[sauropod]

read later

[quidnunc]

FYI

[rageaholic]

1) Islamist Iranian overnment begins and ends their sessions with "death to America".

2) Iranian government is working on a nuclear bomb.

3) Nobody is doing anything meaningful to stop it.

4) Draw your own conclusions.

[omega4412]

Go back to JFK and the Cuban missile crisis. 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.

[1066AD]

The key for the United States — in very quiet and deferential tones, in private, and to the albeit illegitimate leaders of these relevant countries — is to convey the message that if there should be a repeat of 9/11
Maybe someone has sent the message already....

[headsonpikes]

Unsolicited advice: Put Paris at the top of the list of targets.

[Tolik]

Is our reluctance to discuss the unmentionable because we think we can do nothing in response — as if there is no culpable nation-state, a toothless CIA can tell us little, we dare not upset fragile gains in Iraq, or that violence only spawns violence? In a world in which Hezbollah promises to help out with peddling Fahrenheit 9/11, the Spanish people are led by the nose by al Qaeda, and Americans lose their heads to cheers in Middle East Internet cafes, have we given the fatal impression that we would grunt a few times, flip the channel, and then do nothing after a repeat of September 11?

And our silence is almost surreal given the standard past American policy in the Cold War of quietly announcing that a Soviet first strike on the United States would result immediately in massive retaliation. We caricature Mutually Assured Destruction today — indeed, it was a frightening Strangelovian concept. Yet in the absence of any better strategy, MAD kept the peace for 50 years and prevented millions of Americans from being incinerated.

So what would the United States do the next time we are hit?...

...What to do? The key for the United States — in very quiet and deferential tones, in private, and to the albeit illegitimate leaders of these relevant countries — is to convey the message that if there should be a repeat of 9/11, the United States will hold any countries responsible who are proved to have aided or sheltered any of the guilty. Now what does that overused and near-meaningless phrase "hold responsible" really mean? A repeat of Afghanistan and Iraq in places like Iran or Syria?

...Perhaps it would be best to inform hostile countries right now of a (big) list of their assets — military bases, power plants, communications, and assorted infrastructure — that will be taken out in the aftermath of another attack, a detailed sequence of targets that will be activated when the culpable terrorists' bases and support networks are identified and confirmed. We would have to draft a formal declaration of war — as we should have against the Taliban, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein — against those countries that harbored or even aided the next 9/11-like cell. Both sides should anticipate the consequences should another 3,000 Americans be incinerated at work.

...Honesty and resoluteness now might just saves lives later on, as the Middle East realized that it had a collective stake in preventing another calamity.

Oilmen would be aghast that we might hit a country that exports petroleum like an Iran. And we should assume that the Arab world, the Europeans, and many of the Michael Moore Left would hope that we simply take another massive attack, "learn" from our disaster, and then through such pain come to "wisdom" about the "futility" of war begetting war.

Yes, another 9/11 would be a watershed event where the tragic choices in responding would entail only "bad" and "much worse." If it were to occur again, then we would have to realize that we had no foolproof ability to stop such mass terror. And if we were to accept that death sentence and do nothing, then we would also accept the sure end of our civilization as we know it. Compared to that scenario, discussing a bleak response right now doesn't seem so stupid. Keeping silent about it does.

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

[Gritty]

July 06, 2004, 8:45 a.m.
Another 9/11?

The awful response that we dare not speak about.

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.

Is our reluctance to discuss the unmentionable because we think we can do nothing in response — as if there is no culpable nation-state, a toothless CIA can tell us little, we dare not upset fragile gains in Iraq, or that violence only spawns violence? In a world in which Hezbollah promises to help out with peddling Fahrenheit 9/11, the Spanish people are led by the nose by al Qaeda, and Americans lose their heads to cheers in Middle East Internet cafes, have we given the fatal impression that we would grunt a few times, flip the channel, and then do nothing after a repeat of September 11?

And our silence is almost surreal given the standard past American policy in the Cold War of quietly announcing that a Soviet first strike on the United States would result immediately in massive retaliation. We caricature Mutually Assured Destruction today — indeed, it was a frightening Strangelovian concept. Yet in the absence of any better strategy, MAD kept the peace for 50 years and prevented millions of Americans from being incinerated.

So what would the United States do the next time we are hit? Strike who or what — and where, when, and how? The problem with the likes of a supposedly nation-less bin Laden, Zarkawi, or their copy-catters, we are told, is that they are like metastasizing brain tumors whose ganglia are deeply embedded in the surrounding tissue. Surgery or chemotherapy often kills the host as well as the cancer. They and their stealthy patrons both know and count on just that ambiguity and imprecision — as if Americans never operate on malignant brain tumors.

