Correspondence
Correspondence TIME TO SPY ON THE CIA ROBERT KAGAN and William Kris-tol's "Time for an Investigation" (May 27) is right on the money: We need an independent investigation of the very services that...
...Yet never before have I been moved to comment until I read David Brooks's Casual "The Fryers Club" (May 27...
...Reading our statement that "the dangers of accepting the role of the world's policeman are clearly evident" as meaning that "America-sorta-had-it-coming" is simply outside the bounds of civilized discourse...
...our heirs will pay the price...
...For far too long we have believed without question in our intelligence community...
...Both Kroc and Brooks are wrong...
...Airline guidelines at the time read much like instructions to Burger King employees in the event of an armed confrontation: Be passive, remain calm, give the gunman what he wants...
...The Historical Record...
...If that notion is allowed to spread, victims of domestic crime might deduce that owning a firearm might be a good solution to their problem...
...soil and the almost certain use of weapons of mass destruction in our homeland, isn't it time to ask whether we should continue to risk the lives of millions of Americans to pursue foolish foreign policies...
...Reid had a novel weapon, and so escaped the notice of the authorities...
...He went on to point out the fundamental flaw in our system is that its purpose is to find weapons, not hijackers...
...CHARLES H. FARLEY Greenville, NC FRED BARNES finds it "downright inexplicable" that the authorities charged with airline security should oppose arming pilots and conducting ethnic profiling of passengers...
...In response the CIA and FBI have produced Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and Jonathan Pollard...
...As logical distinctions go, that one isn't rocket science...
...Neither America nor the thousands of individual victims of al Qaeda "had it coming...
...The danger of an exact repeat is minimal, so we should be on our toes for something else, say a frigate with a "dirty nuke" or a suitcase bomb on a monorail...
...Those dry, tasteless, mushy things sold as french fries all across America are nothing more than utensils to use only to convey to the mouth huge gobs of ketchup, the only thing with any flavor...
...How can The Weekly Standard refer to the Saudis' "involvement in the events of September 11" and support the continued stationing of troops there...
...Prior to September 11, hijackings were of the "Fly me to Cuba" genre at worst...
...Questioning our motivations and grossly distorting our views is unethical...
...How many millions of Americans are the editors of The Weekly Standard willing to sacrifice to maintain a U.S...
...EDWARD H. CRANE President Cato Institute Washington, DC THE WRONG RENE IT WAS RATHER DISAPPOINTING to see that David Tell's informative editorial "The Saudi Terror Subsidy" (May 20) misspelled twice the name of the school near which the August 21, 1995, bus suicide bombing occurred in Jerusalem...
...Likewise, profiling...
...It's time for an open discussion of the wisdom of trying to be the world's policeman...
...To arm the pilots would provide government validation for the proposition that not only are firearms not bad, but in appropriate circumstances they can be a positive good...
...Brooks tells about Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, attributing the success of his chain to the excellence of its french fries...
...The entire State Department also needs an overhaul...
...While it is true that our view of the Saudis needs reconsideration, so does our view of Israel, which sees fit to spy on us (Pollard) and beg us to pardon criminals (Pollard and Marc Rich...
...In 1998 Cato published a study by Ivan Eland, director of defense policy studies, titled "Does U.S...
...This dose of common sense is sorely needed, particularly after Robert Kagan and William Kristol's "Time for an Investigation," which suffers from hindsight bias...
...In an age of relatively easy access to weapons of mass destruction, they are suicidal...
...The fact is that the U.S...
...Neither our statement nor the photo of the burning World Trade Center next to George Washington's statement that "It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world" could be construed by civilized people as claims that the victims deserved to be killed...
...C.A...
...The next hit will be as unthinkable as the first...
...They should ask themselves that question before they impugn the patriotism or the motives of others...
...JAMES H. FINK Lincoln, MA CATO MALIGNED THE WEEKLY STANDARD served up quite a cocktail of ignorance and libel in its unsigned Scrapbook item of May 27 ("Cato Entangled...
...Any bureaucratic, rearward looking fandangos will amount to naught...
...But of course, instituting ethnic profiling would provide government validation of the proposition that our enemies are not random, but come from recognizable demographic groups...
...If we fail to review these things which seem to be functioning poorly at best, we deserve them...
...One even hears talk of the need for "empire" in certain conservative circles...
...Second, facts...
...Such adventures have been foolhardy historically...
...Crofts Lander, WY...
...To say that an attack was predictable is not to say that it was justifiable or that "America-sorta-had-it-com-ing...
...Those who believe otherwise are willing to go to their deaths (as well as yours and mine) to uphold their faith in liberal dogma...
...First, logic...
...This is manifestly true, and is the reason why twenty-something guards gleefully confiscate nailclippers from grandmothers while failing to stop Richard Reid the shoebomber...
