Posted on 09/20/2001 8:11:59 AM PDT by medusa
Once again our trillions of dollars' worth of "defense" has failed to defend us. If someone hates you enough, he will find a way to hurt you. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon didn't require computers and coulden't have been prevented by a missile-defense system. No new high-tech gadgetry was involved. The most stunning crime in modern memory seems to have been accomplished with knives and box-cutters.
This was beyond terrorism, or random violence designed to intimidate a civilian poopulation. It was an unprecedented feat of guerrilla warfare, striking at two of the strategic nerve-centers of the American empire. Three jetliners, somehow hijacked simultaneously, wrought the awful damage; a fourth, apparently headed for Washington, crashed (or was shot down) in Pennsylvania. It appears the result of an amazingly well-coordinated conspiracy.
On the morning of the events, a Washington Times headline unconsciously foreshadowed what was to come; "Bush 'Tilt' to Israel Provokes Arab World." This country is so widely hated that we can't rule out, say, a Serbian plot, but suspicion naturally focuses on the Arab and Islamic world, where anti-Americanism is deep and visceral, and where suicidal attacks are a familiar modus operandi.
President Bush and other government spokesmen pledged swift retaliation. But against whom? The actual killers died with their victims; identifying their sponsors, if any, may be difficult. The political "solution" may be to posit a scapegoat (Osama bin Laden being the leading early candidate for the honor), strike it hard, and claim to have punished the crime, thereby satisfying the popular demand for revenge.
The most strident calls for revenge are coming from Israel's Amen Corner. The New York Post blames "radical Islamic fundamentalism," which seeks "the annihilation of Western culture" and "world domination," no less. Charles Krauthammer, Mark Helprin, and Rober Kagan say much the same thing, calling for a declaration of war and a huge military buildup. George Will announces tha Tuesday morning Americans were drawn into the world that Israelis live in everyday.....[Americans} are targets because of their virtues---principally democracy, and loyalty to those nations which, like Israel, are embattled salients of our virtues in a still-dangerous world."
Ah yes, we and the Israelis are hated for our good qualities. Our governments have done nothing to provoke hostility. U.S. and Israeli bombings of civilians don't count as "terrorism," of course; nor should Iraqis resent sanctions that cause them and their children to die of disease and malnutrition; nor should reasonable Palestinians mind being shot and tyrannized with American-supplied weapons.
Just how could radical Muslims achieve "world domination" or "annihilate Western culture"? Is there a radical Muslim naval fleet lurking about our coasts? The U.S. government feels entitiled to exercise hegemony in the Medeast. The Muslims are defenseless in conventional warfare; which is why they have turned to ingenious guerrilla and terrorist tactics.
This is not to suggest that the astounding atrocities of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were in any way justified. It is merely to point out that for many years the U.S. government has been arousing dangerous passions with its incessant meddling abroad. Why should we make a habit of getting involved in other people's quarrels? Do we think it will have no serious consequences for ourselves? I hold no brief for scorpions, but if you step on a scorpion you can expect to be stung. No doubt we could find some of our values at stake in the feud between the Hutus and Tutsis, but I don't remember George Will et al. demanding that we take sides there.
Would most Americans have tolerated their government's foreign policy if they had foreseen that it would eventuate in this week's horrors? Of course not. Yet those horrors wre foreseeable; ever since the 1991 Gulf War I myself have been expecting something like this, if not worse. And, with the development of biological and compact nuclear weapons, worse may still lie ahead. If our military experts could be outsmarted this way, thay can be outsmarted in other way. The smoldering Pentagon is a natural result---and a perfect symbol--of their hubris.
Before you get into a fight, it's wise to ask yourself if you really need it. You may be justified abstractly, but you may also wind up paying a price you couldn't have imagined at the beginning, especially if your adversary holds an edge in imagination. And though our enemies may be weaker than we are, they have now proved themselves far more imaginative.
We are hearing the phrase "national security" bandied about, but security is a rlative thing. It can never be absolute. And as soon as you make an enemy--that is, someone who wants to hurt you--you become to some extent insecure. Safety can be best attained by stayin close to your base and making no more enemies than necessary, which hardly describes U.S. foreign policy.
Older geopolitical thinkers like George Kennan and James Burnham, who disagreed on many matters, at least agreed that U.S. foreign policy should be guided by specific American interests and a concrete sense of the limits of American power.
But the striking feature of the arguments of today's hawks is its abstractness. We should fight "terrorism," they contend, simply because if is "evil," no matter where it is. And we should not count costs: defeating "terrorism" is the categorical imperative of foreign policy, a moral absolute. The very existence of "terrorism" proves that our leaders have been guilty of being "soft" on it, not taking it seriously, not facing it with "will" and "resolve". We shall pay any price, bear any burden; and the price and the burden will include new restrictions on our freedoms. In order to "protect" us, our government will crack down on us.