Thus the genius of the jihadists is that they provide psychological rewards on the cheap for millions in the Arab Street without costs, and in turn thrive on "credible deniability" of their tacit hosts. They smirk that postmodern Western liberality precludes Shermanesque collective punishment against the pre-modern. After all, a Christiane Amanpour can be at the front in 24 hours before a live 60-million-strong global audience to yell to U.S. troops on patrol "Don't step on that child!" — even as her husband advises the Kerry campaign back home. But do they also know that another 9/11 would throw such restraint out the window?

Without the direct aid of an Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, the secret support of rogue elements within the Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, and Pakistani governments, and millions on the Arab Street, the killer cadres simply could not carry out their next large attack. Most Arabs are shocked at the beheadings; but even those who know where the beheaders live and sleep are not so shocked at seeing Westerners sliced and diced to turn the killers in.

Thus on 9/12 we saw Middle East governments like the Saudis (whose 15 citizens spearheaded the murder), the Baathist Iraqis, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Taliban, and the Lebanese all sort of publicly disassociate themselves from the murder — even as many of their populations polled silent approval and their own smirking intelligence services shrugged that some such attack was always inevitable — and perhaps salutary after all given our support for Israel and our intrinsically satanic nature.

What to do? The key for the United States — in very quiet and deferential tones, in private, and to the albeit illegitimate leaders of these relevant countries — is to convey the message that if there should be a repeat of 9/11, the United States will hold any countries responsible who are proved to have aided or sheltered any of the guilty. Now what does that overused and near-meaningless phrase "hold responsible" really mean? A repeat of Afghanistan and Iraq in places like Iran or Syria?

We should be clear about a proper response now and inform the appropriate parties exactly of the real damage that they should expect — and it won't be moral fuzziness about guilt over endemic poverty, ancient support for the shah, past Aramco antics, the misery of the Arab Street, and all the other bottled causes and complaints that the Middle East counts on for its accustomed pass from a supposedly neurotic, decadent, and self-loathing West.

Perhaps it would be best to inform hostile countries right now of a (big) list of their assets — military bases, power plants, communications, and assorted infrastructure — that will be taken out in the aftermath of another attack, a detailed sequence of targets that will be activated when the culpable terrorists' bases and support networks are identified and confirmed. We would have to draft a formal declaration of war — as we should have against the Taliban, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein — against those countries that harbored or even aided the next 9/11-like cell. Both sides should anticipate the consequences should another 3,000 Americans be incinerated at work.

In real wars of the past, Germans did not study in the U.S. in 1943. Third-Reich reporters did not mingle with Allied journalists. You could not just dial up Mainz or Kobe to chat. Americans did not watch documentaries alleging bloodguilt for B-17 raids. Our ancestors really did sacrifice for total victory. Something like all that is the awful nature of real war that would follow another mass murder here at home — and this presently deluded world right now should shudder at the very thought of it to come, try to prevent it, and stop looking at "war against terror" as some sort of parlor game. Honesty and resoluteness now might just saves lives later on, as the Middle East realized that it had a collective stake in preventing another calamity.

Oilmen would be aghast that we might hit a country that exports petroleum like an Iran. And we should assume that the Arab world, the Europeans, and many of the Michael Moore Left would hope that we simply take another massive attack, "learn" from our disaster, and then through such pain come to "wisdom" about the "futility" of war begetting war.

Yes, another 9/11 would be a watershed event where the tragic choices in responding would entail only "bad" and "much worse." If it were to occur again, then we would have to realize that we had no foolproof ability to stop such mass terror. And if we were to accept that death sentence and do nothing, then we would also accept the sure end of our civilization as we know it. Compared to that scenario, discussing a bleak response right now doesn't seem so stupid. Keeping silent about it does.

[Cicero]

Once again, the problem is not the nature of the enemy without, but the nature of the enemy within.

As this article indirectly suggests, the symbolic representative of that enemy is Christiane Amanpour. Not that she is much worse than thousands of other media prostitutes in the west, but that she represents them.

It is NOT clear what our response will be as long as it is not clear who Americans will elect as president in November 2004. If it is Bush, we will respond to another attack with as much force as necessary, just as we have already shown we would do in Afghanistan, Iraq, and more quietly in other places. So far, we have more than returned the favor bin Ladin paid us.

If Kerry is elected, we'll turn the other cheek. He'll say, in deeds if not in words, "I liked that. Do it again, because it helped me get elected."

