If it is an act of war (by, say 25 nutjobs), are we justified in killing innocent civilians in “harboring” countries, just to satisfy our bloodlust?
But if it is a criminal act, then should we apprehend those responsible, extridite them to the United States to stand trial?
I don’t see the latter as an appropriate action. Clearly, terrorist organizations do not fear American military might, and they are insistant on waging holy war with us. Furthermore, they do not understand justice. I’m afraid a trial (and our own laws) may prevent us from delivering an appropriate response, and it may appear as further acquiescense of terrorist acts in the world. Ultimately, this pandering will invite further attacks.
Well, I’m a hot-tempered, military-minded guy. This is undoubtedly an act of war. However, are we going to declare war on terrorism the way we declared a war on drugs? Get real. It’s obvious we aren’t prepared on the HUMINT end to take this battle into the shadows, if you will.
Fighting a secret war with the terrorists of the world would be preferable, destroying their organizations and people ala-Cold War style.
I don’t think we’re ready for that, or we would have seen this coming.
Another idea I’m in favor of would be to find some terrorists, wherever they are, and drop a big-ass bomb on them. Repeat as necissary until we have the HUMINT resourses to to do it the other way.
'Course, I don’t work in the intel community, so that’s just what I feel and not a realistic approach.
A sustained nuclear attack on the main cities of Afghanistan is called for.
Such an act would be under these circumstances, righteous and just.
These bandit nations and bandit entities have chosen to spill our blood on our streets and they, having chosen total war, must feel our full vengence.
When no nation will dare harbor them, we will still need to root them out - as the cancer they are - using the Isaeli tactic of assassination.
Yesterday’s infamy is only the begining. We like Israel, will see committed terrorists (including those who are recent naturalized citizens) blowing themselves up in such crowded public high profile places as Walt Disney World or at the Super Bowl.
They have already used weapons of mass destruction and will continue to use them.
We can not make these people love us but we can make them fear us.
Yes, I am calling for the deaths of millions - but millions who sustain the blasphemous regime in Kabul and that regime’s support of terror.
We are at war but it is a war they started - truly decades ago with the Satanic chant “Death to America”. They meant and mean every word.
We have used nuclear weapons before and it is time to use them again.
As was said of ancient Rome, we must make a desert and call it peace.
I agree with retaliation but a Nuclear strike when all the evidence is not in?
No I don’t think that is the way. First destroy the organization behind this, then Punish whichever government has been supplying or aiding that group, but to arbitrarily nuke cities for blood lust is just as insane as the madmen who did this in the first place.
Lets just say it is Osama that’s responsible. Isn’t Afghanistan responsible as well for harboring him and thus letting him continue his terrorist actions when we’ve wanted to bring him to justice long before now?
Yes, that’s an appropriate response to the mass murder of civilians. Mass murder more civilians.
Kill Osama Bin Laden, if he’s responsible for this. Kill the leaders of the Taliban, if Bin Laden is behind this and they continue to harbor him and won’t cooperate in hunting him down. Kill whoever’s responsible for this, and kill whoever harbors whoever’s responsible for this and won’t cooperate with the civilized world in hunting down the planners and perpetrators of this. But the Afghan people have been ground down by a succession of brutal tyrants and hideous civil wars for over twenty years now. It’s not like they held some kind of national referendum over there, "Should the Islamic State of Afghanistan render aid and comfort to terrorists who mass murder civilians in the United States? Yes ___ No ___ "
It’s an act of war due to the fact that it’s civillians that lost their lives. You also have to remember that we have done this to them (if it is in fact from the middle east) although on a smaller scale. But does that make it any more right?
Oh yeah? I must have forgot about that. How much smaller was the hijacked plane? Or was the skyscraper we ran it into smaller? I can’t remember. Every situation is different.
And you believe because civilians were killed, that makes it war? I’d say that is stronger evidence that it was a criminal act.
No, but it would make it less wrong. It’s important to note that there are degrees. One death is terrible, but it is incomparable to 1,000, or in this case 5 - 10,000 dead and wounded civilians.
I have to agree that clayton_e’s reasoning seems backwards. The fact that civilians lost their lives–and not just due to “collateral damage”, but because they were a) deliberately employed as weapons and b) a deliberate target of at least the two WTC attacks, means that this was a criminal act, not an act of war. We had this debate about the USS Cole, and I think a lot of people correctly said that attacking a U.S. warship does not fit the definition of a “terrorist” attack, although an attack on an American military unit is certainly an “act of war” against the United States. But if yesterday’s acts were “acts of war”, they were war crimes.
MEBunckner and others, you should know, this is war. Just because the weapons were not conventional weapons but hijacked commercial airplanes and car bombs, it does not mean that it is not war. The attacks were done to disrupt the economy of the free world, and to cripple the center of US military operations. They virtually succeeded there; four of the WTC buildings have collapsed, where thousands of huge financial business had offices; almost all markets around the world are down sharply; NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ are closed for a second day; and the Pentagon personnel are now in the process of digging bodies of former colleagues and collapsing weakened sections of the building. As an indirect result, transportation to a huge extent (no air travel in the US, mail is limited to 600 mile trips), and communications channels to a lesser extent (the major networks having to use auxilary stations, phones connecting 60% of the time) broke down as well. These are classic war tactics, if done by most unconventional means. If this were a conventional attack during a war, it would be considered a masterstroke. As it is, it is the most daring terrorist attack ever.
