Terrorists Can Never Win, But we Can Still Lose

Terrorists are a special type of parasite. I speak here not just to disparage them, which they certainly deserve, but to describe what they do and how they operate. Terrorists create nothing, they only destroy. Whats more, they can not even create the tools in which they need to destroy that which they hate. September 11, 2001 was not the first act of terrorism, and in the decade since there have been many more, but it was perhaps their high water mark.

The terrorists did not build the airplanes, they did not extract the oil from the ground, nor refine it to jet fuel. The terrorists did not construct the buildings, or even manufacture the weapons they used to hijack the plane. What terrorists do is take what other people create and use it against them. If we did not build the planes, the terrorist could not have used them. If we did not construct the skyscrapers, the terrorists could not have knocked them down. This of course does not mean we are to blame for the attacks, but to explain the limits of terrorism.

The most damage terrorists can ever hope to do is proportional to what we try to prevent happening accidentally to ourselves. One our chemical plants could have an accidental spill; the best case scenario for the terrorists is to force that spill. One of our nuclear power plants could have a melt down; the best case scenario for the terrorists is to cause that melt down. If something could not happen by accident, the terrorists are not sophisticated enough to make it happen.

This limit is important to consider. It means that terrorist can never win in any conventional sense of the term. Their successes limit their potential effectiveness. If they make us stop flying they can no longer use our planes. If they make us walk away from nuclear power or stop using oil tankers, those tools are no longer available to them. Terrorists can knock us back, but never finish the job. They can not force us to do anything that we do not want. They will never be able to occupy even a town for any prolonged period of time, let along a state or the whole country.

Terrorist know they can not win, but that that does not mean we can not lose. If we are scared into giving up our right and freedoms we lose. If we stop our forward progress for fear of what the terrorist could do with that new technology we lose. If we are scared to live our lives they way we wanted to and did on September 10, 2001 we lose.

Today, on the tenth anniversary of that fateful morning, make a vow to not lose.