Posted on 09/13/2001 3:56:44 AM PDT by Clive
America wants a fight, but is it willing to bloody its hands?
By MATTHEW FISHER -- Sun Columnist at Large
WASHINGTON -- President George Bush set the stage for a global military response yesterday when he declared the savage attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday were "acts of war."
In vowing retribution, Bush took a much tougher line than when he first spoke to his country and the world from the White House on Tuesday evening. His first address, which came after a bizarre, unsettling journey from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska, was almost wistful. The intent was apparently to try and buck up American morale in the immediate hours after the apocalyptic attacks on New York and Washington.
As always happens when there is a national tragedy in the U.S, there were loud declarations of support for the president from every corner of American society on Tuesday and again yesterday.
One young fellow I saw spent hours walking back and forth on a bridge over Interstate 495 carrying an American flag as well as a sign declaring he was totally behind his president.
However, the passions of the moment should not obscure the fact that support for President Bush has been notoriously weak since he was elected last November. It could evaporate almost as quickly as the twin towers of the World Trade Center did if the president does not convert his words into spectacular deeds.
Americans are still numbed and spooked by Tuesday's infamy. They are also in a fantastically vengeful mood as they were 60 years ago when Japanese warplanes launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. They are demanding an extreme military response and they want it now.
Appeasing this national desire for blood is complicated by a parallel expectation that has hardly been mentioned this week. It is that Americans have felt for some time the U.S. must only fight wars where there is no risk that a single body bag will come home.
This risible, impractical belief in casualty-free warfare hampered U.S. actions in the Persian Gulf 10 years ago. It undermined the U.S. response during the Somalia crisis a couple of years later. It severely restricted the military options open to commanders during NATO's war against Serbia two years ago and kept U.S. forces out of the Balkans entirely during much of the killing there.
The terrorists at work on Tuesday were frighteningly adept masters of stealth and deception. They have also had lots of money to finance their vile schemes. Bush Jr. has not been the first American president to promise to hunt down terrorists. Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter all spoke similar words after previous outrages against American citizens and American targets. But before and after these other attacks the U.S. intelligence and military communities failed the presidents and citizens of the world's richest country.
The seizure of the U.S. embassy in Iran was the starting point for a spectacular string of security failures. Here is a grim, but not exhaustive list of those failures:
Pan Am flight 103 was blown up by terrorists over Britain. An American marine corps barracks was bombed in Beirut. The World Trade Center was hit by a previous team of bombers. A U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia was hit. U.S. military helicopters were shot down while trying to bring peace to Somalia. Two hundred and seventy Americans and Africans were killed when the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam were struck by suicide bombers. Seventeen American sailors died when terrorists managed to ferry a bomb over to the USS Cole at a dock in Yemen.
There has been no shortage of enemies. At least a half-dozen terrorist groups in and near the Middle East are constantly promising "Death to America." To varying degrees, and at different times, these groups have been protected and even assisted by the governments of Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
The favourite modus operandi of presidents Reagan and Clinton after terrorist attacks was to fire a few cruise missiles from a safe distance. This strategy achieved nothing except to embolden terrorists and would-be terrorists.
The test of the Bush presidency will be whether he has the guts to dedicate serious military resources to eliminate the scourge of terrorism. The test of the American people is whether they'll now accept that wars cannot always be fought antiseptically and give their president a mandate to prosecute this war with the vigour and violence that is required.
bin laden didn't study his history books!!
We must take Iraq while the world is sympathetic to our plight. Pump enough oil to significantly reduce oil prices, stimulating the world economy. The lower oil prices will cause the mideast regimes to collapse so we must set up democracies there. Buy western Jordan for a new Palestinian state with infrastructure paid for by the Iraqi oil fields. Create US bases in Iraq from which to enforce regional stability. Afghanistan/Syria/Iran/Sudan are much easier to deal with once the US bases are in place with a million troops to back up our policies. And it gets rid of the requirement for US carriers over there.
DO IT NOW. WE MUST USE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO STABILIZE THE MIDEAST AND NEUTRALIZE TERRORISM.
BUMP
self_evident wrote:
A lie! Bush's support has been greater, much greater than Clinton at parrallel times.
I agree, self_evident.
It would be more accurate to say : "Support for Bush from Daschle and his ilk has been notoriously weak."
Daschle vowed, in January, to work with Bush but has done little but try to obstruct him, ever since.
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