Dominance

The news today carries the story of a group of young people who were attacked by a bear in Alaska.   America’s News Network had audio from the children (I assume it is on TV as well).

As much of a city boy as I am, I know that the number one rule of interaction with bears is:   “If a bear charges at you, don’t show fear.”  

If you turn around and run, you are telling the bear “I am your prey” and you guarantee an attack.    Bears are excellent tree climbers if you had the instinct to escape by climbing a tree.

If you bump into a bear in the woods, you probably have come close to the cub of a mother bear.   Bears generally avoid contact with humans (unless people are stupid enough to give them free food and turn them into Democratic voters).   Bears have good hearing and smell and would likely move away when they sense your presence.

When the bear charges, you stand still looking right at the bear and stare him/her down.   That sends the message “I am not your prey – if you are stupid enough to attack me, you will regret it”.  When the bear breaks off the charge, slowly back away and show it that you aren’t a threat to it or its children and don’t want a confrontation.

If the bear goes ahead and attacks, you haven’t really changed the outcome.   You can’t outrun a bear, you can’t outclimb a bear.   Assuming you don’t have a weapon, a well targeted rock or a stick poked in the eye may get his/her attention, but to a large degree, it’s up to the bear what happens to you at that point.    Playing dead might work (unless the bear is really hungry)

So…..   when some Islamic terrorist says “Hey, we could blow up a plane by putting a bomb in our underwear (etc…) and the United States / TSA starts to frisk 90 year old grandmothers in wheelchairs and check their diapers, we are announcing “We are prey – come kill us”.

After the Taliban voted to let Osama Bin Laden use Afghanistan to plan and train for his 9/11 mission…..  once we were certain of the facts – if the United States response was “Ok, you’re finished…”  and we blew up every bridge, every dam, every power station, every building (including mosques), killed all the cattle, poisoned the water supplies and turned all the rubble into smaller pieces of rubble… should someone in the future say “Hey, let’s attack the United States”, that person would be immediately killed by his own people.    (OMG, you just advocated genocide!)

Instead we show up as a social service agency to build schools, build roads, liberate women, help the farmers grow more poppies for opium and give the “government” weapons and training and billions and billions of dollars on this fantasy that you can take a middle aged man who can’t count to 10 and teach him to fly an F16.