The most discouraging material I read yesterday was a positive piece in The New Republic on how Israel defeated the Arab terrorist war on Israel with measured response, good intelligence and strong military action.
The discouraging material was that the terrorism that began in late 1999 took nearly 400 innocent Israelis murdered and two years before the Israeli democracy had a clear majority with enough will to move against their Arab neighbors. That says something disturbing about a democracy’s ability to survive terrorism.
America has a long history of isolationism. I have long known that Americans never wanted to enter WWII. The majority of Americans opposed the use of American troops in Europe until the first U.S. victories in late 1943. The death of Americans at Pearl Harbor had little effect on American opinion. (The first scientific public opinion polls were started in 1940.)
So how many Americans have to be murdered by terrorists before the majority of Americans will be steadfast enough to fight back? Based on the Israeli experience it will take America three years, with a Twin Towers disaster every three months, to rally a solid majority of Americans against Arab terrorism.
That is discouraging.