Who, then, should be held guilty for Timothy McVeigh?
I agree with Hansel. I dont think we can comprehend the enormous impact any nuclear attack would have. It would give any enemy of the US a reason for continuing their attacks. Some of these terrorists dont think on the same “rational” level we do. Some might think that a nuclear attack would stop terrorist activities. I think all it would do, besides kill civilians, is give surviving terrorists more fodder for their attacks. Please excuse spelling mistakes, I am tired as hell. Please excuse the bad grammer in that last sentence.
think peace,
JB
Let me retract that. I said it out of horror at the idea that Scylla has found peace with the attack on the WTC with fantasies of absolute vengeance guarded by moral certainty.
I still think the nuke arguments are bullshit. The proper response is the one the Dubya already seems to be pursuing: build an international military coalition, and force the harbor nations to give up bin Laden (or whoever is responsible or involved) under threat of invasion and occupation by the armies of the world.
The responses of other terrorist supporting nations like Libya and Syria, to immediately condemn the attack and call on Muslims worldwide to support the US, indicates to me that this is exactly the response they fear: being singled out and crushed by the rest of the civilized nations.
**
I don’t think that’s an accurate statement. I think the American people and its government want justice. More importantly we need to soundly defeat these terrorists and those that harbor them so that they may not continue in their atrocities and so that they will be an example to those that contemplate similar acts.
Becasue of the Israeli’s response, nobody tries to hijack El Al airlines anymore. The Israelis respond with uncompromising harshness to this. We do not. Our airlines get hijacked.
We may have to wage war to get it. More likely we must simply be willing to wage war to get it, and our enemies must know this. If they know we are willing to go to extremes to get justice, they are more likely to be willing to give it to us.
Unfortunately history teaches us the exact opposite. It teaches us this in many, many examples. One after the other. One example might be the fact that the US is no longer a British colony. Another example might be the fact there is no such nation as The Confederate States of America. WWI and WWII are two more examples. That’s just for examples of violence begetting peace, and that’s only in the relatively short history of the US.
It might if we went about without a terrible resolve, like we had in WWII. If we do this at all we have to be willing to go the whole nine yards. We have to be willing to destroy them, so they don’t destroy us, and we have to be committed as we were not in Vietnam.
It is hard to be a good person. It is hard to be honest. It is hard to be fair. Life is full of hard things that are worth doing or that need to be done.
War is not a question of “We should or should not do it becuase it is hard or inconvenient.” We do it only because we must.
Yes. You make sense. These are terrible thinks that have happened, and we are faced with horrible choices. No doubt of that. We have to make them though, and we have to make them with our eyes open and with the understanding that our enemies may not love life and peace as we do, and they may not share our level of morality, of humanity.
You cannot argue morals with a sociopath. And you cannot compel one with moral reasons.
We did not harbor him. The US was neither complicit nor an accessory to his actions.
The US government acted quickly to bring him to justice. had the US government been aware of his activities beforehand it would not have allowed him to continue.
Can these things be said of the Taliban.
We are a bit closer to the Jungle now.
There is no morality there, only strategy, only survival.
If not this time, then next time or the time after, we will grow weary of burying our innocents, and we will do whatever needs to be done for our own survival.
There will be no thought given to how it makes us as bad as them.
In the final analysis, whoever did this thing must be taken out, and by whatever means necessary. Our own survival depends upon it, both as a secure nation and as individuals.
I hope to God that it won’t require nukes, that what is strategically best will not allow their use. But if so, then so.
If it comes down to it, then it will be war, the Jungle, when the absolute worst that is in us serves us best.
Their innocents will die. Their civilians will die. As will ours, no doubt. That’s why it’s called a war and not a pillowfight.
If all Hell does indeed break loose (as if it hasn’t already!), feel free to hate–it’s the only way to survive the Jungle.
