ABC's Ted Koppel "stunned" by Cohen's mention of "nuclear" as possible response to WTC attack

About 5:50 am Pacific, ABC's Ted Koppel was being interviewed. He was in London. It was mentioned that before Koppel became famous for Nightline, he served as a correspondent covering the U.S. State Department. Koppel said he had been watching the ABC coverage this morning for a "couple of hours" and that he was "stunned" when he saw the interview early this morning of former Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, and Cohen mentioned the use of nuclear weapons among the list of possible responses to yesterday's terrorist attack. Koppel said it was the first time he ever recalls any high level person mentioning nuclear weapons as even a possibility.

Excellent post. Indeed, the ONLY way to deal with these people is with brute force. Let them know that the casulaty ration will be 10,000 to 1 OR MORE.

That is precisely how you win a war. We have ample historical perspective for this. How did the Romans defeat the Cathaginians? How did the Allies deal with the Axis powers in the previous century.

I think the 20th century example is particularly instructive. The Western democracies were faced with fanatics. These fanatics were happy to practice genocide on those outside the chosen ethnic groups. The Germans liquidated Russians, Jews, gypsies and others as if they were sub-humans. The Japanese treated all non-Japanese as non-human. We were dealing with fanatical, homogeneous populations. The Germans were defeated, partially, by an arieal bombing campaign that included incinerating enemy cities (Dresden in particular).

The Japanese, of course, were irradiated into capitulation. I ask those worried about retribution: Are there any credible German or Japanese groups now threatening Western civilization? Of course not.

Take the Japanese example. After the war, General MacArthur wrote Japan a new (however flawed) constitution. An American Military Government occupied and administered the country, and the Japanese got about the business of living their lives and becoming productive citizens of the world. They retained their religion and many of their institutions. They are now counted as an ally of peace and freedom.

I hope the American leadership is considering the same fate for the criminal regimes that run Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.

"No need to go nuclear. Carpet bombing with fuel/air bombs will solve the problem nicely, with no pesky radiation.

That won't do ANY damage to the bunkers built in Afghanistan with our money during the Soviet/Afghani war. They're built to withstand most everything *short* of nuclear attacks. Bin Laden has effectively turned the tables on us, in that respect.

Yes, that's true. But those were different times. Exactly. And Ike met the responsibilities of his own time really well. I consider him generally to be the finest president of the 20th Century. I consider the Roosevelts and Churchill to be vastly overrated and their current worshppers forget how much damage they did along with the good and it seems that it is their theatrics that impress their followers most, not the real core of their thinking and policy decisions.

But that was then and this is now. Comparisons are pretty irrelevant. Too much has changed.

Isn't it time to let this thread finally die or just start a new one?

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