The terror of the unknown
LEO Tolstoy wrote in “Anna Karenina” that “all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Terror attacks are like unhappy families; each is different in its own awful way.
The unspeakable horror of 9/11 was a wake-up call about how much some Muslims hate America and about the gaping holes in airport security and intelligence sharing.
Because another jihadist tried to ignite explosives in his shoe, passengers around the world must remove their footwear before boarding.
The Fort Hood slaughter taught officials to take signs of radicalism literally, even from those in the military, while the murderous rampage by a fiendish couple in San Bernardino spotlighted a program that admits foreign fiancées without the usual scrutiny.
The Boston Marathon bombing revealed the danger of something so innocu- ous as pressure cookers, and something so obvious as the need for the FBI to alert local police about residents pinpointed by intelligence.
From horrors in other nations, we’ve learned about the dangers of car and truck attacks, about airport-terminal shootings and subway bombings.
The list of things we’ve learned in the last 16 bloody years is long but, as the slaughter in Las Vegas proved, not nearly complete.
It would be horror enough that Stephen Paddock carried out the most lethal mass shooting in modern American history under any circumstances. Yet the pain is compounded by how easily he circumvented all standard security measures, and the fact that investigators still don’t have a clue about why he did it.
As his brother said, the killer had no ideology, no religion, no politics.
That gaping hole, the X-factor about why, is a bleeding wound in the American sense of security and safety. All the more so because investigators say he initially considered other attacks involving large crowds.
And yet nothing has publicly surfaced to place Paddock into any profile that would even make him suspicious. Although he bought a reported 33 guns in the last year, he passed every background check he was required to undergo.
He wasn’t a loner, but few people admit to having really known him, and none reported anything seriously amiss. So far there are no digital fingerprints or claims of allegiance to al Qaeda or the Islamic State, although the latter has claimed he was one of their converts.
It would be something of a relief if that claim were borne out. At least we would know why, and that would, in its own twisted way, be more satisfying than the maddening vacuum we face now.
The central mystery means we have entered a menacing new chapter of an already troubled age. The slow, steady progress we made in combating terror, even from self-radicalized individuals, couldn’t save the 58 souls Paddock gunned down or protect the nearly 500 he wounded.
While all public venues have hardened their perimeters and internal security since 9/11, Paddock thwarted that simply by firing long-distance. He picked a hotel room with open views and was able to rain hell on the innocent at will.
Those bare facts mean our learning curve continues. At least some hotels likely will start screening baggage so that, hopefully, no other guest can casually take an arsenal and endless ammunition to a room.
In Washington, the move to curb bumper stocks and other devices that can turn semi-automatic weapons into virtual automatic ones is gaining steam.
These are all logical reactions, yet how does our society ultimately guard against an evil that has no logic? How do we combat an enemy so ordinary in appearance that we can’t recognize it, an enemy that declares itself only at the moment it delivers death and destruction?
Tell me, how?