-David
Well, when I said that the US didnt want justice, it was because I distincly remember Bush saying yesterday “we’re not looking for justice” or something that made me think we dont want to bring these people to trial or anything like that, we want to take the easy way out and just blow the shit out of them. What has the US really done to get bin Laden? Have the actively pursued him? they seem all to willing to say to Afghanistan “give him up or pay” but why didnt they say that after the USS Cole or the embassy bombings? If the relatively few number of casualities in thoes last couple of attacks had led to some kind of action like this one is doing, would we be in this situation today? The US put a 5 million dollar price tag on his head, why didnt we just “nuke him” or “invade Afghanistan” like we are calling for today?
I just think that this could have been avoided, and I think the US should go in and grab bin Laden where ever he is and put him on trial for crimes against humanity. Sure some deaths are inevitable, but hopefully they wouldn’t be innocent civilian deaths that you get with random bombings.
peace,
JB
I disagree.
These people are willing to kill themselves for their country, for glory, and for religious reasons.
I wonder if the would still strap on that bomb if they knew it would bring no glory to their countrymen, cause, or families, but only the destruction or death of the very things they were doing it for.
The Israelis storm the plane and kill the hijackers. They don’t go after the families and neighbours of the terrorists. They don’t blow up the plane. They don’t bomb the camps where the hijackers were trained.
The Israelis know, with their far greater experience with terrorism, that the last thing a country should do is respond with blind anger, creating a focus for further terrorist acts and recruiting.
You’re indulging in the idea that if we just hit them hard enough, they won’t get up. This may be a comforting idea now, but it’s absurd on reflection: we’re not facing a nation-state; we’re not facing an organization. We’re facing a hostile population that’s spread across several continents and countries (and I don’t mean Arabs, I mean Anti-American middle easterners and Asians). Unless we’re prepared to commit a very thorough genocide, we will do nothing but sew seeds for further terrorism.
For every man we killed by lobbing cruise missiles into Afghanistan, we created five willing, suicidal terrorists with visions of martyrdom in their heads.
The way to fight terrorists is to cut them off from their support. The British in Malaysia proved this: keep them out of the villages, and they wither. Get the harbor nations to give them up and to quit giving them money, and they’ll die of thirst.
I agree. That is the first and best course. It should work. It should especially work if they know how resolved we are, and what lengths we are willing to go.
As long as the middle east exists, we are not safe from terrorists. We should nuke all of it, as soon as possible. Not for retribution, but for future protection, so we don’t have to live in fear.
That entire section of the world needs to be gone. Nuclear weapons are the only long-term answer. Sorry that it is not politically correct, but it is the only solution. If we just kill Bin Laden and/or destroy afghanistan, it will only be hours before new islamic terrorists rise up and strike the “great satan” america. We need to kill them all, including all their civilians (who are nothing more than american-hating future terrorists in training).
Scylla, please reassure these good people that you withdraw your suggestion of initiating nuclear aggression. All of the important and logical objectives you mention are fully obtainable without nukes. No civilized country on earth can possibly restrain our right to rain destruction upon those giving succor to the vermin who perpetrated this atrocity.
It is only a matter of when the bombing begins. I know that our administration will attempt pin point bombing instead of the much more persuasive mass destruction that is called for here.
I have never felt this way in my life but I would cheerfully engage in the torture of the criminals who committed this hideous act. I would happily video tape it and send it to their home country for viewing. This is one of the most disgusting and dishonorable mass murders in human history. Such cowardice and evil cannot go unanswered.
Geez, Zenster…I was thinking that very thing for much of the day, yesterday.
The only difference was that I would magically hijack the world’s communication satellites so that the sloooooow execution could be broadcast live.
-David
Kalt you ignorant prick.
think peace,
JB
They’re doing it for heaven.
They’re doing it because they believe it’s the only way for them to fight back: to die for their cause. They’re doing it because they believe that things are already so bad that their life on earth is worthless, but possibly worth something in its violent end.
In Israel, Palestinian fathers urge their sons to become bombers, to earn paradise.
