Paris Is in the Crosshairs, But the Target Is Western Civilization

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I suppose I hoped that the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo nearly a year ago would have made it too clear to be misunderstood or ignored. Yet the eyes of the world are drawn once again to Paris, the scene of yesterday's horrific series of coordinated terrorist attacks — because those who should have learned from that earlier experience did not.

A virtual anarchist's cookbook of tactics was on display as the terrorists struck at any place people tend to gather on an evening in Paris, one of the largest cities in the world. For centuries, Paris has been known the world over for its culture, its arts, its music, and people have been drawn there to experience it. Technology did not bring culture to Paris. Instead, Paris' culture brought technology there — and, lately, not for good.

On Friday terrorists used bombs and guns at cafes, at a stadium where a soccer match was in progress, at a theater where a concert was taking place. Even though most of the perpetrators appear to be dead now, those attacks are sure to have at least a temporary chilling effect on Paris' cultural scene — not unlike the dramatic drop in air traffic in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings.

Appropriately, it is the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II — and I say "appropriately" because this is a war. Too many people have been unwilling to acknowledge that — and, I am sure, many are still reluctant to do so, perhaps because they feel it is a war against Islam, which it is not.

But Muslim extremists are waging a war on Western civilization. The target today is Paris — but the real target, the objective, is the overthrow of Western civilization, and that will mean that the war, inevitably, will be waged on our soil. We did not seek this war any more than we sought a war with Japan in the 1940s, but Pearl Harbor dragged us into the conflict.

Wars are regrettable, but sometimes they are necessary to preserve a way of life.

But, at long last, we must acknowledge the fact that this war is not a conventional war. Just because there hasn't been a major attack like the one more than 14 years ago — with a high body count and lots of mayhem — doesn't mean the war is over. The terrorists are patient — and they're smart the way that criminals are always smart. They apply logic to their objectives. It was why in 2001 they selected those jets that had enough fuel for a coast–to–coast trip — they wanted plenty of jet fuel to cause maximum damage when the planes crashed into buildings — and why they chose weekdays instead of weekends to carry out their plots. They knew there would be fewer people on board to resist.

The attacks in Paris were well coordinated and indicate extensive planning. Why did they pick yesterday to carry them out? Was it in response to the United States' drone attack that killed Jihadi John? Or was it planned ahead of time, and the timing was a happy coincidence for the terrorists?

I'm pretty sure it wasn't because yesterday was Friday the 13th, but I guess you never know ...

I sympathize with the reluctance of many to see the United States engaged in a war. The Iraq/Afghanistan experience left a bad taste in many people's mouths, and it is an experience no one wishes to repeat. (Afghanistan, of course, was targeted because the terrorist attack was planned there. Iraq was different. It was a war of choice and could have been avoided. But that is a discussion for another time.)

In case you haven't noticed yet, life affords no one the luxury of controlling events. The United States has always desired peace, but outside influences sometimes force us to go to war (OK, one time it was due to inside influences). Those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began as responses to the 9–11 attacks — well, Iraq got piggybacked in because of the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction — and they were very popular at first. They became much less popular as they dragged on.

True, the perps in these terrorist attacks are always Muslims, but this is a war with the extremists, not mainstream Islam. Those who call this what it is are not calling for an FDR–like roundup and segregation of all who fit a general description. Those who call this what it is are being realists. Does that sound like profiling to you? Well, if it does, you must remember that profiling, when correctly applied, serves a useful purpose — if, for example, there has been a series of break–ins somewhere, and witnesses report that the apparent perps were in a certain age group and appeared to be in a particular racial group, authorities won't squander valuable time interrogating people who do not fit the description — but it can be abused. There is no doubt about that. There must be adequate, diligent oversight to prevent abuse.

The idea behind profiling is a good one — to provide useful information that can enable authorities to resolve criminal cases faster. The implementation needs to be fine–tuned.

In France today, there is no massive manhunt as there was in January. My understanding is that all the attackers are now dead. But if any were alive, it would be good for authorities to have a physical description of them and/or their colleagues.

As I write this, the death toll has fluctuated. CNN reported 128 casualties last night, and ABC News reports 127 casualties this morning. I don't know the actual number — maybe no one does — but many, many more are injured, some critically, and the death toll is sure to rise in the coming days.

