Agreed. This is a watershed moment in U.S. history and the future looks grim indeed. Had these terrorists possessed nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t have hesitated to destroy every American city possible. At this very moment, you can bet there are clandestine labs in the Arab world who staff are working overtime to manufacture biological/chemical agents that will destroy entire city populations in the U.S. This is a certainty.
Ultimately, this is a negative-sum situation for the U.S. Everyone is going to lose big. Our choice is to minimize our losses and make sure our foes lose much bigger. In the end, I have no doubt that we will use tactical nuclear weapons–the world is too big, our enemies too many, our conventional forces too limited.
Ultimately, however, we won’t be able to stop terrorism because it is an ideology driven by unreasoned hate. Bin Ladin knew this incident would initiate a runaway, escalating dynamic of escalating attack and reprisal. He isn’t a fundamentalist Muslim; he’s an egomaniacal fascist bent on world domination and the imposition of his twisted worldview. I don’t think we can win, but we cannot afford to do nothing. Better our innocent citizens live than those overseas.
What leads them to this, though? What could cause people to become extremists and organize terrorism?
Is it some warped interpretation of Islam and the Qur’an?
Is it some irrational hatred of America, the Americans?
Or could it possibly be the fact that the United States is the latest and biggest power to meddle in the affairs of the Middle East, promoting and supporting wars of displacement, backing dictators and then turning on them almost at will, all for the profits that can be made from extracting the richest load of fossil fuels anywhere?
Tuesday was an out-and-out tragedy the likes of which the United States has heretofore never known. But not the world. We know now what it’s like to lose our loved ones in numbers almost impossible to comprehend. We know now what it’s like to really wonder if we’ll ever be truly safe in our own homes.
We can be hurt. We can be succesfully attacked. We, the United States, the richest and most powerful country in the world, are vulnerable.
Welcome to the rest of the world.
Retaliation of any kind, nuclear or otherwise, won’t bring us invulnerability. It won’t bring the men and women who worked in the Pentagon or the WTC, or the people who rushed to the scene to rescue them, back. Killing Timorthy McVeigh didn’t deter these people, and killing them won’t deter the next round of terrorism. Which the United States will bring upon itself by lashing out in response to these attacks.
The United States may be strong enough to send a militarily violent message to the rest of the world. But will it be strong enough to withstand the response?
I haven’t had time to read this whole thread, but I’d like to input some anyway.
As some have already posted, this is war. It’s not about morality, it’s simply about survival.
I am a human being, and so is my enemy. I do not want to kill my enemy, but if he intends to kill me, I must kill him in order to survive. Perhaps it puts me on the same level as he, but I have no choice (besides singing Kumbayah as he guts me.)
As for nuclear weapons, I don’t know much about warfare, but it seems we have plenty of firepower besides nukes to do what is necessary.
This is not a war like we’ve seen. It is more like fighting a cancerous disease. And the drawback of removing a cancer is the removing of good tissue. I’d prefer a straight fight, I’m sure everyone does, but sadly this is the reality of our situation.
And if the time comes, give me a helmet and rifle and drop my otherwise useless body into the battlezone…
**
We’re never going to be invulnerable. So let’s sing Joni Mitchell songs?
I think you underestimate exactly how comprehensive and unrelenting our military response is going to be. Or how many countries are now going to be cooperative and diligent in uprooting this evil from the world.
It’s quite possible the cockroaches won’t have crevices in which to hide from the light, by the time we’re done.
I think your reading comprehension is zero. No one that I can see has demonstrated a desire for joyous, indescriminate slaughter by any weapons.
I consider myself a hippie. I’m an anarchist. I push for people to live peacefully every day. But you go look a suicide bomber in the eye and tell me he wants to talk.
As well, your talk of nuclear weapons was indicative of ignoring my posts above on what different nuclear devices are available. Fallout does not have to be a concern.
What motivates Osama bin Laden? Power, plain and simple.
Instead of being a devout Muslim, Osama bin Laden twists Islam to his own megalomaniacal ambitions. You will never understand him and his wicked movement until you realize that he is a fascist with ambitions of world domination and total self-rule. Like all fascists/totalitarians, he expands his following by demagogically whipping up mass hatred against a demonized external archenemy and by maintaining brutal internal control. Without hate, he is nothing. Without terror and brutal repression, he is nothing. Without ignorance and abject poverty, he is nothing. Ultimately, he is the enemy of his own people, yet shrewdly manipulates them for his own narcissistic gratification.
