Posted on 09/12/2001 8:53:51 AM PDT by sendtoscott
September 11, 2001 Resisting Hysteria By Jesse Walker Usually, when a monumental, violent event shakes the world, I turn on the news. Not so today. At first I was too busy calling and e-mailing my family and friends in New York and Washington, D.C., desperately hoping that none of them was dead. But now, several hours later, I still haven't turned on a television. I have no interest, yet, in seeing the spectacle of thousands of people killed; no stomach, yet, for watching pundits lurch about without hard facts to grab onto, spouting inanities into the ether. I can't avoid the pundits, though. In the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan--of the ironically named Carnegie Endowment for International Peace-- I don't think anyone can disagree with that. Heaven knows I don't. But Kagan, alas, has more to say: "Congress, in fact, should immediately declare war. It does not have to name a country." On any day before today, such a statement would be dismissed as drivel. But we've reached the stage where drivel can be dangerous, and where dangerous drivel will be plentiful. Professional hawk Kagan has offered as candid a summary of his political philosophy as you'll ever hear: that war itself, any war, is desirable. And in this environment, such lunacy will be taken seriously by otherwise sensible minds. This is a time for expert police work. It is a time when the intelligence community can try to make up for its disastrous failure to foresee this assault, by finding the people who did it and bringing them to rapid justice. It is not a time for unfocused, Kaganesque hysteria. In 1986, after a relatively smaller terrorist attack, the U.S. blamed Qaddafy and bombed Libya. The accused mastermind survived, but more faultless civilians were killed than had been slaughtered by the original act of terror. This, writ much larger, is the kind of war Kagan is calling for--except he doesn't even know his target yet. "A declaration of war would not be pure symbolism," he avers. "It would be a sign of will and determination to see this conflict through to a satisfactory conclusion no matter how long it takes or how difficult the challenge." So it won't merely be a symbol, but will be "a sign"? What ridiculous, muddled thinking is this? It is the kind of thinking that takes one terrible event and multiplies it. There will be more bombings abroad, and there will be more bombings on American soil. Things are awful, terrible, awful now, and they're only going to get worse. Jesse Walker (
This is a time for expert police work, not unfocused war
These folks don't understand Reason. They understand force. We've allowed terrorist groups to function for too long, and have allowed countries to harbor them without serious consequence. That must now change.
While I agree, this won't go over well with the "All cops are jack-booted thugs, all the time" crowd.
This is a job not for a sledgehammer, but rather a scalpel. Shame that the blade has rusted so over the last eight years....
This is unsettling.
If the professional Left is calling for a massive response, we should be looking for their real agenda.
Is the goal to further expend our depleted forces to the point where China can take Taiwan without resistance?
No. If we do that, another bunch will just take their place. We know that because we did do that last time. In fact the World Trade Center bombers were due to be sentenced today, in a courthouse not far from what used to be the twin towers of the WTC.
This is what we got for doing expert police work and holding a suitable trial.
This time I think we take it to them. And we do it so forcefully, so mercilessly, so loudly, that the next person who thinks up one of these stunts will know in advance that his own country will cease to exist if he carries out his plan. I do not propose this out of revenge, or from hatred, or from any motive at all except to make it clear to the entire world what happens to people who aid, abet, host, entertain, or finance these kinds of acts.
The animals that took part in this do not have the goal of making war on the U. S. Their goal is to eliminate Israel. The U. S. supports and helps Israel, so we become targets.
Israel has more or less practiced that surgical approach for the past 20 years or so. The result: these animals keep coming.
The real solution is to eliminate the animals. Now, how to do that? Step One is to decide to eliminate them. After Step One, we start planning how.
I don't know how, but I do know that if we keep doing what we have been doing, we are going to get the same results we have been getting. The animals will keep coming.
LTS
This is not hysteria, this is reality. Denying it won't make it go away.
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