Victor Davis Hanson : Another 9/11? – The awful response that we dare not speak about.

National Review ^ | July 6, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

Almost daily we are assured that another attack on the homeland, commensurate with 9/11, is inevitable. What a scary mood of fatalism we are in! Where will it happen? The Olympics? The party conventions this summer? A week before the election? Chicago? L.A.?

Our experts weighed in over the 4th of July weekend and seemed to disagree only over the method of the mass murder to come. Will it be chemical, biological, radiological, or involve hijacked planes, car bombs, or waves of suicide terrorists? We talk endlessly about "they" without ever specifying exactly who "they" really are who are planning to butcher us at home. So in between our summer fare of televised beheadings, Michael Moore's latest pseudomentary, and Alfred Knopf novels about killing George Bush, we sit waiting, waiting, waiting.

While we speculate idly about the nature of the attack to come, and the inability of our homeland-security forces to stop it, very few talk about what we should do post-facto if the promised disaster actually transpires. This is a surprising lapse if one believes an understood response helps in advance to create deterrence.

-snip-

[happygrl]

In fact, the only force holding up the existing Arab polity is U.S. forbearance

This is so true.

If they really wanted to see The Great Satan, we could show them.

But that's not who we are, so we, like the Israelis, practice forebearance for our own sake.

[js1138]

4) Draw your own conclusions.

My conclusion is that Iran in its present form has a limited lifespan.

[lainde]

One of his best! Belated VDH BTTT!

[VOA]

Any attack on the US or its allies using weapons of mass destruction will be considered
a nuclear attack by Islam on the United States.

Not if the United Nations refuses to give President Kerry permission to respond.

Scary thought, isn't it.
Only thing scarier...President Edwards has to ask for permission after
Kerry goes missing in the smoldering crater that used to be Washington, D.C.

[ftriggerf]

bkmk