Assume the Worst
Collected statements by President Bush on Iraq:
Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
We will work to give our intelligence professionals the tools they need. Our collection and analysis of intelligence will never be perfect, but in an age where our margin for error is getting smaller, in an age in which we are at war, the consequences of underestimating a threat could be tens of thousands of innocent lives.
Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.
Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem.
He wasn't about to listen. As a matter of fact, when we gave him the final chance, he continued to deceive and evade. So I have a choice to make at this point in our history: Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend this country? Given that choice, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)
We did not find -- we did not find the stockpiles that we all thought were there. But I want to remind you what the Duelfer report said. It said that Saddam Hussein retained the intent, the knowledge, and therefore, the capability to rebuild his weapons programs. Now, think about that.
We will work to give our intelligence professionals the tools they need. Our collection and analysis of intelligence will never be perfect, but in an age where our margin for error is getting smaller, in an age in which we are at war, the consequences of underestimating a threat could be tens of thousands of innocent lives.
Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.
Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem.
He wasn't about to listen. As a matter of fact, when we gave him the final chance, he continued to deceive and evade. So I have a choice to make at this point in our history: Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend this country? Given that choice, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)
We did not find -- we did not find the stockpiles that we all thought were there. But I want to remind you what the Duelfer report said. It said that Saddam Hussein retained the intent, the knowledge, and therefore, the capability to rebuild his weapons programs. Now, think about that.
Collected excerpts from reporting on the shooting of Rigoberto Alpizar:
Greenberger and others emphasized that the catastrophe that would result from a bomb exploding on or near a loaded airliner gives air marshals and other security personnel little time for seeking information — and almost no margin for error.
Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, was shot after he ran from the plane toward the jet way and reached in his carry-on bag. His wife reportedly yelled that Alpizar was mentally ill. The air marshals had to make a "split-second decision. It is very difficult," Greenberger said, pointing out that the wife's action "could have been a ploy."
"Our problem really is, where has civility gone in the airlines?" says Denis Breslin, another American Airlines captain and spokesman for the American pilots' union. "When someone steps outside those boundaries, there's only so much tolerance we can afford."
''Their training showed they made the right decision, though there turned out to be no bomb in the bag,'' said Brian Doyle, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the air marshal's service. ``They had a split second to make that decision.''
Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, does not blame the marshals who shot Alpizar. "The marshals are just in a horrific situation, having to make split decisions," Fitzpatrick says.
Janice Tweedie, a widow who knew the couple, said Mr. Alpizar used to help her in her yard and share electricity with her during hurricanes. She called the shooting "a huge mistake," but added, "I know how very careful we have to be."
Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, was shot after he ran from the plane toward the jet way and reached in his carry-on bag. His wife reportedly yelled that Alpizar was mentally ill. The air marshals had to make a "split-second decision. It is very difficult," Greenberger said, pointing out that the wife's action "could have been a ploy."
"Our problem really is, where has civility gone in the airlines?" says Denis Breslin, another American Airlines captain and spokesman for the American pilots' union. "When someone steps outside those boundaries, there's only so much tolerance we can afford."
''Their training showed they made the right decision, though there turned out to be no bomb in the bag,'' said Brian Doyle, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the air marshal's service. ``They had a split second to make that decision.''
Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, does not blame the marshals who shot Alpizar. "The marshals are just in a horrific situation, having to make split decisions," Fitzpatrick says.
Janice Tweedie, a widow who knew the couple, said Mr. Alpizar used to help her in her yard and share electricity with her during hurricanes. She called the shooting "a huge mistake," but added, "I know how very careful we have to be."
It’s a dangerous thing to be commenting on cultural logics that you’re in the midst of, but it’s hard not to feel like there’s some important framework of thought and practice that unites these two events.
Clearly, both involve threats explicitly recognized under the new equation of the post 9/11 world. Both are stories of weapons feared but not found, possessed, or in the end, not possessed by non-white men. In both, madness plays a part, though Bush’s diagnosis prompts action, whereas Alpizar might have been saved by one.
It is, though, those last two quotes from reports on the shooting that are most unnerving. The first of them, noting the “horrific situation” faced by the air marshals is persuasive to a point. If air marshals are armed, the government presumably imagines circumstances in which they should shoot passengers. Assuming (though a matter being questioned to some extent in reports) that Alpizar made claims to have a bomb and was running toward the cockpit of the plane, when else is the right time for them to shoot?
Repeated shows of support in the press have stressed that their behavior was “by the book,” which is to say automatic, the implementation of rules made in advance and followed so instinctively that individual subjectivity in the present is displaced. It was the rule of law made material, there was no time – and indeed no one – to think.
I’m less worried about the specific training offered air marshals or other issues at that level of detail than I am with one of the broader connections between this shooting and Bush’s casting of the invasion of Iraq. Time and time again, Bush stresses that we are in a moment in which we couldn’t wait for proof, couldn’t afford to underestimate a threat, in which, simply, “we have every reason to assume the worst.” In so doing, the marshals who shot Alpizar were doing their job.
The last quote above about the Alpizar shooting, in which his neighbor “called the shooting ‘a huge mistake,’ but added, ‘I know how very careful we have to be,’” sounds more like something out of a Ray Bradbury novel than I’d prefer to read in the newspaper. Nothing against that woman in particular – who knows what a person might say to a reporter in that circumstance – but the repetition of that warning in the media, whatever its intention, ends up being a convincing articulation of what it would sound like if the doctrine of preemption were sufficiently infused that we start to imagine ourselves as worthy targets of preemption.
Print |
Currently Reading
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales (Oxford World's Classics)
by Edgar Allan Poe, J. Gerald Kennedy
by Edgar Allan Poe, J. Gerald Kennedy
Comments
By the third obligatory reference to the difficulty of split-second decisions, it's become “split decision,” as if the marshals sat and deliberated like Supreme Court Justices, a process which as we know is not inherently more reliable, and in the particular arguably at the root of all the terrible decisions we are being faced with today.
December 09, 2005 at 12:04:20
Add a comment
HTML is disabled in comments. Use [b]for bold[/b] and [i]for italics[/i].
Printculture members can review, edit, and delete their comments, create a member page, and don't have to fill in the silly form below. Sign up or log in.
Printculture members can review, edit, and delete their comments, create a member page, and don't have to fill in the silly form below. Sign up or log in.