The latest figure is 129 — from The Telegraph. As I say, though, that number will surely rise.

French President François Hollande — who was attending that soccer match — calls it what it is. He said it was an "act of war."

It seems to be a little late to be reaching that conclusion — but better late than never, I suppose.

The Difference It Makes

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"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

George Carlin

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Unless your lifestyle is a reclusive one, like that of the Unabomber — and, if it is, then you most likely aren't reading this, anyway — you're bound to have seen the TV commercial in which the deejay is posing as a financial advisor. He got his hair cut. He put on a nice suit, and he threw around some impressive–sounding financial terms. Then he asked some unsuspecting dupes if they would trust him to handle their retirement planning. They all said they would. Then he revealed the truth about himself. "I have no financial experience at all," he confessed.

The unsuspecting dupes really shouldn't have been all that unsuspecting, though. It's the kind of sleight–of–hand that magicians have been pulling for generations. Sometimes people really should be hesitant based on what they know — and what they don't know. Nevertheless, there are always people who fall for scams.

And there are those who make up their minds and won't change, come hell or high water. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

In my experience, people — particularly Americans — are too quick to give a second chance — and a third one and a fourth one and, well, you get the picture — to those of whom we have ample reason to be skeptical. Most of us have been guilty of it at one time or another. For some, it's just the way they roll — all the time.

Sometimes we are rewarded for giving a second chance; but just as often, if not more, we are disappointed.

Now, in the case of one Hillary Rodham Clinton ...

Most Americans think they have spent a lot of time observing the Clintons, but I've got them beat. I lived in Arkansas before Bill ever won an election. I wasn't familiar with Hillary when she was a legal adviser to the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment inquiry; it was after that that she agreed to marry Clinton and move to Arkansas. They were both in Little Rock by 1977; Bill was elected the state's attorney general in 1976. And that is when I — and, I suspect, most of the people in Arkansas — first became acquainted with Hillary.

From that point on, Bill was a fixture in Arkansas politics, and Hillary was often seen with him — not so much in his attorney general days but after that when he ran for governor. Statewide officials were elected to two–year terms in those days, and governors sort of lived with the fact that, unless they were stepping down voluntarily in the next election cycle, they pretty much had to spend half of each term running for office. There was no season for raising money for those campaigns, either; fundraising was — and, I expect, still is — an ongoing process.

Arkansas changed that law in the mid–1980s. Statewide officers are elected to four–year terms today, but Bill and Hillary Clinton cut their political teeth on the old arrangement.

Anyway, having observed the Clintons for more than half my life, I've kind of gone beyond the point of being disappointed by anything they say or do.

Since we are all, to a great extent, the products of our experiences, it seems fair to assume that experience plays a significant role in the mindsets of both Clintons. Indeed, given their behavior in their political lives, it seems to be — to most reasonable people — a sight more than an assumption.

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Hillary Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans.

Sen. Ron Johnson: I understand.

Clinton: Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?

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In the matter of the Clinton emails, Mrs. Clinton and her supporters want the country to focus on the fact that her people have already gone through the emails and decided which ones to release.

Is that sufficient?

As I recall, it wasn't sufficient 40 years ago when the subject of the congressional investigation in which Mrs. Clinton took part — you know, the one involving President Richard Nixon — offered to release certain White House tapes after they had been screened or edited transcripts of the tapes themselves. I can't say that I know what Hillary Rodham said or thought about that, but I do know what just about every Democrat — and some Republicans — said when Nixon tried to pull that one. They didn't go for it. Nixon went ahead and released edited transcripts, anyway, but they were ridiculed to such an extent that no one really gave them any credibility.

As I recall, when the subject of edited transcripts was first brought up by the White House, special prosecutor Archibald Cox rejected it, saying that transcripts "lack the evidenciary value of the tapes themselves."

(There was something Nixonian in the way Barack Obama insisted he had learned of Hillary's private email through news reports. That, of course, is how Nixon claimed he had learned of the Watergate break–in.)

And now Hillary Clinton reaches into Nixon's playbook. But summaries of her email correspondences — or release of certain emails that were selected by Hillary and/or her staff — lack the evidenciary value of the emails themselves.

