Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Episode 1: Preventing Acts of Terror

I think the police are very good at dealing with a situation after it happens. This is to say that after a bank robbery they are good at finding the robbers. After a murder they are good at finding the killers and so on and so forth. The operative word here is “After the Fact.(ATF)”

Unfortunately in this day and age AFT is no longer good enough. After a president is shot, after a trailer bomb goes off or a pressure cooker explodes at the Boston Marathon, is too late to meet the Standard of Prevention. Traditionally police agencies begin with an event. That is the way their culture has evolved.

The Military is better at anticipation than law enforcement agencies. They have evolved differently. In planning a military operation the Army uses a two-phase process designed to anticipate what an enemy force is likely to do and then develop a plan to best deal with it. They zero in on what is most likely to happen and spread their limited resources accordingly. There are two phases, an Estimate and a Plan. From what we saw in Boston, over a decade after 9/11, we can take pride in how quickly law enforcement acted to catch the perpetrators but have to concede that despite the mountain of resources and ample time to prepare, we are still not very far along in preventing terrorism.

I know, I know! The apologists are quick to point out statistics on the many acts of "terrorism" that have been prevented since 9/11. However, if you look closely, the threat is not generally all that sophisticated and for the most part, consists of amateurs who telegraph their intentions. The United States, except for one Huge Event in New York City, has been a backwater on the global stage of terrorism. The Soviet Union, Great Britain and Israel have much more big league experience.

So for the next few blogs I will NOT be talking about all the good things law enforcement is doing in the War on Terror but rather on measures that should be taken to better identify and counter a threat before it happens.