AZspot AZspot

blue bits. red rocks.
Saturday 17 January 2009

In tort law there used to be a concept known as “one free bite.” It referred to the notion that a dog owner can’t be expected to know that his dog is likely to bite someone until the dog … actually bites someone. Thereafter, if he fails to properly restrain his dog, he is liable. But he gets “one free bite.” This concept has largely faded away in tort law. But it apparently persists in Bush’s concept of national defense (or “homeland security” as it is now known, thanks to Bush). A president is allowed one catastrophic terrorist attack on his watch – and he is off the hook as long as there isn’t another one before he leaves office. But that only applies to threats to the nation’s security that take exactly that form. So, for example, if he fails to “keep us safe” by incompetently managing the devastation of a US city by hurricane and flood – well, he gets “one free bite” on that one, too. Hey, he hasn’t lost a major US city in the three years since Katrina! Bush “kept us safe” – if you don’t include 9-11, or Katrina, or the 4200 US soldiers who died in Iraq and tens of thousands of soldiers badly wounded in that war. And if you ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden is still alive over seven years after 9-11. And you disregard the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate and the report from the National Counterterrorism Center that same month, both of which concluded that Al Qaeda is stronger than at any time since 9-11 and has reconstituted in the tribal areas along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. daggatt

A GNT creation ©2007–2012