This was an attack against our way of life, for being America. This is for being steadfast allies with Israel in the last UN Summitt in South Africa. The war in the middle East has extended to WW3. The enemies of the US and the free world will not back down until we are no longer the US, and Israel is driven to the sea. This is worse than Naziism, it is a religious war in which we are called “The Great Satan”. In that matter the stakes are much higher. The attacks show that there is no method that they won’t use to strike down at the government and the people.
There are some who think that there is no question about using a Star Wars defense shield. I will. Star Wars won’t work. The system will either be hacked into and the missiles be pointed to us, or the defense itself becomes effective as the Maginot line was, staying silent and idle while cars packed with explosives are rammed into buildings, or a person with a spray bottle filled with Sarin gas casually walks into Grand Central Terminal. Star Wars would not have prevented the four hijackings, nor would it have stopped the horrific aftermath. Star Wars currently is not calibrated to fire on hijacked airplanes or our own misfired weapons. The enemies, having no powerful tools or weapons themselves except for resoucefulness and a strong willingness to die, will use our tools, our equipment, our weapons to try to destroy us all. Another classic war tactic, and the most effective.
And to everyone who thinks that any retaliation on the US part will strike fear in a terrorist’s heart, know this: There is no fear in a fanatic’s heart. Being a martyr in paradise is what they strive for. It is not a matter of whether or not these enemies will die. They will sacrifice themselves and become martyrs. The US will have to prevent them from becoming martyrs at the expense of more innocent lives. It has to be total, and it has to show that any potential martyr will die on US terms, not their own.
Obviously in one sense it’s war. On the other hand, if we capture any of the people responsible for this, we aren’t going to put them in a P.O.W. camp.
Most of the people in Afghanistan have about zero power in their government. It is a country that went from a fairly modern nation to a coutry of uneducated and powerless people within a generation. They have been ruled over by so many brutal regimes that ignorance is all they really have. Do you really think that they have any power to have stopped this? HALF THE POPULATION ISNT EVEN ALLOWED OUTSIDE IN PUBLIC!
The solution is not to bomb the men, women and children that have been opressed by just about every form of opression that there is. The solution is to tear down the tyrannical government (which, incidently, we had a part in establishing) and bring education and thought back to the people of Afghanistan.
Here’s a few facts on Afghanistan. It sounds more like hell on earth than a rogue state bent on the downfall of the United States. The Taleban has been consolidating over the last year, but calling them the government of Afghanistan is still an overstatement.
I hate to sound crass, but we’ve given them the opportunity time and time again to turn this guy over. The government, as it were, of afghanistan has refused.
Ten thousand men, women, and children lost their lives in new york. At this point, i could not give a damn about bringing education and thought to afghanistan. Our primary goal at this point is to send a message that harboring terrorists will not be tolerated, and governments that do will be no longer allowed to exist.
Collateral damage is sad, but I’d rather attempt to put and end to this mass death and destruction once and for all.
Back to the OP: This veteran thinks that the attack on the Pentagon was an act of war, and I am angry, but not outraged by it. I do think that using civilians as part of your weapon is criminal. The attack on the WTC was simply criminal, and I’m highly outraged by that.
When America declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor, were we vowing to kill innocent civilians to satisfy our “bloodlust”? No. We had been attacked by evil, cowardly people and committed ourselves to defeating that evil. We were not looking to bring the leaders of Japan, Germany, and Italy to trial–we were looking to DEFEAT them and keep their poisonous evil from spreading throughout the world. The fact that there were civilians in Japan who abhorred the Imperial government was irrelevant, as was the fact that there were brave German and Italian men and women who abhorred the actions of their governments. Civilians die in wars. The fact that we as Americans endeavor NOT to kill civilians and feel genuine sadness when it happens just goes to show that there is no moral equivalence between our world-view and that of the terrorists who attacked us.
This attack was not on rich white folks, or folks who oppress Palestinians, or whatever disgusting generalizations people may be making. Look at the names of the businesses housed in the WTC–all nationalities, all races, all faiths. Good Muslim people died in this attack, the victims of evil attackers. Black people died, Native Americans died, British died, Chinese died, Japanese died. The terrorists declared war on them all–everyone who was not them, everyone who believed in tolerance and diversity and equality.
This is war–war between those who love freedom and democracy, tolerance and diversity, and those who believe in killing the innocent, those who oppress their own people with the worst possible cruelty and export their poisonous hate abroad. Again, there is no moral equivalence here–we are right, they are wrong, not because of their faith or their nationality or the color of their skin, but because of the evil they have brought upon tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. Hamas, the Taliban, Islamic Jihad, and all those who harbor this sort of hatred for freedom and democracy are the new Axis powers. We need a group of Allies to draw a line and prove by any means necessary that that kind of evil will not stand and will not be allowed to spread.
Thank God that I am not the only one with a remarkable grasp of the obvious. Is this an act of war? yes. A military installation was attacked, as was the economic infrastucture. Is this a criminal act? yes. Civilians were targeted. THIS WAS A WAR CRIME. It was both an act of war and a criminal act.
As this is a state of war, we do not have to wait for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If sufficient evidence points to Osama Bin Laden as the culprit, and the Taliban refuses to hand him over, we will invade Afghanistan to forcibly apprehend him. Additionally, any other nation state involved in the attack will also suffer military retribution. This, of course, does not mean that we should start throwing nuclear bombs around. Instead, once enough intel has been gathered to reasonably determine those behind this horrible tragedy, the nations involved should be invaded to forcibly seize the war criminals. They will then stand trial for their crimes.
-Beeblebrox
Reaction to all this from the crowd were many and various. Most of them couldn’t cope with watching it, and listened to it on the radio instead.