Thursday, January 7, 2010

Self-terror: update from the President



I wrote this morning about self-terrorism:  the exaggeration and amplification of the threat from real terrorists that spreads more terror. Today the President, in his remarks on strengthening intelligence and aviation security, addressed the issue of self-terror with these words:
“Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don’t hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am President, we will never hand them that victory. We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women, wnd children.”

4 comments:

Judith Ellis said...

SAY THAT, BOB! By the way, I thought of you listening to Secretary Napalitano's press conference the other day, but for a different reason than we discussed here. :-) I was utterly underwhelmed by her performance. Tom Peters tweeted today that he would like to see General Jones in that position. I think that would be great!

Judith Ellis said...

One other thing, listening to Secretary Napolitano answer questions during her press conference I really began to think that she is just rather inarticulate and doesn't seem to be quick on her feet. There was so much hesitation in her speech that I can see how some might question the veracity of her words.

Bob said...

Contrats napolitano's "THe system worked" with Obama's "We have to learn from what went wrong."

Judith Ellis said...

Yes, Bob, I understand completely.