In the comments to my previous post, there have been a number of extraordinarily good points made, so I am going to try to tackle a large number of them at the same time.
I wrote a post in response to commentary to my earlier post. While it was being written, I discovered that Jeff had posted a follow-up and that some folks had responded rather wisdom:
The problem w/ “Protein Psycho’s” [aka yours truly, BRD] take on this is a lack of an acknowledgement of where the RESTRAINT would come from. What restrains the U.S. military (other, obviously, than the military forces that oppose it)? Answer: U.S. citizens and residents in the streets of the U.S.
Which, in general, portrays an absolutely painful misunderstanding of how the military-civilian relationship works. And, to my mind, reinforces my belief that the witless wanderings of folks like Alphie make a nightmare scenario that much more likely. People seem to have forgotten about a couple of episodes regarding this whole proposition of ‘restraining the military’ from their presumed rampages:
In a furious argument over Bosnia, Madeleine Albright … complained to Powell: “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” Powell recounts that he thought he “would have an aneurism” at this rhetorical question, at the very notion that the US army consists of toy soldiers to be moved around a global war board at the behest of the likes of Albright.
Good news – for once! Indeed, we haven’t had any of that since 9/11. I’m happy – nay, ecstatic – to report that the much-ballyhooed attack on Iraq has been indefinitely “postponed.” As we are informed by the Washington Post [May 24]:
“The uniformed leaders of the U.S. military believe they have persuaded the Pentagon’s civilian leadership to put off an invasion of Iraq until next year at the earliest and perhaps not to do it at all, according to senior Pentagon officials.”
After a propaganda build-up lasting years, the War Party has had its Waterloo. At a hush-hush White House briefing given by General Tommy Franks earlier this month, Franks told the President that an invasion of Iraq would have to mean assembling a force of 200,000, and that we would have to fight our way into Baghdad “block by block.” The clincher: a cornered Saddam Hussein could unleash biological or chemical weapons. Casualties – both Iraqi and American – would be unacceptably high. Even as Bush was denouncing the “axis of evil” from the podium in Berlin, the decision had already been made to forego the grand military strategy of “regime change” in the Middle East and find other means to take down the Ba’athist regime. The Peace Party in the Bush administration has prevailed – at least, for the moment: the neocons, who have been campaigning hard for the invasion of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and even the military conquest of Saudi Arabia, are vanquished. And their howls of outrage are sweet music to my ears….
FICKLE ANDY
First out of the gate was, naturally, Andrew Sullivan, whose womanish lament had the ring of my old Auntie exclaiming “Oh dearie me, it’s simply dreadful!” “Is Bush surrendering?” he demanded to know, on hearing the “dreadful news” that tens of thousands of living human beings would be spared:
“If true, then those of us who have supported the war on terror need to revise our assessment of this president. He told the German press yesterday that there is no plan to invade on his desk. He said it almost proudly. His military leaders, in a sign of their determination to risk nothing and achieve nothing, are now leaking to the Washington Post that they have all but scotched a serious military option in Iraq.”
(As an aside, the link above is interesting to see in view of its treatment of Andrew Sullivan and the ongoing discussion of the relationship of homosexuality and the Republican identity)
The point being is that the folks who pride themselves on being the voice of restraint in today become almost unstoppable when they start to scream for vengeance. It’s not people who implement the decision to use force that have to be restrained – in general, they’re all too aware of the human consequences of such actions, for they write the letters to the wife explaining that her husband was a good man, and it grieves him to know that he won’t be back with his three children for this, or any other Christmas. And the letters to Mom and Dad, telling them they raised their son to be a fine man, and although he will never be home for Thanksgiving again, they should be proud of him and his sacrifice. Rather, it’s the people whose opposition to the use of force is axiomatic and unthinking who don’t understand the minds of their notional opponents (the military) who are the biggest fuel to the fire, and when those folks start demanding full retribution. When we’re looking at four or five smoldering craters – which, owing to our national political geography will be the bluest of blue cities – I expect that the closest thing we will have to restraint in our response will probably be by the military because they have a lot better understanding of what a thousand corpses looks and smells like than just about anyone else. All others will invest their efforts in trying to outdo each other in the martial character of their response.
