CARRYING ON​
We stand with the world in its fight against terrorism. How can we do that better? There are two answers to that question. The right one and the one no one wants to hear.
The Right Answer: We remain steadfast and strong. Continue to fight extremism in both the Muslim world and beyond. And we bolster our intelligence community. That means we respect them and trust them. We recruit them and train them. And we foster our international relationships in a way that gives them access to all available information. We stop
challenging our allies and absolutely stop siding with our enemies. We grow a cross-border team of good guys with a shared focus of sniffing out traitors and insurgents from London to Los Angeles. When the Mayor of London doesn’t welcome the President, that’s more than a twitter feud. It’s a direct blow to the reach of our intelligence community. When Angela Merkel is forced to say that she can no longer count on the United States, it means we can no longer count on her. And that’s a threat to our fight against terrorism and all international crime.
We need those relationships. We need their teamwork. And we need cyber intelligence and task forces that surpass anyone else’s in the world. As I’ve said elsewhere on this site: The wars of the future will be fought in code. The insurgents of the future will attack us electronically. It’s imperative that we shift our focus from strength to smarts. I can’t stress that enough. We can out punch anyone on this planet. But we can’t out process them. And they know that.
All of that is true. And it’s very important.
But What No One Wants to Hear Is: Terrorism only works when we’re terrorized. And we have no reason to live in terror. On the day I wrote this zero people were killed in America due to terrorism. And do you know how many people were killed in America from drunk driving? Twenty-seven. In the year 2014, in fact, 9,967 Americans died from drunk drivers. In that same year 32 Americans died from terrorism. (And not that it matters much, but none of those terrorist acts were Islamic. Most of them were white supremacists.)
I make the comparison not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned with terrorism, 32 deaths is 32 tragedies too many. But a societal plague as common as drunk driving is literally a threat 311 times larger than violent extremism is. And yet we don’t have TSA-like screenings before everyone starts their cars. And we don’t panic or ban alcoholics from entering the country. In fact, we rarely hear about drunk driving deaths at all. We keep calm. And we carry on.
Because the righter answer to the question of “how can we fight terrorism?” is that we do a pretty damn good job already. Unfortunately it’s not hard to drive a rented truck down a walking bridge. And we all know it’s not difficult to purchase a gun and enter a crowded bar. And yet those things don’t happen very often. In a country of 320 million people they happen very, very rarely. We’re a great country full of great people and it’s an extreme few of those among us who are courted by radicalism. Because we have so many better things to be courted by. Our friendly neighbors. Community events. Freedom. Democracy.
We are our greatest weapon against war. And so that’s how we stay active. We stay kind. We stay welcoming. We stay the shining city on a hill that casts light on the rest of the world. In the battle for hearts and minds, we’re winning. We’ve been winning. We can’t abandon that.
And we should continue to say things when we see things. We should continue to be steadfast. And strong. And sharpen our fight while bolstering our intelligence. But most importantly, we should refuse to be terrorized. Because as long as we’re not terrorized, terrorism isn’t working.
We keep calm. And we carry on.
Let’s do something.