no one likes a Cassandra

TigerHawk, posting at the Belmont Club, links to this Daniel Henninger interview with Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz.

“I worried a lot about terrorism,” Mr. Shultz told me, “and I didn’t think we had an adequate strategy.” So in that 1984 speech, the next sentence says this: “The question posed by terrorism involves our intelligence capability, the doctrine under which we would employ force, and most important of all our public’s attitude toward this challenge.”

I wonder out loud whether this view made people nervous back then. GS: “President Reagan thought it was OK, but there were a lot of people that didn’t.” DH: “Now it’s part of the Bush doctrine.” GS: “I think the idea that you would do everything you can to prevent what is coming at you by way of something very disruptive–a 9/11–it’s a no-brainer.”

Yes, well Shultz only started worrying about terrorism after the hideous terrorist incident in Beirut that happened under his watch:

On the morning of Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-filled truck into the barracks and killed 220 Marines and 21 other U.S. service personnel [in Beirut].

I’ll let Wikipedia pick up the story from there:

President Ronald Reagan called the attack a “despicable act” and pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon. [He] assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action, and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. However, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations….

The Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted. On February 7, 1984, the order was given for the Marines to begin withdrawal from Lebanon. This was completed on February 26; the rest of the MNF was withdrawn by April. Terrorists saw this as a two-fold victory for their cause, and their activity against Westerners (particularly Americans) increased, prompting various U.S. responses. [emphasis added]**

So Shultz is no hero, and he was no soothsayer.

Let us for a moment imagine he had gone around warning us of all the danger signals that pointed to more terrorism against America, even after we had pulled out (visibly) of the Middle East.

What fate would have befallen such a Cassandra?

Consider the case of global warning, an issue that has gotten a lot of attention lately:

By the clock of geology, this climate shift is unfolding at a dizzying, perhaps unprecedented pace, but by time scales relevant to people, it’s happening in slow motion. If the bad stuff doesn’t happen for 100 years or so, it’s hard to persuade governments or voters to take action.

And there is the rub. Many scientists say that to avoid a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations, energy efficiency must be increased drastically, and soon….

“The issue clearly has an urgency problem,” said Billy Parish, a founder of Energy Action, a coalition of student groups….

A Gallup survey last month shows that people are still not worried about climate change. When participants were asked to rank 10 environmental problems, global warming was near the bottom, far below water pollution and toxic waste (both now largely controlled).

Without a connection to current disasters, global warming is the kind of problem people, and democratic institutions, have proved singularly terrible at solving: a long-term threat that can only be limited by acting promptly, before the harm is clear.

Problems that get attention are “soon, salient and certain,” said Helen Ingram, a professor of planning, policy and design at the University of California, Irvine.

Stressing the problem’s urgency could well be counterproductive, according to “Americans and Climate Change,” a new book by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

The book notes that urgency does not appear to be something that can be imposed on people. Moreover, it says, “Urgency is especially prone to being discounted as unreasoned alarmism or even passion.”

Whether it comes to confronting—and acting against—global warming or Islamist totalitarianism, human inertia is one of our biggest obstacles.

And that’s where infotainment may come in handy. Consider Laurie David (that’s Mrs. Larry David), for example. She’s pretty entertaining!

The time has come to unite all Americans to stop the single greatest threat facing us today

By joining THE STOP GLOBAL WARMING VIRTUAL MARCH, we commit to each other that together, as our numbers grow, we will use our collective voices to demand that governments, corporations, and politicians take the steps necessary to stop global warming. Today I join this march, and I take the first step.

Got that? you’re joining a virtual march to commit to using your collective voices (as soon as there are enough of you) to demand (whoa!) that others take steps to stop global warming.

Do you think you can stick out your neck for that?

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** From most media reports that I have seen, including countless magazine pieces written since 9/11, books, Frontline documentaries, and countless talk shows, this is the conventional wisdom across the (mainstream) political spectrum. I haven’t had time to research and back it up, however, so I offer Wikipedia as the least partisan and most succinct source.