The two linkers who decided that that my previous post was War Porn, or the commenter who suggested that this was some sort of unresolved ‘rage issue’ have either missed some of the points or have assumed that I am the person the post is about. Personally, I don’t want to see any of this unfold – this isn’t some sort of dark, perverse wish fulfillment or something. I don’t want to see millions of dead of any race, color, creed, nationality, or anything else. Rather, it’s my deep concern with fundamental human nature. Not the coffee shop bon mot version of human nature, but the part of human nature that is nature, red in tooth and claw, rises to the surface. It’s going to be how the Glenn Greenwalds of the world react when the Paper of Record becomes a Paper of Historical Record because there isn’t a New York for it to be the Times of. It’s how Michael Moore will respond to genuine religious totalitarians when the entire Screen Actors Guild moves from self-congratulation based on moral preening to pure essence by means of a flash of radioactive fire. It will be the Madeline Albright-like people of the world, asking what the point of having all these superb nuclear weapons is, if we’re not going to use them.
To borrow the pragmatic v. idealistic paradigm, perhaps this scenario is one in which the idealism of the country becomes sufficiently entrenched that when that is overwhelmed by events, the swing of the pendulum back will be much farther than anyone could have foreseen. It is very likely indeed that the reaction will exceed the minimum required by pragmatism. It’s how we will reconcile the return from exceeding purely pragmatic requirements to idealism that will be the test.
Past that, however, there are a number of good comments I wanted to respond to here to flesh out some of the thinking behind this brainstorm. But I ramble, so it’s below the fold.
First – several people have discussed whether or not state sponsorship of a mass casualty attack will be some sort of check. This is besides the point for several reasons.
A) The problem of loose nukes is so severe as to boggle the mind. For a number of reasons that require more explanation than is relevant here, Russia doesn’t know how many, particularly tactical, nuclear weapons it has. It is known that the number of strategic weapons was approximately 9,000, supplemented by something on the order of 30,000 to 40,000 tactical weapons. The inventory problem is, however, that even the Russian government can’t tell anyone –even if they wanted to – whether or not that’s 32,488 or 35,609 tactical weapons in inventory. Thus, the Russia may have already lost some weapons out of inventory – and have absolutely no idea that this is the case. Therefore it is entirely plausible that we would be able to identify the source of the nukes – Russia – without being able to tag a specific country for retaliation.
B) Wargames involving biological terrorist attacks have suggested that the outbreak of a virulent disease, such as smallpox, becomes effectively unconstrained if you have more than about 10 geographically separated, simultaneous outbreaks. In the case I am referring to, 10 outbreaks of smallpox generated fatalities in the tens of millions. Now, to flesh that scenario out properly, imagine that we have our next 19 martyrs for Islam acting as live carriers of smallpox. Now imagine one takes all 19 of these guys and flies them around from city to city, from major tourist site to major tourist site until they expire – infecting people at these massive transportation hubs for roughly a week or two before they pass away themselves. Consider how many degrees of separation it is from anyone in this country to someone who has been at a major airport in the last two weeks. That’s your basis for casualty projections. Will it kill a lot of people, including Muslims? Yes – but remember, any Muslim killed in the process would be a martyr for Jihad and go to paradise. But more importantly, who is the bad guy you go after? The legal country of citizenship of the biological suicide bombers? The country that they stole the smallpox culture from? Or do you go after the ideology – or religion – that gave birth to them, nurtured and succored them and has now cheered them on? And before you answer that – remember we’re not talking about how we would view this now – but rather how we would answer that question after our sons and daughters and husbands and wives and fathers and mothers die whimpering covered in open sores from this terrorist attack.
C) People have come to associate nuclear weapons with large delivery, support, and infrastructure components. Those are not characteristics that are axiomatically a requirement of nuclear devices, but rather things that are artifacts of a completely different – although related – set of concerns. The reason that we have all of those big, complex chunks of machinery is a product of a whole different set of imperatives – the ability to deliver something of relatively modest size and mass to any other point on the globe within 30 minutes, with phenomenal accuracy, almost zero time for preparation, with incredible reliability. All of this while building the same systems to be highly survivable in any kind of warfighting – nuclear or otherwise – environment. Nukes themselves, however, aren’t that large, and don’t require hordes of scientists or technicians. Anything that you could use to smuggle in about 100 lbs of machinery is sufficient for the purposes of those who would want to nuke a city.
These points taken together mean that a Mass Casualty Attack need not leave a calling card. We probably won’t get a letter slipped into a mailbox somewhere in Langley containing a purchase order for 5 nuclear weapons to be shipped to Osama, signed at the bottom “With love and kisses, XOXO, M. Ahmadinejad.†All we will have for evidence at the outset will be our dead and the cheers of the Arab Street we see on TV.
Second, we don’t think about the unthinkable in nearly the same way that allowed us to navigate the perils of the Cold War. Therefore, we are not prepared for strategic warfare on a psychological level, therefore vastly increasing the odds of a very, very abrupt response not informed by years of consideration and deep thinking.
