Focus on the here and now
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Haste makes waste and some people are in such a hurry to find short-term success that they spend the long term correcting the past. But if they cannot find time to do things right the first time, then how will they find the time to do things over?
Before the US terrorist attacks in 2001, a security agency had the name of the terrorist leader, but the attorney general ignored the information. He was probably in a hurry toward some short-term goal, and the agency failed to insist on a follow-up, probably the result of more hurry toward the short term.
The same agency knew of another terrorist and even talked to him, but other short-term goals probably precluded further investigation. Last month that terrorist and his brother put bombs on a street full of marathon spectators who were all in a hurry to view the climax of a race, too fixated on the short term to notice unattended bags.
How long were those bags there and how many security personnel and police walked by them without inspecting them? The agency has the answers, because it obtained the surveillance videos, but so far it refuses to release them to the public. What does is fear from the release? Haste makes waste, as we say.
YV Andropov
Bangkok
