"Those who would give up essential Liberty,
to purchase a little temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"Fear leads to the dark side." - Yoda
"When terror is the principle tactic, courage is the principle factor.
The party that spends the most courage will win." - Steve Brungard
"The place for violence is directly in the path of violence oncoming.
All else is criminal." - Steve Brungard
Terror is a tactic intended to alter the behavior of a target by leveraging fear to gain power. Behavior altered in response to a terrorist attack is a capitulation by the target and a grant of power to the terrorist. Failing to rebuild what was destroyed and failing to continue life as it was are acts of submission. Building a memorial to victims of a crime will also memorialize the crime and the criminal; Quite a prize for a terrorist.
The warriors at the Pentagon have set a good example for all of us to follow. If a terrorist knocks down your building, put it back up. Stand firm in your duty and your way of life. Deny the terrorists power and deprive them of reward.
Memorialize the fallen by affirming the values they lived and died for and by continuing the ways of life they cherished. If they held a particular passion for a hobby or cause, support that activity or cause. These acts honor the dead with life as it was, lived by their loved ones, emboldened by their sacrifice, wisened by experience, and focused by courage and resolve.
Rebuild, fortify, improve, grow, learn, continue. Spend your courage wisely and live well. Show only the lessons learned and new resolve to the criminals. A terrorist acts out of greed for power from conditions of weakness and fear of inadequacy. Altered skylines, faltering industries, and changed ways of life fuel that greed, assuage that fear, reward the violence and encourage more of it. Public memorials to victims will be seen as memorials to the terrorist act and relished as tokens of conquest. These behaviors and displays encourage and embolden a terrorist to strike again and might even reveal where to hit and how to get a greater impact. Show the terrorist only the new and improved buildings and industries, gains of wisdom, willingness to spend courage effectively, strength of resolve, and a hint of the rage that you hold in your command.
Before the eleventh day of September, 2001 the statement above was true for most of the people within many nations. The Attack on America has rendered the foregoing statement false. The protected people have suddenly been confronted with some of the cost of the freedom they usually enjoy as a matter of entitlement. The protected people in many countries are painfully aware that criminals exist who can use terror to inflict high harm and heavy cost upon any nation. They, along with free people everywhere, must now bear some greater part of the burdens of freedom and pay a larger part of its cost.
We have all been assaulted. It seems likely that we will be assaulted again. We are threatened at home, at work, and at play. We must all be alert. We must be cohesive and effective in defending our homelands. We must each pay what part of the cost that we can bear. We must each contribute what skills we have. We no longer enjoy an environment in which some large part of our population can be spared from paying a bit more of the cost of freedom.
The results of securing freedom for the people of any society are priceless, enduring, evolving, and awesome. That is the reward. It is thrilling and sometimes totally amazing to see what the people of any society can accomplish when some large number of them can be spared from bearing some portion of the burdens and from paying some of the cost of the freedom in which they live and work and play. It is sad that the strategy and tactics employed by terrorists demand that all people share in a common defense and bear some greater part of the cost of freedom. These burdens detract from the fuller development and greater success of any society.
Upon my arrival in Vietnam, it was explained to me that I would not be able to defend myself against all threats. An attack might be launched by a child throwing a hand grenade, an elder woman firing a pistol, a teen lobbing a sachel charge, a battalion of NVA troops, a Viet Cong hit squad, sappers, snipers, booby traps, ad infinitem, at any moment, at any location. I would have no place whatever to be secure from threat and my life expectancy in battle was set at fifteen minutes. I was advised to set all that aside and focus, instead, upon what I could control and upon what I could do with that. I accepted that advice.
It is by our own response to a terrorist that we either reward and encourage or dismay and discourage a criminal. If we alter even one way of life or base even one decision upon fear, we have already lost the war on terror.
The very first and the most difficult effort that we must all make is to accept, learn to live with, and function in the face of the fact that we cannot defend ourselves against all things in all moments. In the contest between free people and all persons on earth who would use the tactics of terror, acknowledging and accepting the situation is the foremost challenge. Meeting this challenge quickly with integrity and resolve will assure vastly improved results from the efforts we will make toward convincing all persons that terror is not an option.
Upon accepting the first and worst matter of the situation, the mist of fear is dispelled. We can assess risk accurately. We can study options on tables cleared of the clutter of emotions. We can all, each one of us, set our hearts and minds upon living, working, playing, and upon what we will do at the moment of each and any sort of attack that we might face. We know that the attack will be planned in secret and brought to us suddenly. We know that a terrorist will want to use surprise and probably strike in that moment and place, when and where we are most vulnerable. The acceptance of all these things allows us to prepare ourselves and win good chance for survival and success. It gets us focused on all the moments and places when and where we are most vulnerable. It gives us a chance to become more prepared and less vulnerable. We might prepare some surprises of our own.
Accepting the first and worst matter will also free us to study the ways and means of the criminals who threaten us. It enables us to reduce the threat by reducing criminals' access to some of the means they might want to employ. We might also impede or even deprive the criminals of some ways in which they might attack. And even more importantly, we free ourselves to study the innate motives that drive the strategy of terror. The axioms: "know thine enemy" & "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" contain essential and appropriate wisdom.
Terrorists are not fighters. Terrorists are not soldiers. Terrorists are not guerrillas, insurgents, or enemy combatants. Terrorists are killers. Terrorists are criminals. They operate as cowards. They operate in secret and spend fear. Terrorist organizations are criminal organizations. They recruit criminals. For a criminal who wants to kill fellow humans, an organization that offers them an excuse to kill is highly attractive. For a criminal who wants to commit suicide, an organization that offers them a cause is highly attractive. Depriving criminal organizations of excuses and causes is vitally important. The best way to deprive them is to refuse to grant them excuse and cause to begin with. Operate openly. Spend courage wisely. Apply justice. An organization that offers fellowship to scum of the earth vermin low life cowardly criminals unwanted by any society on earth will be less attractive.
What free people want is zero threat.
What does the terrorist want?
Power. They have no confidence in themselves. They want to take your power. They try to do that buy injecting fear into the process by which you make decisions. If you base even one decision upon fear, the terrorist wins your power. If you reject that fear as a valid basis for making decisions, the terrorist will attract even more people hunting them down for committing crimes.
The most effective personnel, tools, and teams to deploy against killers who use terror as a strategy are those that we normally use against criminals and against organized crime. Intelligence gatherers and analysts, investigators, police, specially trained police and paramilitary teams, profilers, experts in strategic studies and industries and technologies, and the fullest cooperation among the criminal justice systems within the nations and the institutions of the world. With the courage, skill, tenacity, and generosity of free people leading the way, what we expect to win, is an entire planet of people who can relax a bit about terrorism because its cost will far outway its yield and its employment will be judged as futile by anyone having even one iota of common sense. Terrorists will be managed by courts and prisons and asylums.