Well, I’m not trying to write a book on Al Qaeda, and I think book-length would be required for anything not simplified. No, I don’t think a body-count is their only objective, but I think too many Americans keep wanting to think that (as in a prior post) the deaths in something like the WTC or an embassy bombing are “collateral damage” - that is, unintended consequences of achieving a different objective - and they’re not. Killing the “infidel” is a major point of Al Qaeda’s operations.
My understanding is that their primary objective is the destruction of Western civilization and the establishment of what they consider a Muslim paradise on Earth. Eliminating the US is a major step on that path. They also want the West out of the Middle East and a bunch of other things
I think you say “of course”, Rashak, only because you do have a fairly good grasp of the US as a culture. There are countries that can easily dissolve into ethnic riots or even massacres - look what happened to Yugoslavia. Some countries are “united” only because of the strong man at the helm and when the strong central government loses influence chaos erupts. The US is united on a grass-roots level, not from the top-down.
Another aspect of US culture is that when the crap hits the fan we don’t sit around waiting for orders - we can and do spontaneously self-organize in times of crisis. Not all cultures encourage that sort of independence.
Hmm… well, we don’t really know until it happens, but let’s speculate…
First of all, “a small town of 101 people” seems TOO small for such a demonstration - fertilizers-and-fuel bombs have taken out a couple hundred people at one blow. Just seems that detonating even a small nuke in Times Square will have soooo much more impact. But, for the sake of speculation, lets say it was a small town (maybe the big towns were too well guarded. Whatever)
OK, the Bomb went off, we now have a radioactive crater in… Montana. Something like that. They blew up Mt. Rushmore and took out a hundred or so tourists (strikes me as more likely - you get a symbol AND some people). Now they say they have “a bomb” in New York… just one bomb?
Here I’m sitting just outside of Chicago. Now, I don’t wish New York any harm (how I feel about the characters that just nuked my country is a very different matter…) but I also do not want to submit to nuclear blackmail, either. Don’t particularly care much for Isreal - let’s be honest here, on a personal level I don’t give a rat’s backside for the entire so-called “Holy Land” - but I don’t want to submit to nuclear blackmail. Although I can’t say for sure how I’d feel if this actually happened, I think my emotions would be a very volitile mix of grief and homicidal rage. I might say call the “bluff” and join the “hunt them down and kill them” crowd.
Even if the Federal government opted to give in, there’s still the populace at large. Americans are well known for being both stubborn and, at times, lawless. So much depends on what the citizenry at large is going to want. At a certain point you can’t stop the mob. 250,000,000+ pissed off people is not a safe situation. We could have Muslims hanging from trees and lampposts - not something I’d want to see happen but a very strong possibility. I can’t see this as contributing to world peace - but then, Al Qaeda might be quite happy to see something of that sort occur.
And, needless to say, New York City would empty out pretty quickly, even if that meant walking on foot. You can evacuate a city (I’ve been part of two evacuations of the Chicago Loop myself - surprisingly orderly, all things considered). Once that happens, the blackmail value of a pre-positioned bomb in NYC becomes less useful.
Naw - you don’t announce which city you have the bomb in. Just say “a major city”. That way you have panic in every city over 100,000 people across an entire continent.
Although I don’t care much for Isreal, it would be very out of character for us to dump our support completely. We might, however, pull back temporarially to buy time to search NYC for the nuke - if there is one. Or we might say that if we lose New York the Muslims lose Mecca - and you know we have nukes that can reach there in a matter of minutes - so the rest of the Islamic world had better hand over the bad guys pronto unless they want to suspend the haj until the kaaba stops glowing. Two can play at the blackmail game, you know.
But, again, I think you’re making the mistake of thinking that if you hit the US hard enough they’ll turn tail and go away. It doesn’t work that way. So far, the only time we’ve pulled out of a fight is after a long stretch of guerilla action against our troops (which is being tried in Iraq right now, if anyone’s paying attention).
The only way to keep the US from boiling over after an attack is to hit us so hard we are unable to retaliate - which is why I was harping on our decentralized governmental structures. Destroying just one city - of any size - will not do that.
But let’s set aside the Bad Boys from the Gulf. Al Qaeda may be really nasty customers, but I do believe they have some rational folks running the show. They have objectives and they are capable (as demonstrated) of the patience and preparation to pull off some very impressive attacks with minimal resources. If, however, you know their goals you can have some understanding of their motivations and make some predictions about how they will react.
The folks who really scare me? North Korea. I’m just not sure about the guy in charge. Is he a fruit loop or isn’t he? He IS, at this very moment, skirting the edges of nuclear blackmail with the one country that has actually used nukes against someone else. What the hell is this guy thinking? Is he crazy enough to use nukes to start a war? Are the guys working for him crazy enough to follow such orders?
We’re reasonably convinced the guy actually HAS a nuke bomb already. Not a dirty bomb, a fission bomb. He clearly has the boats, planes, and missles to deliver a fission bomb. In theory, he could reach the West Coast of North America. He could certainly reach Hawaii (which, if we defended as a territory we will certainly defend as a state). He can, without question, reach Seoul or Tokyo. Forget Al Qaeda - if your talking about nuclear blackmail it’s North Korea we need to be discussing.
Now, after WWII we told the Japanese they weren’t allowed to make war any more. They would be allowed a small force for self-defense (which are constitutionally forbidden to deploy abroad), but we promised that if Japan was attacked we would come to their defense. In other words, if you attack Japan you automatically declare war on the US as well. I am not famillar with the exact wording of the treaties involved but to my knowledge they’re still in effect. In other words, if North Korea nukes Tokyo the US will feel compelled to respond. Given our economic interests as well as treaty obligations this will not be a half-hearted response.
The Japanese will DEFINITELY respond - I can’t see anyway to stop several million of them from crossing that bit of ocean between them and North Korea. The Japanese are not one bit afraid to die in battle, or sacrifice themselves for their country.
It’s really a question of whether the Japanese or the US will arrive first in North Korea.
It’s going to get really, really noisy in North Korea in the short term if that happens. And the Japanese are not known for mercy on the battlefield, or much concern over civilians or collateral damage. It was pretty bloody when the US and Japan clashed in battle - imagine the two countries on the same side in a war. This will not be pretty.
But let’s leave Japan out of this. Let’s say what’s-his-name lobs a nuke and it hits the west coast. This isn’t a terrorist group hiding in caves and being secretive. It’s an established government lobbing a missile at us. OK - does anyone here seriously think we would NOT retaliate in kind? Yes, I think if Mr. North Korea nuked, say, LA we would finally use some of those ICBM’s.
Next question: if all that occurred - what do you think world reaction would be?