A) Saddam was dissuaded from chemical weapons in the first Gulf War by the threat of nuclear retaliation. In subsequent interviews and books during the 1990’s, Colin Powel, among others stated that the U.S. wouldn’t have responded with nuclear weapons – in other words, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and later Secretary of State – in a hawkish Republican administration, no less – baldly indicated that the U.S. makes very empty threats relevant to its nuclear deterrence. To be sure, if North Korea nuked Seattle, we would respond massively, but the problem is that this slip by Powell suggests that for less severe provocation, we have most definitely lost the harsh pragmatism of those like LeMay (who incidentally never called himself a war criminal) stood ready to pound foes into radioactive grit at the call of the national command authority.
B) We have had plans in place for Continuity of Government, to include currency, legal authority, legislation, and so on. But one will note the huge amount of derision heaped upon officials for the presence of Dick Cheney at “an undisclosed locationâ€Â, or that George Bush didn’t fly to DC that very day. If we can’t keep a senior official out of town periodically to preserve Continuity of Government without even that small measure drawing internal criticism and derision, we’re not in the headspace needed to actually plan effectively for such contingencies.
C) We still haven’t figured out how to even discuss holding valued targets at risk in a strategic context. Some on the thread have argued that we wouldn’t bomb states since they weren’t responsible for any notional attack – which is a more elaborate, round about way of saying that we have chosen to become unable to deter an attack. Tom Tancredo, as a prime example, got himself into a huge amount of trouble for simply suggesting – in effect – that countervalue targeting may be an appropriate means of deterring further attacks. The basic proposition is no more alarming than suggesting during any one of the Cold War Berlin crises that we have nuclear bombers with flight plans leading to Moscow. But it has become a forbidden thought, let alone discussion.
Thirdly, a number of people have discussed the essence of what it means to be an American – and from these comments I have taken great heart in the notion that what lies beyond the event horizon may not be completely unrecognizable. One commenter aptly summarized the gist of my post: “[T]errorists will keep at us until we finally do something so heinous that we end up ‘winning’ the war, but losing ourselves in the process.†In that and other comments, there were a number of excellent comments discussing the dynamics of America at War. There are, however, a few points that are worth considering.
A) It was pointed out that while Bull Halsey famously said after Pearl Harbor “Before we’re done with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell!†at the end of the day, neither he nor the American people were of the nature to actually prosecute a ‘scorched earth’ conquest. But it is equally important to point out that at the time he said it, he was, in all likelihood, literally, emphatically serious. The difference between then and now, is in World War II, we had a few, long bloody years of fighting to moderate and temper the most obscenely violent impulses, such that by the time we got to Japan we were fighting with the utmost resolve, but folks like Bull Halsey weren’t inflamed with the same terrible passion to eliminate the country from the face of the globe that had animated him on December 8, 1941. The big difference today is that physics and practical reality won’t compel us to wait before reprisal.
B) A lot of the more horrific impulses about warfighting have been restrained, in some measure, by the Jacksonian tradition. This I agree with totally – but it is worth noting that while we didn’t grind Germany into dust, we did burn Dresden – an open city which was where a lot of Germans sent their children to keep them safe during the war – to the ground. The decision to burn down Dresden is something that still hasn’t been quite settled in the American consciousness. By no means is it a gaping wound, but it does sit at odds with our conception of ourselves. Much like some of the conflicts with Native Americans earlier in our history is an uncomfortable episode, the consequences of which we are still debating.
C) In examining the various bits of thinking that have animated a lot of our decision making as a country, another commenter noted that if we were such a bloodthirsty nation, we would have rolled into Russia on Patton’s tanks with LeMay’s bombers overhead. This is a compelling image of what we would be like if we were that truly bloodthirsty. However, again, the logistical and political inertia of the country ameliorated that tendency and the angels of our better nature avoided a broader war with the Soviets in the days following the fall of the Reich. In contrast, today, a potential problem is that if we, as country, slip into scorched earth mindset, even briefly, with a nuclear arsenal at the ready. We have some 5,700 weapons deployed, with about another 3,500 in storage. Clearly, we wouldn’t disarm ourselves by using all of them, but it is thought that the U.S. could comfortably get by today with some 2,000 warheads. This means that we could use some 3,700 nukes without significantly degrading our deterrent capability. So think of a country that’s lapsed into that bloody retributive mindset that has some 3,700 nuclear weapons at its disposal. That comes out to roughly one nuclear warhead for every 300,000 Muslims living worldwide. From zero hour, it would take no more than 30 minutes for the first to impact, and certainly no more than 48 hours for all of them to be used. I’m not sure I want to bet that after a sufficiently horrific attack that we couldn’t lose our self-control for two days. I don’t think for a minute that we would use 3,700 warheads but I do fear that the first 48 hours might see the use of what? 50? 100? 200? 500? Enough that we will be, a week later, looking back at 50, 100, 200, or 500 smoking craters wondering how many of them are called “Dresdenâ€Â. I am unable to predict how this country would respond to such a moral challenge.
