If only dreams could come true...

Kerry is getting some much deserved grief from Republicans for Telling NY Times magazine that he wants to view terrorism as a nuisance. (towards the end of the article)

From the article

"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." He appeared to equate terrorism to prostitution and illegal gambling, saying they can be reduced but not ended.

I would like to live in a world where terrorism was just a nuisance - but getting back to that way of thinking means Americans will die. Thinking of terrorism as a nuisance is the way we reacted to previous attacks - it's the way we acted after the first World Trade Center bombing, after the African embassy bombings, after the USS Cole bombing, after the capture of the plotters of the attempts to blow up LAX and the NY tunnel system. That kind of pre-9/11 mentality is what will make 9/11 style attacks possible.

Kerry is right that terrorists will always exist, of course - that is what Bush meant when he said that the war on terror was unwinable. But we should still approach it as a fight that we can and must win, because if we adopt an attitude that "shit will happen", it will. It is accepted that some level of drugs and prostitution will occur because for the most part they are "victimless" crimes, or at least crimes where much of the damage in inflicted on a small group of people (ie most of the victims of drug-related shootings are drug dealers or drug users). Terrorism is not a "victimless" crime - it is the opposite, where all the victims are innocent, where all the victims were at the wrong place at the wrong time. It is fight that we can't accept that stuff will happen, because if we let our guard down we will be open for further attacks.