From 9/11 to Beslan: Which Lessons Have We Still Refused to Learn About Terrorism and the Next Mass Murder?

Muslim terrorists took over a school and killed 300 people. That attack in Beslan, Russia occurred fourteen years ago. Many of us would like to make sure it won’t happen here. In contrast, some American politicians are eager for the next mass murder. This is what we’ve learned and what we’ve refused to learn in the last fourteen years.

• Muslims conduct terrorist attacks all over the world. There have been more than thirty-three thousand attacks since the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001.
• We have Muslim terrorists here in the US. We imported some of them. Some grew up here.
• Political correctness now prevents us from calling a terrorist a terrorist. Being a terrorist isn’t illegal…until after they kill.
• We pretend that opening our borders to terrorists and drug gangs shows our compassion. We pretend that being weak and non-confrontational means we won’t be chosen as a target. Unfortunately, that is the emotional maturity of a young teenager.
• Our body politic and the press would rather feel good than do good. That attitude might have worked in grade school, but it doesn’t work well for adults trying to protect their children from terrorists.
• Protecting our children admits that the world is a dangerous place. That contradicts the rainbows-and-unicorns view of the world so popular with some voters and politicians. They would rather spend money on their favorite special interest group than protect our children. Denial is more than a river in Egypt.
• After a mass murder, big-government politicians use our predictable reaction in order to advance the cause of more government controls. For the record, those controls failed to stop terrorism, but that doesn’t stop the security theater that the media wraps around big government. When the public asks government to “do something, do anything”, the politicians and bureaucrats do what is best for their careers rather than what is best for us.
• Big government can’t protect us. The FBI failed to stop many mass murders. That is because the management of the FBI hopes the agency will grow after the next terrorist attack. Their personal motivation is obvious. A larger government offers government executives more opportunities to move up the bureaucratic hierarchy. Too bad for us that our dead kids are the stepping stones along their career.
• The terrorist event that best advances big-government is neither too big nor too small. A mass murder that is too large would illuminate the basic incompetence and corruption of our government; a poor reputation they richly deserve. A terrorist attack that is too small won’t advance the legislation necessary to form new government regulations and departments. Fortunately for all of us, large scale terrorist operations are easier to detect, infiltrate, and intercept than small isolated cells.
• School, church and hospital administrators will blame someone else after the next attack uncovers their poor or non-existent security.

Government won’t make us secure. That is up to us. No one said that a republican democracy was easy: they only said that it is better than the alternatives. The only solution I see is to pointedly ask our politicians what they are doing to protect us and to let us protect ourselves.

Having asked that question before, here are a few words of warning.

Politicians will tell you want they want to do, but are rather shy to say what they have actually accomplished.

The basic questions are obvious. Are we currently monitoring radical imams? Why haven’t we closed Muslim terror cells? Why haven’t we adopted national guidelines for armed school staff, armed church staff, and armed hospital staff?

Please get their answer in black and white. That way we can hang their do-nothing answer for all to see in the public square after the next attack.
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Image: Screen Shot: Beslan Massacre: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6274855