Of course, there is more to this than merely the resemblance to a long–ago scandal. There is the question of cyber security. In recent years, we have seen how easily the computer files of huge retail outfits can be hacked and private information can be compromised.

Doesn't that make it even more important that Americans be completely assured that the communications of the secretary of state — whose email correspondence may very well have contained sensitive classified information — cannot be intercepted?

What assurance can they have from a privately run server that sufficient security is in place?

We live in perilous times. It shouldn't be necessary to remind people of that, with all the grisly images we have seen on our TV screens — beheadings, people being burned alive and tossed from buildings — but, nevertheless, there are people who will ignore the facts.

Those are the people who will tell you that ISIS and its allies there in the Middle East are savages, primitive, medieval at best. And I will concede that they follow medieval texts and dress in medieval ways — and, most importantly, they think medieval thoughts. But that does not mean that they turn a blind eye to modern technology. They don't like the modern world, but they know that they must use the tools of the modern world if they are to defeat it. Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants turned modern technology against America in 2001, hijacking airplanes and using computers for all sorts of purposes — communicating with each other, financial transactions, reserving seats on the doomed airplanes.

Why should we think that modern jihadists would behave any differently?

We've heard the stories of their active efforts to recruit people from the West. Doesn't it make sense that they would be looking for people who know how to hack computer systems? It wouldn't surprise me if they already have recruited such people.

It wouldn't really matter where they were, either — although I am quite sure there are already sleeper cells across this country waiting for their orders. Computer hackers can be anywhere. As long as they can connect to the internet, they can go about their business.

What guarantee do we have that Mrs. Clinton's emails, which were not under the protection of the government, were not hacked while she was in office? Oh, I know, there are no guarantees anymore. But it still seems — to me — to be an inexcusable temptation of fate to obsessively control one's email records instead of doing as the law requires.

Fact is, under the law, Mrs. Clinton's email correspondence while secretary of state does not belong to her. Regardless of what it was — a highly sensitive official email to a foreign ally or a personal email to an old friend — it is the property of the U.S. government.

Upon entering office, a president swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. That means following the laws of the land.

Mrs. Clinton asks her audiences these days, "Don't you want to see a woman president of the United States?"

My answer to that is — yes. But I want it to be the right woman for the job. Not just any woman.

And the right woman for the job will not have a history of playing by the rules of her choosing, thoughtlessly putting others at risk. It is the same standard I apply to any man seeking the presidency.

Where Is the Outrage?

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I support Americans' right to assemble peacefully, to protest peacefully when they believe an injustice has occurred. I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

I wish my government did, too.

For more than a week now, Americans have witnessed scenes in the streets of Ferguson, Mo., where a black teenager was shot and killed. They haven't always been peaceful — or anything resembling it. What are they protesting? A young man died. That is a sad thing. Some would call it an injustice.

I wouldn't.

Before you make any assumptions about me that are not true, hear me out. My definition of injustice is when justice has been denied. Has justice been denied in this case? No. The system has not had time to do what it was designed to do.

Many of the people I have seen involved in the protests in Missouri say they want justice — but they don't. They want revenge. Those are two different things. Justice requires facts, evidence. Revenge does not.

If anyone — in Ferguson or anywhere else — tells you he/she knows the police officer was guilty of murder, he/she is lying — because no one knows all the facts. That is — supposedly — why we have trials. To see the evidence, hear the testimony, then sift through it all and decide what the truth is.

Murder, by the way, is a legal term that is reserved for a case in which a jury has ruled that someone's death was caused deliberately by someone else. Until a jury has made that determination, legally (based on the laws of the state where the death occurred), no murder has happened.

Legally.

And I can tell you — as one who covered my share of trials in my reporting days — that almost no one knows the whole story until that trial has been held.

We don't really know what happened in Ferguson two weeks ago. We should reserve judgment because we do know that our system requires that we presume the innocence of the accused until he has been proven guilty in an open court. If I am ever accused of anything and find myself in court, I want that presumption of innocence. For it to remain strong, it cannot be denied to anyone. Nor can due process.

