Use intelligence more intelligently to stop terrorism
I was recently re-reading Peter McWilliams’ wonderful “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do” and ran across this prescient piece. McWilliams wrote this in 1996, five years before 9/11:
We don’t hear much about terrorism in this country because if we really knew what was going on, we'd all be, well, terrorized. The car bomb (or, more accurately, the mini-van bomb) explosion at the base of the World Trade Center in March 1993 was not only an act of terrorism--it was a warning....
Meanwhile, what are the FBI, CIA, and United States Customs--our only realistic defense against terrorism--up to? You guessed it: defending us against consensual crimes. Drugs, of course, head the list. Terrorism is a footnote.
...on September 28, 1992, the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration revealed “a truly unique joint effort involving the participation of law enforcement agencies on three continents.” Was this “truly unique” two-year international effort designed to track down and uncover terrorism? No. Known as Operation Green Ice, its purpose was to terrorize drug dealers. “Operation Green Ice has a message for drug dealers everywhere: the world is mobilized against you. U.S. law enforcement will continue with our colleagues around the world to defeat these purveyors of human misery.”
Couldn’t all of this intelligence be used more intelligently?
And today, eight years later and three years after September 11, not much has changed.
In response to The Price of Prohibition: If we wish to maintain prohibition, we have to understand that we are funding and nurturing terrorism.
- Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
- Well before he died, Peter McWilliams placed the entire text of his work on-line for general viewing. It’s a massive collection of information and reasoned editorial about the dangers of all forms of prohibition in the United States.
- Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do•: Peter McWilliams at Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
- Enforcing laws against consensual activities is un-American, says McWilliams. This book is mostly about American crimes and American freedom. He starts at the beginning: the enlightenment and John Locke’s writings about “the purpose of government”. Locke’s ideas about natural rights were to directly influence Thomas Jefferson’s writings a hundred years later. “No man can be forced to be rich or healthful; God Himself will not save men against their wills.”