A Cheerful Vignette

Date: The day after tomorrow

The International Righteous Radical Islamists Tactical Army Nucleus for Terrorism has activated the controlling sleeper cell that happens to be housed eight blocks from your house. You don’t know this, of course, nor will you ever know.

Several weeks ago, a letter addressed to all major media and to the heads of US gov’t spelled out this group’s gruesome agenda: until their demands were met, their operatives would begin killing one city resident every fifteen minutes in any of sixteen US cities. Their demands included, among other things, complete nuclear disarmament of the US and Israel, the resignation of US and Israeli heads of state and immediate cabinets and ministries, the installment of an Islamic dictatorship, the conversion of all church bells to call-to-prayer loudspeakers, and the conversion of all Starbucks to tea dispensaries. The letter generously provided 48 hours for the accomplishment of all these demands; thereafter there would be one murder every fifteen minutes in any of sixteen cities at random.

Publicized on the media, the letter was scoffed at and promptly forgotten.

It speaks well for US general vigilance that it only took eight days for one of the cities to finally draw a connection between the well publicized letter and the slightly elevated rate of random gunshot victims it had been admitting to its always overcrowded morgues in the eight days since the letter had been broadcast. It only required another four days for all sixteen cities to recognize that their rates of murder, random gunshot murder in particular, had all risen by as much as a quarter of a percentage point.

When word got out, it was an outrage! The public demanded that something be done.

Within five days, the FBI, using powerful pattern recognition software, had determined that the “orders to kill†every fifteen minutes were coming from somewhere in your city. They were in fact coming from the safe house eight blocks from your house, but the FBI’s software didn’t have the “resolution†needed to identify any more than a general locale, an entire city, but nothing more specific. The knowledge was not made public, for fear of creating a panic.

The US secretly consulted Israel, whose successful methods of stopping terrorism have been overwhelmingly proven by six decades of uninterrupted terrorism, about what to do, and Israel quickly identified the action guaranteed to defeat the International Righteous Radical Islamist Tactical Army Nucleus for Terrorism: bomb the city where the orders were coming from and the murders would stop.

That’s when, without any advance warning, the leaflets got airdropped; seven of them on your lawn alone. They all said the same thing: “The USAF will commence bombardment of your city within 12 hours of the time stamped on this leaflet. It is highly recommended that you depart the city to a distance not less than 14.5 miles from its geographic center or loss of life or serious injury may occur. The USAF is not responsible for items or personal property left behind.â€

Smiling, you sat down and wrote a thank you note to the USAF for their courtesy, knowing that whatever they were up to, they were morally right, just as they were doing their moral duty giving you a few hours warning before destroying everything you own, your livelihood, your home, your life. Not every combatant is as considerate of uninvolved civilians as the USAF! Whistling cheerfully, you begin the task of finding your family and abandoning everything you’ve ever known.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 6 2006, 02:20 AM) [snapback]298567[/snapback]</div>

Please elaborate. What specifically is improbable? And what "collapses" in light of what?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Aug 6 2006, 10:50 AM) [snapback]298654[/snapback]</div>

Excellent point. I can't imagine why you would make the point sarcastically. If reducing the causes of premature death, i.e. making our lives safer were truly a concern, bombing cigarette factories would make substantially more logical sense (and likely be more effective) than bombing a city in the hope that it reduces a comparatively insignificant cause of premature death.

So, explain, why should the International Righteous Radical Islamists Tactical Army Nucleus for Terrorism draw all of our attention, draw so much of our resources, command such sacrifice when virtually every other cause of premature death (cigarettes, disease, accidents, domestic violence) far eclipses what terrorists can inflict?

Why give a handful of murderers such overwhelming power over our lives?