That is so important because often there is no unambiguous evidence of someone's guilt, and all the available evidence must be studied before a conclusion can be reached. Criminal charges of any kind are far too serious to be left to emotion.

We do know what happened in Iraq, though. It is not ambiguous. We don't know precisely when it happened, only when the video of the execution of photojournalist James Foley by an ISIS terrorist surfaced. Foley's beheading wasn't accidental. It was intentional. It was carried out by an apparent Briton — but nearly all of him — including his face — was hidden by black clothing.

He wasn't necessarily British. I have taught many foreign students; some spoke with distinctly British accents, but they weren't from the U.K. They came from other countries. Without exception, they were schooled in British schools by British teachers, and if you spoke to any of them on the phone, you would assume they were British. But they weren't.

The English–speaking jihadists were recruited deliberately. It's obvious. With their British accents, they can blend into places like America without arousing any suspicion while waiting for their assignments. Such accents are regarded as non–threatening by most Americans. And, even if they don't necessarily look British, with our borders as wide open as they are, who's going to notice another undocumented foreigner?

I am outraged on several levels by this act of blatant barbarism.

While I have done other things in my life, I will always consider myself a journalist. I never faced the danger that Foley clearly did, but I have known those who did. And when something like this happens, it is like a death in the family. I never met James Foley, but, as I say, I have known many like him.

The president, who never hesitates to stick his nose where it doesn't belong domestically, especially when it involves white on black crime (of which there is remarkably little), took some time from his vacation to acknowledge the murder — and took the unprecedented step of revealing details about a U.S. mission that failed to rescue Foley earlier this summer — then rushed back to the golf course in Martha's Vineyard, which is where he was when Foley's family held their emotional press conference.

He didn't have a photo op with Foley's family the way he did with Bergdahl's — even though he could have negotiated for Foley's freedom when he went against American policy to negotiate for Bergdahl's release.

What reason was there for disclosing details about the mission that failed? Politics. It was the president's way of getting credit for being tough — yes, he did try to do something, but, oops, it just didn't work. And, for all you bad guys, here's what we tried to do with material that we have at such–and–such location. Do you think that put any Americans in jeopardy? I do.

The president, along with his media enablers, is loath to use the word "evil," even when really no other word is sufficient. This is one of those times.

In just an hour or so on the internet last night, I found two references — in the New York Times and U.S. News and World Report — to ISIS' brownshirts as "militant."

My father is OK with the use of the word "militant," but I'm not. It strikes me as flippant. When I hear the word "militant," I think of the protests of the '60s — when campus militants, as they were called, threw Molotov cocktails at buildings — and people. Mostly, those "militants" were protesting for something (i.e., civil rights) or against something (the war in Vietnam). Sometimes, people got hurt. Occasionally (but, really, not that often) people were killed.

But it was never as blatant, as cold–bloodedly deliberate as the slaying of James Foley.

We need a word for these ISIS people. Judging by their behavior, people is far too generous, but there are those who would object if they were called animals, which is much closer to the truth. Do we need a new word? I'm not so sure. I think it would be appropriate to call them 21st–century Nazis. In the '40s, if someone said the word Nazi, you knew precisely what it meant.

Like the 20th–century Nazis, these people cannot be appeased. They are intent upon killing Americans. They said they would execute more Americans — and all they're looking for is an excuse. They asked for $132 million for Foley, then, when they were told that time would be needed to raise the money, they stopped communicating altogether.

They weren't interested in the money. They already control the oilfields in Iraq and Syria as well as all the sources of revenue in the larger cities. All the request for time to raise such a huge sum did was take away an excuse to kill an American, but they had another one ready. They blamed the pin–prick airstrikes and warned that, if they continue, more Americans will die. Obama said they would continue.

Do you doubt that they will make good their threat? I don't. Not for a second. They clearly want to kill Americans — and they want Americans to see them killing Americans.

It was naive for anyone to believe that the war on terror was over. Now, I fear, it will be deadly.

Do you believe that, somehow, ISIS will fail because evil always fails? The Nazis didn't fail. They were beaten by the Allies. It is the only way to deal with this kind of people. I regret having to say that because it contradicts the way I was brought up. But as long as these people exist, they are a deadly threat to us and our modern allies. Our friends in Europe should be especially concerned, being as close to ISIS as they are, geographically.

