When is enough too much? When is it not enough?
Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent the good part of his day defending his actions over making the decision to go publish about the terrorist threat to bomb the New York City subway system. He weighted the severity of the threat - and made the decision to err on the side of caution, stating, “If I’m going to make a mistake, you can rest assured it is on the side of being cautious.”
If only Mayor Ray Nagin had overreacted, just a little.
Yea, ok - so Hurricane Katrina was a pretty solid certainty compared to a possible terrorist threat. I’ll give you that - but at what point is the line drawn in the sand between an actual threat and possible threat?
Are there defining factors? Criteria? You can’t win for losing, it seems. Critics say he overreacted on the severity of the threat..causing unnecessary panic…unneeded chaos…costing the city how many dollars?
Though, had he done nothing more than merely filed the threat under “T” for terrorism in his file cabinet.. and something had happened, no matter how large or small… the Monday morning quarterbacks would cry that he didn’t do enough. They would begin to catalogue all of the moves he should have made…. all of the steps he should have taken.
Do we really know that the threat was not real? Do we really know, for sure, that his efforts at raising awareness didn’t actually thwart an attempt, this time? We don’t know.. not really.
He is villified either way. Either nothing happened and he overreacted. Or something happens - and he didn’t do enough.
I realize it’s inconcievable to react, as such, to every single percieved threat to this country. I mean, we’d all be walking around on eggshells - our law enforcement would constantly operate under crisis mode - - reacting, possibly overreacting, at every turn. Soon, the country would become immune to the threat(s) - even more so than now…apathy would abound - - no threats would be taken seriously. It would be the boy who cried wolf every day.
Then what to do for fear of overreacting? Underreact? How are the threats weighed in the minds of politicans with the power to react and do something? There must be some terrorist threat equation .. and I just can’t see through the layers of yellow, orange and red enough to understand it all.
More questions than answers.
Related:
Homeland Security Department downplays threat, calling it’s credibility ‘doubtful’. New York said that city officials had known about the threat at least since Monday, but held the information until two or three al-Qaida operatives were arrested in Iraq within the past 24 hours. Once the arrests were made, officials felt they could go public, the official said. Authorities are concerned, the official said, that there might be al-Qaida operatives in New York City connected to the plot. They have no hard evidence of that, but are investigating.
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October 8, 2005 - 09:15 AM on October 8th, 2005
I don’t see that he made a mistake. It showed me that NYC is prepared in the event that terrorist strikes are being talked about. To be honest, I question why he would be called out for anything. 19 people (that seems to be the magical number in threats and strikes here)can come in and wreck havoc on 1000’s of people in the most unsuspecting ways.
October 9, 2005 - 01:21 PM on October 9th, 2005
Now if NAGIN were mayor of NEW YORK the liberal left-wing news media would,nt say a thing we all know what a bunch of scoundrels the liberal left-wing news media is:roll:
October 11, 2005 - 11:39 PM on October 11th, 2005
in a state of war you fight until you are victorious; the object of war is to force the other sob to die for his cause; and you never look back! that is the object of war! idiotic politicos never smell it or sense it or see the total waste of war! they just pule and bloviate and say just reelect me! …………