Friday, December 09, 2005

Honoring the Threat: Air Marshals and Iran

Gina Cobb blogged An excellent bit of wisdom from Wizbang today titled "Honor the Threat":

"One of the greatest pieces of wisdom I have have ever learned was "honor the threat." If someone or something threatens you, treat that threat as very real and very imminent unless and until proven ineffective.

"Rigoberto Alpizar, who met his untimely end on a jetway in Miami yesterday, made a threat. It was a plausible threat -- he didn't threaten to fire a bazooka at the plane, or to smash the plane with his bare hands -- and was treated as such. And while it may be a sad fact that he was mentally ill, and didn't in fact have a bomb, the air marshal who shot him did exactly the right thing. Mr. Alpizar's death is entirely his own responsibility. If he had merely taken his medication, he'd most likely be alive today, and a lot of people would be trying to find something else to write about."

Here's another threat America had better honor: Iran Only Months from Nuclear Bombs -- and Threatens "Death to America"

Just as the threat from this man turned out to be hollow, Iran's threats may be hollow. Or maybe not. The only prudent course, when innocent lives are at stake, is to honor the threat.
A very good point. And as we learned earlier, Israel can't stop Iran nukes, so we can't count on them to stop Iran like they did Iraq when they took out Iraq's nuclear plant.

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