He, of course, realizes this, and thus incited the recent attacks against the U.S. knowing that we would retaliate in full, which would then consolidate his power base and expand his fascist doctrine internationally. Ultimately, the international radical “Islamic fundamentalist” movement is but a loose coalition of fascists who use religion to cloak their expansionist personal ambitions. Over time, one can expect the strongest to consolidate their power and to gain control internationally. Within a generation or two, a central leader will emerge who controls millions. (BTW, the Taliban no doubt appease him and are fearful that he will attempt a power grab internally.)
Never underestimate the need of millions of people to be controlled, to feel important, to have a “glorious” cause for which they can nobly die as martyrs. We are now at war with an ideology–however contrived it is. Evil is often stronger than good because it knows no rules, only to win. God help us.
So if I’m aware of the fact that bin Laden was recruited and trained by the United States to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan, but then got turned loose once the war was over and the Soviet Union collapsed and only then demonized as a militant terrorist, I really don’t understand him?
There are terrorists all over the world who attack all sorts of interests. No specific nation is an instigator of terrorism. If they are, then you can start a long list of countries who should lie down and apologize to their attackers as:
USA
France
England
Israel
USSR (and its now seperate states)
China
Multiple countries in Africa
Hell, the more I think about, the more I see that you can pick a country out of a hat and find extremists who hate it. I bet even Canada has people that hate it, though I can’t figure out why they would. You see? Can you possibly see that?
Why would they hate America? Because we meddle? Because we choose sides that aren’t theirs in a conflict? So sorry, you know, because suicide bombers, attack squads, and oppression usually make us want to be all chummy. What a fluke this is, I can see their rationale.
Oil is a commodity the whole world uses. In this technological age it is a resource like water, and we all need it. What we DON’T need are people fighting over it. There is enough oil there to make entire countries wealthy… but who gets that wealth, Olen? The people we pissed off? Are they mad at us for that? Are they mad at us because they beat their women in public, and practice stoning as a means of execution? Are they mad at us because they starve? Are they mad at us because their government and military launch strikes at their neighbors in a bid for more power and land? Are they mad at us because their government prevents the aid we send from getting to the people? Are they mad at us because their governmetn is corrupt and hoards the money from the oil along with some close buddies?
Is that why they are mad?
Oh, their mad because we bomb their country in an effort to let their govrenment know its time to quit being a dick. Because diplomacy, my friend, didn’t stop the attack on Kuwait. Diplomacy didn’t stop the struggle to recapture land in Israel. And diplomacy didn’t turn out terrorists.
So yeah, Olen, I know why they hate Americans. Because their government wants them to and is going to foster an area that makes it so.
Do you think that if there was peace in the Middle East that America would be over there playing marionette? If there was peace in the Middle East we’d all have oil and then you could complain about the fat cat oil barons keeping the common man down.
But no, there isn’t peace. There wasn’t peace before we got there. There isn’t peace now. Suprise suprise, how long did it take Europe to stop killing each other? What did it take for Europe to stop killing each other? Two world wars, or diplomacy? Actually, it took centuries and centuries of fighting, two world wars, and then diplomacy. Diplomacy only works when people want to listen, and peace only works when both sides want it to.
How about the non-oriental Asia… what did it take for them to live in peace? Do they live in peace now? Is it because of America’s meddling that they are/are not at peace?
And what about Japan and China… what do you suppose stops them from killing each other?
In other words, what do you suppose causes peace? I’ll give you a hint. It involves fear of losing what you have already, and what you stand to gain with peace. Many middle eastern governments that harbor these terrorists don’t offer their citizenry shit-- so they’ve got little to lose. Couple that with our attacks and YES YES YES you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Their govrenments could have spread the wealth a bit. Their governments could have done their job to make their citizens happy and avoid war in the first place, none the less foriegn meddling. Did they? Would they? Why would they ever want peace?
But now we have a real possibility of going in there, no more air raids and hit-and-run bombings. We’ve got a chance to be there. We’ve got super weapons which are real threats and if there is any historical precidence for them it says we got trigger fingers twithcing to bush buttons.
Maybe… just maybe… those rat-bastard governments will listen now with real military action and world supoprt for it, with nuclear weapons seriously dangling over thier heads. They couldn’t hear anything during peace talks. They could hear us say “give this to your people.” They we’re deaf to trade sanctions. The bombing was too loud for them to think about giving up. That still left us with plenty of options, though, and we had a team ready to spend another four years in the Middle East, doing the diplomat thing, the manipulative thing, the world peace thing.
