[lit-ideas] Re: Nuclear Responsibility and Iran
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:07:47 +0900
On 3/11/07, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Remember, we're evaluating the threat of al-Qaeda.
Eric, how can you or I pretend to be able to do this in an informed,
rational way? The Government itself seems unable to do it.
In fairness to Eric, scenarios similar to those he imagines are
spelled out in considerable detail in Stephen Flynn (2004) America the
Vulnerable: How Our Government is Failing to Protect Us from
Terrorism.Flynn is a retired Coast Guard officer and genuine security
expert. While explaining why the book, a project begun in 1999 under
the auspices of the Council on Foreign relations, took so long after
9/11 to get written, he says,
"Writing was again put on hold as I soon found myself testifying
before Congress, conducting briefings around Washington, participating
in a team that drafted the Cost Guard's Maritime Homeland Security
Strategy, advising the Commissioner of Customs on what became the
Contain Security Initiative, serving on a National Academy of Sciences
Advisory Panel on Transportation Security, and jump-starting two
private-public container security programs: Operation Safe Commerce
and Smart and Secure Trade Lanes."
If he doesn't count as an authority on the topics of which he writes,
I don't know who would. That makes it particularly interesting to see
how he concludes his book,
"Many times in recent years, particularly since 9/11, I have had to
fight back a sense of despair. For most of my adult life I have been
acquiring an intimate understanding of America's vulnerabilitis; I
have been schooled in the motives and capacities of our enemies; I
have lobbied for change in government and industry o better manage
these risks; and I have borne direct witness to the painfully slow,
and at times ill-conceived, ways that Washington has been approaching
our homeland security challenge. These experiences have conspired to
fill me with a sense of dread that we continue to live on borrowed
time, where the likelihood of another deadly attack on U.S. soil rests
more with the designs of our enemies that with the means that our
government has been cobbling together to protect the U.S. I have been
frustrated by the sense of denial that pervades so many corners of the
federal government, there is a dangerous proclivity among U.S.
officials to believe their own rhetoric about how much progress they
have been making on issues that require reversing decades of neglect.
"Yet I remain optimistic about the future. Leadership begins with
acquiring an unvarnished view of the realities that define current
circumstances. then it requires acting on the conviction that those
realities can be transformed. America's security and prosperity have
never rested so much on geography as they have on our historic
willingness to embrace and make sacrifices for our ideals. For many
Americans, those ideals became more precious after the horror of
September 11. We now need to reclaim them, not just for ourselves but
as the ultimate weapon in fighting the global war on terrorism. Like
those who led America in the aftermath of World War II, we must commit
ourselves to engaging the world around us, bolstering the
institutional capacity to manage our common problems, and
demonstrating the generosity of the American spirit. We must continue
to remind the world that it is not military might that is the source
of our strength but our belief that mankind can govern itself in such
a way as to secure the blessings of liberty."
Amen.
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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