Phony War

National Review ^ | 4/15/02 | Mark Helprin

[The Great Satan]

Irrelevant babble. The next foe we meet will hit us with a handful of dust, tossed onto the subway tracks at Penn Station. Our foe's army will comprise a few men living politely in bedsits and residence hotels in cities dotted over America. Command-and-control will be done by e-mail. Such are the lessons of 9-11. Bush understands this. The boob who wrote this article hasn't a clue.

[The Great Satan]

The largest and most devastating attack on the United States in its history was just pulled off by 19 men armed with box cutters. They thoughtfully left us a message, to remind us what the same men could do with a few pounds of anthrax. All the industrial base and aircraft carriers and jet bombers and soldiers in the world don't mean sh*t against that. You better take the blinders off and let that sink in.

[LarryLied]

Why is it that the American armed forces, with 6,000 strike aircraft, are strained by 100 sorties per day. . .

Not enough pilots. Or spare parts.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"Explains in sharp detail that the war is here as much as there and the interconnection between politics, demographics and crime-terror! GOOD JOB!!"

I can't take credit for the whole idea.
I posted the terrorist map on one thread and someone else was wondering how it compared to the 2000 county vote.
Sure is an eyeopener.

[The Great Satan]

That for the last 1,300 years have also existed the same fanatic turbaned idiots, and yet no 911s occurred should give you pause in making the simplistic assumption the problem lies in defeating some individual men with special op troops.

Special op troops certainly ain't going to do it. Neither will immigration controls. The only solution is to remake the world by removing the sponsoring regimes like Iraq and key players like OBL and Arafat. We have plenty of technological capability to do that -- technology or force-projection isn't rate-limiting, side effects are. The immediate and overriding problem is that we are already in a MAD situation w.r.t. Saddam Hussein: even if we nuke him, his sleepers could destroy our cities overnight. I don't know that there is a solution but, watching Bush, Cheney et al, it is clear to me that they understand the situation. You don't, evidently, but that doesn't stop you from pontificating, of course.

[Landru]

"All the industrial base and aircraft carriers and jet bombers and soldiers in the world don't mean sh*t against that."

Give the Devil Its due, sol2.
Can't argue with that statement one twit.

"Lets make it clear, the US has deindustrialized, gutted it's wealth production capacity, fragmented the national identity, opened up the government to hundreds of foreign powers all served by thousands of lobbyists, congressmen and administrators eager to sell our their country, and detoothed the military into a social engineering experimental nightmare."

Not anymore than one can argue the facts you've (again) so eloquently synopnized.
That sums-up precisely where we are, today.

"The facts Helprin provided are indisputable."

Perhaps; but, then again?
There's also the spectre of common sense that'll need to be dealt with sooner or later; & right now?
Mine's telling me we're in some mighty deep kimchee.
Whether we as a nation choose to recognize [it] or not, is really quite irrelevent.

...since, we're already knee deep in it.

[Zack Nguyen]

Bush ran on a promise to rebuild the military. Thus far this article maintains that he has not. Eventually he is going to have make a decision on what is more important: keeping all the domestic babes happy at the federal nipple, or building a military menacing enough to do the job.

[Zack Nguyen]

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