[dennisw]

Nuke Mecca? Sure hope not :)

[hopespringseternal]

I don't know that we would do anything. Oh, we would do little things and call them the big thing, but we simply don't have the national will to do the big things that need to be done.

Delusional, self-destructive liberals control political debate and simply will not allow any kind of collective punishment to occur. So "moderate" Arab muslims simply have no incentive at all to turn in their murderous brothers.

[dennisw]

bttttttt

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I agree that we need to broadcast what we will do to nation-states in the aftermath of any similar attack. But I also think that Bush needs to discuss the probability and possibility of an attack with the population in order to toughen us up and to thereby mute the economic consequences of an attack. A lot of what Al Qaeda wants to accomplish is a repeat of the several trillion dollar impact that 9/11 had on us, and through us, other western economies. Some portion of that impact is psychological and could be mitigated by helping Americans to understand not to overreact if an attack happens. Bush is not particularly articulate and this could be a very difficult message for him to carry off, especially in an election year. But he needs to do it.

[kabar]

Another excellent article by VDH. I am fairly certain that the Administration has developed a response. I hope we have already conveyed diplomatically and privately to Iran, Syria, et al what our response will be. It is very difficult to do so publicly, especially in an election year. We did send Iraq such a message during the Gulf War to Iraq in the event they used WMD against our troops.

[robowombat]

"In real wars of the past, Germans did not study in the U.S. in 1943. Third-Reich reporters did not mingle with Allied journalists. You could not just dial up Mainz or Kobe to chat. Americans did not watch documentaries alleging bloodguilt for B-17 raids."

I am convinced if contemporary cultural mores and the cultural Marxist attitudes of much of the prestitutes and the cackling classes were transported back to World War 2 the Third Reich would probably have had a good chance to fight to a draw by using the press to paralyze Anglo-American morale and eventually force a defacto truce thus allowing the Nazis to concentrate their energies on the Eastern Front and fight the Russians to some sort of draw.

Just imagine today's presstitutes covering such events as 'Operation Tiger' the dress rehearsal for D day that featured an E-boat raid , terrible security, and the deaths of nearly a thousand Americans as E-boats rampaged through the long column of slow moving LSTs. Or the D-Day landings with the disarray in the airborne phase and the carnage at Omaha Beach. Think of the headline 'Five Understrength German Divisions hold 100,000 Allied Troops At Bay'
Then the fighting in the bocage country of Normandy 'Allies gage advances in Yard as Prospect of World War One Style Quagmire Emerges". The list is endless climaxing with the friendly fire carnage that the heavy bomber attacks which preceded launching Operation Cobra at St Lo. The role of the press as a conveyor of defeatist messages and images was first seen in Viet Nam and is clearly in evidence today in Iraq. If combat lasts more than a few weeks the press is going to start spinning the quagmire and defeat image as soon as possible. Many of these people really don't want the US to succeed in any military endeavor and their combination of distaste for the armed services and generalized hatred for normal Americans corrupts their perceptions about any conflict we will ever be in.

[Eastbound]

Part of that 'Awful Response That We Dare Not Speak' is not even alluded to here. Probably because we dare not speak about it.

[RAY]

VDH and VP DC are probably talking - and GW likes the plan.

[Max Combined]

"This is a surprising lapse if one believes an understood response helps in advance to create deterrence."

Announce to the world that we will nuke Mecca if another 911 happens. We give them fair warning and if they bring this on themselves they have only themselves to blame.

[Billthedrill]

A couple of quick points - first, it is not good tactics to publicly list a group of assets to be attacked. It may be wonderful politics but it warns the enemy and gets people killed unnecessarily when you actually have to do it.

Moreover, such a message has absolutely been sent privately to certain parties - the sitting governments of Iran and Syria at a minimum, and such government as may care in Lebanon. It is these who are tops on the likely list of formal state support for terrorism. One message that does not need to be sent is that the last two occupants of the top of the list, Afghanistan and Iraq, no longer are. That speaks for itself.

There has been so much talk of "war" on terrorists from so many people, for so long, to so little effect, that these belligerents are to be forgiven for assuming that this time is no different, even after the fall of two host governments. It is slowly dawning on the Arab world that this is the real thing, and that angry men with guns can no longer hide behind our former respect for religion and national sovereignty. After all, the worst that can happen already has - they've been killing Americans on American soil, and the Europeans have sniffed in disdain at the impropriety of the whole thing. That last used to matter - I'm not really certain why. It doesn't now.

[Billthedrill]

I have to add this - I swear I did not read it before typing my last:

Iraq May Not Oppose Attacks On Neighboring States