Fourth, a great number of people also pointed out that the United States has never just lashed out in widespread retribution for the sake of lashing out, but that it has always been directed at the foes that have done us ill, not against a people in general. I also agree with this statement, but there are a few aspects that still give me pause.
We collectively seem to have forgotten the magnitude of emotional response that 9/11 generated in its immediate aftermath. As time does heal wounds, it also dims and blurs the intensity of sharp moments gone past. People tend to forget that the American response to 9/11 was considered very, very moderate. In the days immediately following 9/11, a number of governments (I believe Japan to be among them – but don’t quote me on this) sent quiet diplomatic communiqués expressing their sorrow, as well as their view that their government (I am approximating the language here) ‘stood by the United States in this terrible time of grief and would unconditionally support the American response to this attack’. This is, in diplomatic-talk, a way of saying that government would not argue against considering the full spectrum of available military responses. Or, to put it most clearly, a number of countries gave us the go-ahead to use nuclear weapons in response if we saw fit. So, as it happens, the general global reaction was one of sufficient shock that a nuclear response was almost instantly brought up for discussion, by a number of governments, at the most senior levels. And 9/11 was four planes flown into targets, not four nukes going off in American cities. I don’t like the implications of how that scales.
It is absolutely fascinating to see what the responses of so many people were in the days immediately following the collapse of the Twin Towers. I’ve dug up a couple of quotes from individuals to try to recapture some of the actual thoughts going through people’s heads that day – not what we think we remember going through other people’s heads that day and the one or two days afterwards:
People here at Hopkins showed a range of initial reactions from dismay to tears to shock. But this quickly changed. The second reaction was universally anger. The sense of things—and we are talking here about basically pacifist academics, mind you—is that if we can figure out who launched this thing we should take them out decisively, and it’s just too damned bad if some country decides to get on the wrong side.
This is the most grievous declaration of war against America in history. What Wright hasn’t absorbed, I think, is that we are no longer fighting terrorism. We are at war. And we are not at war with any old regime or even a handful of terrorists. We are at war with an evil that will only grow unless it is opposed with all the might at our command. We must wage that war with a ferocity that doesn’t merely scare these monsters but terrifies them. Merely murdering bin Laden is a laughable response. If this new war can be waged with partners – specifically Russia, NATO, China – so much the better. But if not, the United States must act alone – and as soon as we can be assured of complete success. There are times when it is not inappropriate or even immoral to use overwhelming power merely to terrify and avenge. Read your Machiavelli. We must shock them more than they have shocked us. We must do so with a force not yet seen in human history. Then we can begin to build a future of greater deterrence. I repeat: we are not responding to terrorism any more. We are at war. And war requires no restraint, simply massive and unanswerable force until the enemy is not simply defeated but unconditionally destroyed. To hesitate for fear of reprisal is to have capitulated before we have even begun. I don’t believe Americans want to capitulate to anyone. The only question is whether we will get the leadership now to deal with this or whether we will have to endure even worse atrocities before a real leader emerges.
GEORGE BUSH IS NOW THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD: People always say that about Presidents, of course, but usually it’s only notionally true. Now, if he wants to nuke Baghdad, there is nobody to say him nay—and damned few who would want to.
You’ll note a few days later that the tone moderates and changes. Here are a few to illustrate that within about a week of 9/11 we started coming up for air, and recognized that we weren’t in a War Against Islam.
Fascinating and devastating piece in the London Spectator on the Wahhabi Islamic sect that is responsible for the crazed intolerance fostered by bin Laden. It’s not Islam, properly speaking; its hostility is directed as much to Islamic traditionalists as the West. It’s a purist form of Islam that seems to have particular resonance among a few of the displaced and confused Muslims living in the West. And it is based in and funded by Saudi Arabia. As well as getting a grip on the terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, the administration should surely have a word with its friends among the Saudi leadership. This sect must be exposed, countered, defunded, and defeated. They are in Stephen Schwartz’s words, “Islamofascists.”
GREAT POINT from reader Mark Whittington: “I think Ann Coulter misses the point. It would be far simpler if Middle Eastern terrorists were to convert to Islam. Islam condemns the wanton murder of innocents and teaches that people who do that go to Hell.” Indeed.