That wasn’t good enough. They want war. They beg for it for each terrorist that the peaceful people don’t turn over. They beg for it with every government who ignores world pleas for less oppression. And, most importantly, they beg for it when they suicide bomb restaruants, airplanes, and other public places.
Do you wonder why Arafat looks sick to his stomach? Because he knows it. He knows that politics are no longer on the side of his war and strife. Now politics are on the side of systematic removal of the terrorist… and all the time he spent letting it happen makes him just as much of a target now as bin Laden is.
The surest method to keep a state of warfare is misery, and these governments in what could rightfully be the wealthiest area in the entire world don’t let that wealth have one iota of benefit to the people. They blame that on their neighbors, on foriegn meddlers, on century old conflict, on the devil himself for all I know. I think its high time someone took over the middle east and showed those people just how “evil” we really are. France and Ireland are struggling, maybe they should divide up the territory. Then the citizens can complain about free health care and education, and memberhsip in a strong confederate-style economic group. Then they can complain about having a government which will listen to their grievances. Then they can complain about their religious freedom. They can gripe about how the devil allows them free movement and a life relatively free of fear.
GAH the whole thing makes me sick. So much wealth to be had for everyone there even with high corruption and they still live in terrible conditions. And now that’s America’s fault. Well, sorry man, I don’t see it.
It’s nice to see that some of you are using the security and freedom that America gives you to turn around and bite the hand that feeds you.
Bombs in U.S. embassies? It’s cause we’re meddling.
Rogue terrorists? Ooh, we financed him once.
Disaster in NYC? Of course it’s our fault, we shouldn’t have been xxx!
Are the terrorists wrong for using violence as a means to an end? No, it’s not their fault, they are honorable people that were driven to it.
You think you’d get so far if you were in Afghanistan speaking against the Taliban? I’m sure Saddam Hussein has a great suggestion box! Try walking through the West Bank and shouting “Arafat sucks, Israel forever!”.
America’s policies have given you security, freedom, hell, even your connection to this board. And Americans will continue to fight and die to defend these things, protecting you, even as you sit back, eat your Doritos, and continue your “constructive criticism”.
There needs to be millitary action. The terrorists need to pay for what they did to the US. If they have to be killed, so be it.
Oceans_11: An American civilian is worth no more or less than an Arab civilian. That is the way I feel. I am sorry you dont hold all human life as sacred as I do, just the few of us lucky enough to live in the United States.
I think killing innocent people is wrong. Bin Laden thinks killing innocent people is O.K. Whoes side are you on?
Are you implying that I’m chomping at the bit to see blood, no matter who it’s from? To kill civilians indiscriminately? Wrong.
As I’ve stated several times before, no one (aside from these terrorists, obviously) wants to see innocent civilians killed needlessly.
However, in war, innocent civilians as well as combatants, do die. This cannot be avoided. And in the case of war, the lives of my family, friends, and countrymen are much more valuable to me than those of the “enemy”. Who’s side are you on?
Let’s say you don’t know Ossama bin Laden’s location (other than generally, e.g., eastern Afghanistan). Unless you’re going to carpet bomb with nuclear weapons, you’re not going to have any reasonable chance of destroying the target. Even if you decided on this course of action, you’d need an ICBM/15,000 sq km (probably significantly more in the mountains). Afghanistan is 625,000 sq km. You couldn’t do it with tactical nukes at all.
If you do know Ossama bin Laden’s location, why use nukes? Occupy that area of Afghanistan for a few months, seal it off, and, rock by rock, take it apart. There’s nobody there that can stop you.
In either case, if you nuke him, you’ll never know if you got him.
I would remind people here that every single war in the history of mankind has involved killing innocent civilians. In World war two we carpet bombed Berlin, Hamburg, Tokyo and many other cities. Hell, we even killed French civilians at times. War is Hell, and should only be engaged in when absolutely neccessary. This is one of those times. The terrorist networks have the support of both certain governments and large portions of the Arab masses. They are legitimate targets. Nuclear weapons may prove to be unnecessary, but they should not be ruled out.
as for the silly idea that using force will only provoke more force, we are at war. We did nothing to provoke this attack and regardless of what we do there will be further attacks. These people hate us with a passion no American can comprehend. Only by utterly destroying them will we be secure.
The ‘enemy’ is the terrorists and the governements who support them. Not some farmer with his 29 children. That is not the enemy, that is just some guy who happens to live in a country that supports terrorism. We should be able to get the bad guys without killing the good guys.
I know that in war civilians needlessly die. This has been the trend ever sense the beginning of time. Will it ever change? Not unless a superpower like the United States helps it change. The rules of war sre out dated and barbaric. Lets change that.