Even if we get Saddam, take all the oil fields intact, liberate the Iraqis with minimal loss of life, AND find Osama we still lose. Even if the stock market climbs back up to 11,000, even if Bush’s approval goes through the roof, even if he goes on TV and tells the world “We won the War on Terror,” we lose.
Why?
Because a month, year, or five years from now another skyscraper full of people is going to fall, or a plane loaded with Anthrax and Botulism is going to fly over an open stadium filled to capacity, or a hundred snipers are going to start killing random civilians, or a truck loaded with enriched plutonium and c4 is going to stop in the Holland Tunnel and change the face of America forever.
Enjoying crushing an insignificant and easily identifiable enemy in Iraq now, because the party is going to be short lived.
Well, in that case, we might as well just push the buttons and extinctify the whole planet. If no matter what we do, we lose, might as well start obliterating anybody who looks at us funny. If we’re doomed anyway, might as well just cut to the chase and exterminate the entire human species.
You know what? 9/11 was bad. But come on. It was just a building, it was just several thousand people. Yes, it affected our economy. But we recovered. Yes, people died. There are still hundreds of millions of us that didn’t die. Sure, work to avoid such things in the future. But risk is a part of life. Every day people die driving to work, or choke to death on food, or slip and fall and drown to death in the bathtub.
Even if this war guaranteed another incident comparable to 9/11 it would still be worth it.
Speculation maybe, but to assume otherwise is to invite disaster. We spent 10 years and 50,000 American lives speculating that the Viet Kong would give up. Is that the same kind of mistake you want to make in this conflict?
A dirty nuke in NYC will kill millions and make that city uninhabitable for a century. Also, I think playing down the atrocity that took place on 9.11 is both callous and foolhardy. Someone punched us in our eye and said, “notice me, I blame you for my lot in life.” and you want to say it’s just a black eye, it will heal, no reason to get all excited. I hope you remember that outlook when they come back for our balls.
Hitler was an aggressor pursing world domination. The terrorists are a rag tag band of rebels fighting what they perceive as an aggressor that has oppressed and exploited them. The two situations are not analogous.