A few months ago, we observed the 70th anniversary of D–Day, the event that marked the turning point of World War II. A sustained effort is needed now if we are to rid the world of the menace that threatens us today.

We cannot delude ourselves into thinking it is over until it really is.

Dangerous Precedents

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Barack Obama's Taliban‐for–Bergdahl deal set some dangerous precedents — for the presidency, for the nation and for its people.

For as long as I can remember, the stated policy of the United States has been not to negotiate with terrorists — not for anyone under any circumstances. I always thought the reasons for that were obvious.

If, for example, you are a parent, there are certain behaviors you want to encourage in your children and certain behaviors you want to discourage. Right? If your child is doing something you want to discourage, is it better to punish him when he does it or to offer him something he wants in exchange for not doing it?

Logic tells me that it is better to punish bad behavior than to reward someone for not engaging in that behavior. The latter will only encourage worse behavior (requiring more and more generous rewards for stopping it). Children can be devious, more devious than some adults think, and, when they spot a weakness, they will seldom hesitate to exploit it.

Same thing applies to superpowers and their relationships with lesser powers since smaller powers do sometimes resemble petulant children throwing temper tantrums. I understand that Barack Obama is sensitive to the plight of third–world countries, but, as I presume most parents at least try to teach their children, there is a right way to do something and a wrong way to do something.

Parents learn not to respond to childish tactics like tantrums, crying, holding your breath and the like — and those are tame compared to the tactics that terrorists use.

There are lots of countries that engage in violent acts to get the attention of larger and stronger nations and, hopefully, gain some kind of advantage. American policy, up to this point, has emphasized that is the wrong way to do it. Fortunately, the policy against negotiating with terrorists is perceived as a policy of strength; while someone does see fit to test its resolve now and then, that hasn't been a frequent occurrence in the past.

Now that Obama has traded several high–profile Taliban leaders for one American prisoner whose loyalty is questionable, I'm afraid we may see more and more acts against Americans. Some may be civilians traveling abroad. Given the nature of the Taliban and the leaders we returned to it, I fear we will see Americans being killed at an alarming rate, possibly on American soil.

Given the openness of America's borders, what is to stop them from bringing the fight here? If we fence off our southern border, what is to prevent terrorists from entering the country somewhere along our coasts — or perhaps our northern border?

There are groups in the world — the Taliban among them — that are intent on causing damage and pain to the United States. I have no doubt that the five men who were released in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl will try, at some point, to kill Americans. How and where they will do so is, at this point, anyone's guess, but their histories suggest no other possibility to me.

The president's arbitrary deal has put hundreds of millions of Americans at risk, and I am absolutely convinced that some will die as a result. How many? It could be one big event, like Sept. 11, or it could be a series of smaller events that may seem unconnected at first.

Whatever it is, it might be preceded by a series of abductions that are intended to exploit this new American policy and lead to deals for imprisoned terrorist leaders.

That is the most deadly precedent in this deal, but there are other precedents that I think are almost as dangerous over the long haul.

In this country, we have many elected officials, all of whom are supposed to represent the people. Some are local. Some are state. Some are federal. All are elected to do the people's will.

When the president takes it upon himself to make a deal and doesn't even consult the leaders in Congress, presumably because the majority in one of the legislative bodies is not from his political party, that defeats the purpose of democracy.

Some may say, "Well, the president is chosen by all the people." Such logic suggests that the president will represent all Americans in every decision he makes.

What about the concerns of the people who did not vote for the president? Nearly 61 million Americans voted for Obama's Republican opponent in 2012. No other losing presidential candidate has ever received the support of so many ballots.

Obama is openly disdainful of those Americans and encourages his supporters to dismiss the concerns of their countrymen.

So, rather than consult with congressional leaders, Obama chose to act on his own.

That is a dangerous precedent for the American system of government. From the start, members of Congress were intended to play a big part in national policy decisions. A president who acts on his own like this — routinely — is acting like a monarch, which was the very thing the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid.

It can be a messy business, having to work out compromises, but the presidents who are successful at it have the longest–lasting positive influence on their country.

Obama's actions are setting dangerous precedents.