know that you’re for giving terror suspects captured on battlefields access to all the evidence against them, and that you’re for snarking at everyone who disagrees with your libertarian absolutism.

If we’re going to try them, we should try them for real. Rigged trials are a waste of time, and not at all in the spirit of this country. There are easier and less insulting ways to execute people.

When the next attack occurs because we have reverted to your pre-9-11 mindset on surveillance and interrogations and a law enforcement first approach to terrorism, I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself.

I’ll do what I did on 9/11. Blame the terrorists, mourn the victims, help pick up the pieces. Terrorism will always be possible. There will always be “one more thing” we could have done to stop a specific attack, but nothing that can stop all of them. “At any cost” simply isn’t realistic, because the cost slides up an infinite scale, but the risk never hits zero. I’m not going to feel guilty because my point of cost-benefit equality is different than yours. We just place different values on life and freedom.

Mark Jaquith on September 20, 2006 at 2:58 PM

We do not place different values on life and freedom. It’s repulsive for you to use that kind of sophistry.

Huh? So now we agree completely on the liberty/safety tradeoff? I think not…

You seem to assume that since we can’t reduce the threat to zero, we shouldn’t bother reducing it at all.

Not true at all. I gave you a whole list of things we should be doing, many of which we aren’t currently doing.

And, by objecting to reasonable measures now, you guarantee that less reasonable measures will be needed later–after the next severe attack.

This argument doesn’t really hold much sway with me. Even if everyone stood back and gave free reign to all antiterrorism-related efforts, the next attack would still bring cries for increasing the government’s power. With a non-existential yet persistent threat, I really doubt that I can buy future freedom by giving it up now. Sounds like an uncertain payday.

Mark Jaquith on September 20, 2006 at 5:47 PM

Mark Jaquith, just how much sway do you think your arguments hold with those who died on 9/11?

You don’t know any more than I do, but it wouldn’t matter if they were willing to sell their last speck of freedom to be able to survive that day.

Arguments about liberties aren’t worth a bucket of camel squat when American lives are on the line, and playing the pessimist never accomplished a damn thing.

American lives are on the line every day from completely preventable things, most of them much more deadly than terrorism. Why not then? Why only now?

Q: What do you call the civil libertarian who was on American Airlines Flight 11? A: Fertilizer.

Interesting how, during the course of your comment, 9/11 victims went from being the paragon of political debate to being the punchline of an unfunny joke.

If we want to have an honest, non-moonbatish discussion about this topic it has to be acknowledged that Arar ought to have been deported to Canada, from whence he came, and on whose passport he was travelling. In other words, to a country just next door, rather than on the other side of the planet.The deportation to Syria is really suspicious, and looks bad.

Exactly, Blaise. I didn’t think that was such an extreme point to be deserving of an all-out chiding of my views on freedom.

That said, this matter reflects equally badly on Canadian authorities. The real question is why wasn’t he sent back to Canada, and the suspicion is that Canadian authorities were onside with the U.S. authorities in this little escapade.

That sounds like the most reasonable answer, in which case both governments have blame in whatever happened to him.

I think when we try to justify it on the basis that he was a dual national of Syria, we are engaging in a bit of moonbat-ish sophistry. Everyone knows that he really had no connection with Syria (there are a lot of countries…I don’t know if Syria is one, but Iran is…in which you cannot legally give up your citizenship).

He hasn’t been in Syria since he was a boy. His wife, daughter, home, career, and life were in Canada. He asked to be deported to Canada. It’s something quite more foul than sophistry to say that exportation to Syria was a reasonable thing.

Mark Jaquith on September 21, 2006 at 9:48 AM