Jason, we are in fact at war with Muslims. There are no “moderate” Muslims anymore than there were “moderate” Japanese commanders and military men in WWII. This is just a fact. No Muslims have at any time even bothered to condemn these attacks (including the attempted beheading of obscure Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for an even more obscure cartoon of Mohammed), much less try and STOP them.
Muslims, world-wide, from Nigeria to Somalia to Indonesia and Pakistan and beyond DEMAND that we in the West adopt sharia, don’t make fun of Mohammed, don’t listen to or see certain Mozart operas (banned in Germany due to Jihadist threats), and so on. If we don’t do what they demand they plan on killing us. Until we submit. Its as simple as that.
[That 40% of British Born Muslims want Sharia in the UK in recent polls ought to tell you something.]
As a practical matter, I cannot tell which Muslim getting on a plane is planning to blow me up and which one would simply approve of that, provided HE is not on the plane. Which given government abdication of responsibility, is going to lead to several pathways.
First, Muslims WILL succeed in blowing up several planes. As Wretchard notes, this method of bomb delivery cannot really be stopped. In the immediate aftermath air travel will simply collapse, along with every airline, which depends on a mass-market model. Trillions will be spent world-wide to prop up a few national airlines, as Derbyshire predicts.
Second, in a recovery of flying, Westerners will simply REFUSE to allow Muslims (or anyone who looks Muslim and indeed non-Western) on the plane. At first, this will be simply walking off the flight, if Muslim looking people are on it. Eventually, given human nature, it will be forcible prevention of Muslims from boarding, with security looking the other way.
Fundamentally, you cannot have a free and open society if one group, that is protected by special privileges and PC, blows people up all the time. Either the PC goes by government, or it is tossed aside (the government that is) as the people with various new, competing institutions, seek to stop from being blown up.
The governments of the West have a clear choice: either attack the network by going after the most obvious Jihadi targets (including things like bugging Mosques, and so on) or see themselves usurped by the “new feudalism” as various kingpins (mostly organized crime) take over and run things as new Gottis. This is what happened to Italy.
My fearless prediction, is that Obama and other Western leaders will chose to preserve PC and Multiculturalism and thus insure “a New West” based on sort of new feudalism and non-state patronage that characterizes most of Italy.
In the meantime, stick a fork in places like Vegas, Hawaii, and other jet-served tourist spots. People will simply drive to vacations or not go. Air travel as we know it is dying.