Terrorism thrives as an option of last resort. Massive, indiscriminate retaliation is a victory for them. It feeds their self-righteousness. If they think that the response to their acts will be the death of their families, it will only confirm for them that their targets are evil and worthy of any means of bringing death to them.
You said that we cannot reason with them, morally or otherwise. I agree. Your plan to nuke them is your own, reasonable conception of an appropriate and strategically sound response. That alone should make you suspicious of its efficacy.
We know how to fight terrorists: cut them off. We’ve been prevented from this by our own self-interest. We’ve created as many terrorists as we’ve killed or put in jail, because for a time we were their allies.
It’s the political destruction of harbor nations that will cut off terrorists from their wellspring, not the inflicting of similar tragedies.
I don’t know if I am totally willing to forgo the nuclear option, but have grave reservations. It would be my hope that justice may be done without any killing, or through the use of conventional forces only.
For starters, city killing is completely out. There would and could be no support from the world, or justification on our part, for retaliating in such an excessive manner to the incidents which have happened.
The use of a tactical bomb, however, against an isolated, precise target, has possibilities. For starters, it risks no American lives. Secondly, the response time is immediate. Any kind of conventional warfare action takes time to position assets and in this window, your opportunity may vanish.
Much of the abhorrence against the nuclear bomb is due to the fact that in both historical cases, it was used against a target with a large civilian component. From a military point of view, used against a military target (desert headquarters, maybe?) it has definite advanteges. I think Clancy said it, but people tend to forget that it is in the final analysis just a very large bomb.
If satellite or electronic intel can identify the target, no population centers are involved, and a few other conditions, a tactical nuke may have feasibilty.
Like it or not, these terrorism acts today are a new form of warfare. It is difficult to image any form of truly effective deterrence. Perhaps it will be necessary to make a statement that effectively gets the message out “DO NOT EVER TRY TO **** WITH US AGAIN”.
It is regrettable to even have to contemplate these things. But as Scylla has noted, sometimes you just can’t protect yourself through reason and argument alone. We may, as a nation, “speak softly and cary a big stick”. Maybe the time will come, though, that we have to use the stick.
Kalt: so you favor destruction of Israel, one of our staunchest allies?
So you favor destruction of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other countries that may not be the staunchest of allies, but are friendly to a degree4?
Tell me: Where is the U.S. going to get all of the gasoline and oil we Americans need to feed those useless SUVs we think we are so wonderful?
I think you have better remove your head from a position I had hitherto thought anatomically possible.
I am sorry for my last post, but saying that every Middle Eastern citizen is a ‘terrorist in training’ is just like saying everyone from Mississippi is a ‘n*gger lyncher in training’ Generalizations like that make my skin crawl, but i am sorry for the insult, Kalt
think peace,
JB
**
Only partially correct. They have and do go after the training camps, and they do seek retribution from those supporting the hijackers.
Agreed. Who said anything about blind anger? I quite clearly stated, at least twice, that anger was not the appropriate motivation while contemplating these kinds of actions. You are wrong to ascribe anger or a desire for retribution to my reasoning here. I thought I was quite clear on that.
Why is that silly?
I don’t know. I had thought as you do. Now I’m not so sure. I did think I covered this in my OP. I think we may be showing too much forbearance, and this is being misinterpreted as weakness.
It’s basic schoolyard psychology, and holds into adulthood that the person who’s willing to stand up for himself rarely gets picked on. It’s safe to pick on the person who won’t fight back, though.
I think you’re under a misconception. These are extremists. These people are not representative of Muslims or Asians in general.
I agree. I think cruise missiles make us feel good, but don’t really help anything in the big picture.
Yes. I’m speaking of how we do this. A government will think twice before harboring terrorists if they know that it will mean war, if the leaders of the country know that they will be held accountable, if they know it will be the end of their regime, and that we will go to extremes if they do.
If we make them know this, they won’t harbor terrorists.
hansel: where were you when I was trying to make those points? You could have saved me the embarassment of an idiotic post…
kalt: If you’ve ever wondered why people in the Middle East hate America with a passion, just re-read your post.