One wonders....

One wonders…

One wonders what America looks like from the outside. I use America in this instance to describe the United States, if you have a problem there, every time you see America substitute United States. We are a strong resilient people who every generation or so, since our beginning have re-invented ourselves. Yet, when some nut gets on an airplane on Christmas day 2009 and tires to blow himself up with an underwear bomb, some of us and our government come completely undone and unglued. We must look like a bunch of nincompoops from the outside.

The only person hurt on Christmas Day 2009 was the bomber. He did not succeed. There were failures in the system of course, given the fact that he got so far, but this incident was hardly worth the melt down it caused. Looking at the situation pragmatically, he tried to blow himself up and American citizens stepped up to the plate and subdued him, just like they subdued Richard Reid the shoe bomber. At our heart, we American citizens understand that we are in a war, that there are risks, that our government cannot protect us all of the time and that we the people will be called upon to step up and at times take matters into our own hands. This realization started on September 11, 2001 on United flight 93 when against all odds American citizens took their fate and their destiny into their hands and fought back. They understood what could happen and they didn’t let that fear paralyze them.

This in and of itself is one of the factors that make this huge hodge podge of a nation great. If given the facts, if given the consequences, if give the very worst case scenario; Americans will take in and process that information and deal with it as it comes. We as a people know that it is illogical, it is insane, it is silly to let a great nation paralyze itself in contemplation of teenagers strapping explosives to their bodies and committing suicide while attacking our civilian infrastructure.

My advice to those in power, stop behaving like Henny Penny when there is an event. Give us straight forward facts and tools to be vigilant and from the outside America will cease looking like a bunch of neurotic fradie cats.