...SAMUEL CASSIN Arlington, VA FRY DAYS I HAVE BEEN READING THE WEEKLY STANDARD for a long time—wonderful articles and essays about earth-shaking events...
...as a result of foolish foreign policies...
...Had they been looking for the usual suspects, they would have pounced on him, just as the passengers did...
...The school was named after the famous French-Jewish jurist and Nobel prize winner Rene Cassin, who authored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to preserve his memory and honor his achievements...
...The article identifies the school as the Rene Kassem High School when the real name of the school is the Rene Cassin High School...
...Everyone should look, as I do, from the cockpit at the September 11 surprise...
...The writer asserted that the United States has "but a single 'entangling alliance' in the Middle Eastern 'portion of the foreign world,'" and that that alliance is with Israel...
...Cato's scholars have repeatedly warned of the possibility of terrorist attacks on the u.S...
...Indeed, the apparent catalyst for the murderous attacks of September 11 was the stationing of U.S...
...Readers of The Weekly Standard might want to read the two sentences that the writer neatly chopped up and distorted: "Cato's principled noninterventionist approach to foreign affairs, consistent with the Founders' admonitions about entangling alliances, has weathered the test of time...
...Correspondence TIME TO SPY ON THE CIA ROBERT KAGAN and William Kris-tol's "Time for an Investigation" (May 27) is right on the money: We need an independent investigation of the very services that were designed to protect America...
...But, likewise, once the threat is typecast, it is easily warded off...
...The misspelling had the unintended effect of defeating both of those purposes...
...And again, once the logic is accepted in the hunt for terrorists, the logic can easily be extended to the fight against domestic crime...
...Indeed, it was striking that The Weekly Standard's malicious attack on the Cato Institute was positioned right under The Weekly Standard's attack on Saudi Arabia for the perfidy of its leaders...
...Kroc was right that the french fry is important—it's just that he never learned to make them right...
...With the directors of the FBI and the CIA predicting further attacks on U.S...
...Hijackers were seldom trained to fly a jet...
...has troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and provides military assistance to a number of regimes in the region...
...military presence in Saudi Arabia...
...Given the events of September 11, a huge majority of people believe that arming pilots and profiling passengers represent that most uncommon property, common sense...
...Since The Weekly Standard labeled the introductory message to the Cato Institute annual report that I wrote with my colleague William Niskanen a "little lecturette," please allow me to offer The Weekly Standard a lesson in logic, facts, and civility...
...Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism...
...The dangers of accepting the role of the world's policeman are clearly evident, even as our government undertakes the necessary task of eliminating the al Qaeda terrorist threat to our liberty and security...
...Eating french fries, one at a time, gave us an excuse to stay longer than would gulping down a burger...
...If anyone wants to interpret that as a call to terrorists to attack America, that says more about them than it does about us...
...Of course good fries require labor, time, planning— things not common in business today...
...It says something about The Weekly Standard's standards that they chose to read that as justifying attacks, rather than predicting them...
...I doubt if any citizen under 50 has ever tasted one, and clearly Brooks has not...
...But those were real, freshly peeled, freshly cut, and freshly deep-fried french fries, never frozen, and they were delicious...
...Shlomo Dror, an Israeli airline security expert, recently expressed the professional opinion that the united States does not have an airline security system, it has a system for annoying people...
...I suppose part of the attraction was the high school girls in skimpy outfits who brought the orders to the car...
...The attacks of September 11 were akin to a deadly computer virus that uses a free and open architecture to destroy its host...
...BILL KELLY Dundas, MN HINDSIGHT AND FORESIGHT HURRAH FOR FRED BARNES's "Arm the Pilots and Profile the Passengers" (June 3...
...I think if McDonald's, or any other fast food chain, were to start serving those they would put the other chains out of business...
...troops in Saudi Arabia...
...If David Brooks can write such nice words about such terrible things, what other misinformation has The Weekly Standard brought us...
...Arming pilots contradicts perhaps the most important pillar of liberal belief of the last several decades—guns are inherently bad...
...Saudi Arabia is not Israel...
...When I was a teenager in the '50s we would go to the local drive-in eatery and order just french fries—we didn't need or want a burger...
...Finally, having gotten the logic straight and the facts right, it's time to move on to civility...
...With friends like these we need no enemies...
...I don't...
...Saying that you run a risk if you walk down dark alleys alone is not the same as saying that you "sorta-had-it-coming" when you are mugged or raped...
...Citing Defense Department reports, Eland argued that "the United States could reduce the chances of such devas-tating—and potentially catastrophic— terrorist attacks by adopting a policy of military restraint overseas...
...So regardless of FBI director Robert Mueller's admissions, the pilots and the airlines never could have seen it coming...
Vol. 7 • June 2002 • No. 38
