“Note “minimize,” rather than eliminate. There are evils and forms of damage that societies can reduce, without imagining that they can be brought to zero.”
“The same is true of terrorism. No society, not even a fully totalitarian state, can guarantee that all its members will always be safe against a renegade bomber, shooter, knifer, etc. Protection and resilience, yes. Perfect safety, no.”
“This distinction matters because of the fundamental logic of terrorism. The damage attackers do is never through the initial attack itself. That is true even for attacks as profoundly damaging as those on 9/11, or as brutally inhuman as the most recent ones in Paris or San Bernardino. The attacks themselves, even the most grievous, are the feint.”
“The gravest damage always comes from the response they evoke, from what the target society does to itself when attacked.”
“Thus the goal of an attack is only incidentally to kill. Its real ambition is to terrorize—to provoke, to disorient, to tempt a society or government to lose sight of its long-term values and interests.”
“I recognize that, for all of Obama’s rhetorical gifts in certain situations (for instance, his “Amazing Grace” speech after the Charleston massacre), he may not be the ideal messenger for this message of strength-through-reserve. Some hypothesized other leader—maybe FDR? maybe Lincoln?—might be able to sound fierce and passionate and resolute—“strong,” in the language of the cable-TV commentators—even while presenting policies as disciplined as Obama’s. To put it another way, Obama’s real message boils down to: Our plan isn’t very good, but it’s the least-damaging one available. He presented that as a grim, logical reality. Maybe someone else could make it sound uplifting. Maybe.”
“But if I have to choose between a leader who follows the sane course, though sounding grim about it, and a leader who sounds peppier while rolling the dice on policy, I’ll take the first.”