We have just paid a terrible price for a solipsistic foreign policy.
How much mor will we insist on paying?
Well, there's a way to signal that you're a serious man ready for some meaningful discourse.
Flame away, you six-pack knuckleheads spoiling for war!
I see you wine-and-brie folksingers spoiling for surrender are ready for serious discussion of the issues.
Flame our betters? Wouldn't dream of it!
Are you suggesting that the toothpaste can be put back into the tube?
What done is done...we cannot change that. I for one, am sick of all this talk about "airport security measures." (Quick shut the barn door!). If on September 10th you could ask anyone if it bothered you that people boarded airplanes with razor blades and boxcutters,and I believe most people would say "no." Let's face it, we didn't determine them a threat...and to be honest with you, they aren't a threat now. Thier main weapon was not razors or homemade knives...it was surprise. Surprise is a great weapon, but it can only be used once.
Joe, all folks bent on world domination declare an enemy to rally the troops around. For Hitler, it was the Jews. For Stalin it was the capitalists. For bin Laden, it's America. Hatred for Israel runs so strong in that part of the World, so much so, that so many self appointed leaders and moral activists have something to say about it, that the followers have too many outlets to vent. Bin Laden uses fierce anti-americanism to rally troops who are frustrated with thier moderate muslim leadership (for not being more religous) and turns thier frustration towards us.
Could we have done something to stop this? Yes, but that was way back during World War I....and airplanes were still a novelty. At that point in time, we showed the world that we are a global force and we never looked back. This meant for all the years leading up to this, we acted accordingly. We acted as a global force, and many nations and individuals perceived this as arrogance. This put us in a position to be targeted as an enemy.
I suppose the US could simply withdraw from the rest of the world. Yet even such beacons of liberal thought such as the Minneapolis Star & Tribune feel that the US needs to stay engaged. We simply need to do it differently. We need to change our policy no conform to that suggested by the French & Germans. On the other hand, that isn't always in the best interest of Americans citizens either.
So, in the end, it comes down to choosing your friends. Since democracies tend not to send suicide bombers into tall buildings, we should dump democracies as our friends. We can feel fairly confident they won't retaliate.
As for future wars and their needs, we can all rest peacefully on Sobran's assurance that even if the Taliban had an ICBM with a 100 megaton warhead, they would surely have not used it. Whew! That's good to know.
Now, we know, thanks to such as Sobran that our best response is to apologize to bin Laden and ask that he please call it even for now. Maybe to show our good faith we ought to wrap a tight blockade around Israel.
I do have one item of interest, though. In the past, some of the US allies have been putatively unsavory. Marcos, Pinochet and Shah Reza Palavi come to mind to name a few. Personally, I think Pinochet was one of the good guys, but for the sake of discussion, let's aver that he was not. I wonder how Sobran viewed these alliances. Even though these guys didn't necessarily hate us, you may want to argue they were similar in style to the Taliban or Hussein.
No, but then not all of us suffer from anti-American psychosis.
Nah. We'll bite our tongues for now. There's nothing worse than seeing tears flowing over the quivering lips of unbathed, tie dye clad Birkenstock wearers.
Pound sand!
Those that oppose our involvement in what they consider their world apparently see the World Trade Center, filled with people from 50-60 countries, as today's enemy factory.
There is no longer a pass that says 'I'm not in the war, just shoot my soldiers'. However we got here, we are now all in this together.
This has been going on for thousands of years, way before the creation of Israel or even the USA. For Sobran and other "L"ibertarians leaning types to dismiss this is idiocy.
Most of the worlds religions have, by now, been able to squash the extremist elements within them, however, Islam has not been able to do so. You can argue why that is the case, but I wont, its just a fact at this moment.
Screw those bastard extremists, any sympathy I had for their points of view have all been flushed down the toilet. They can burn in eternity as far as I care.
their peculiar, atomistic, self-exalting, society-despising, more-rigid-than-Islam froot loop ideology could have prevented this, but only a few geniuses (i.e., they themselves) are rational enough to realize it.
Odd this coming from one of the leading American-Taliban proponents.
You know, somewhere, there is an American infidel devil enjoying a joint and a porno movie…
Please elucidate and explain why this writer is "Anti-American", and spare us the insulting rants.
Sorry. I don't believe that putting our heads in the sand is a sound policy. Wouldn't you want to "get out" of this if you could? Wouldn't you want the guerilla tactics to end? If indeed our foreign policy led to a near global hatred of our country, don't you believe it should be re-examined?
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