UPDATE: I should note that—though I really only know Mark electronically—I think it’s fair to say that he is, if anything, to the right of Ann Coulter.
In the interviewing years, however, we have become increasingly distant from that sentiment – hardly anyone bother anymore to assert that Islam is a “Religion of Peace†– rather they note that any time you hear about someone beheading an individual, or a suicide bomber, or anything of that sort, you may wonder what country it is, but you certainly don’t wonder about the religion of the attacker. I fear that we’ll be starting off a lot further down that path of a general war than we like, and while I have absolute confidence we’ll pull back from that – it’s the first few days of numb shock followed by outrage that we’ll do something we’ll come in later years to regret, and this regret will be a catalyst for a dramatic change in the nature of the United States itself, and more directly in the relationship of America and the rest of the world.
But, obviously, it may not come to this – we could get nuked and respond proportionately, but the problem then becomes something that will echo the Belmont Club’s “Three Conjectures†(he ended up coming with a far better analysis than mine some years ago with his essay, ignore this – read his). A situation where an Islamic fascism, enabled by the internationalist left will continue to attack the US, escalating with every step, until the US does trip the red line and respond viciously enough to decisively win the War on Terror.
Conversely, it is my deepest hope that the basic thesis of the War on Terror – as it is now being fought – will come to pass. A strategy based on toppling totalitarian regimes, to be replaced by democracies that will extinguish the flames of hatred that fuel terrorism. Unfortunately this approach takes a great deal of time, and we have to drain the swamp before it comes to all out war, which gives a lot of time for uglier scenarios to play out.
But I am increasingly less confident about this outcome, based in large measure on the fact that a large number of elected representatives in the U.S., people like Alphie, not to mention a number of our so-called allies and the Leftist Consequentialist camp really do hope to see the U.S. lose in the Iraq. These helpful idiots who are desperately trying to hamstring the west in its response do so out of a misguided sense of appeasement, but all that pursuit of the appeasement impulse will do is kick the can down the road a few more years, because the reasons that the terrorists themselves give for fighting regards the U.S. as a problem because it is an impediment to establishment of a global caliphate. We might talk ourselves into believing that 9/11 was about Israel or Palestine, but we forget that for Islamic fascism it has never been about anything other than restarting the Great Jihad.
Emasculating vs. Brutal
If we go with BRD’s worst case scenario of 4 or 5 simultaneous nuclear explosions in main U.S. cities, that seems like about as violent of an attack that I can imagine. If we lose NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, LA, and Seattle all at once, sweet Jesus. Millions of dead Americans.
So…. What sort of measured response would this warrant? Diplomatic? Economic? Not hardly. Even our military options are limited. How could we maintain a 100,000 man army in the field of Iraq or Iran or anywhere with the ultimate in civil disasters back here in the U.S.? If anything, we’d have to bring them all back just to try to maintain civil order and for humanitarian relief.
At this point, really, the only opion that I can think of is a cold war style nuclear response. What other choice would we have?
If we don’t respond, and merely try to take care of our own dead and dying, the fact of the matter is we are only living on borrowed time. If we got hit like this once, we could get hit like this again. Millions upon millions dead a second time.
So in this case, whether it is an immediate retaliation, or a carefully thought out one, it seems like the response would be the same. Ruthless nuclear retaliation, to make sure that never again could the muslim world consider either attacking us again, or allowing their co-religionists to attack us again.
Seriously. If we have mushroom clouds over NY, DC, Chicago, LA and Seattle, what other response would be possible?
At this point, any damage to our soul comes not from our retaliation, but from the physical wounds we have taken.
Just Passing Through:
Yep. I’ve maintained all along, it isn’t that the mainstream of the Democratic party, or even the liberal center of gravity, is necessarily weak when it comes to facing down an enemy. It just takes more extreme circumstances to convince them that it’s necessary to do so at all.
Somewhere along the line in the 2004 campaign, one of the Dems (Howard Dean?) took umbrage at the perceived suggestion of weakness, and insisted that if this country is attacked, Democrats will hit back at least as hard as Republicans.
And I believe it. But there’s my disagreement with them. They want to wait til we’re attacked, then retaliate. (For one thing, the world will think better of us that way.) As long as they can possibly convince themselves that a fight isn’t necessary, they’ll avoid it. This is why I believe we will let Iran get nukes, and someday decent people of all stripes will ask how we couldn’t have seen this coming and headed it off.
BRD: I love the part of the quote that reads:
I’ve been in an academic setting since before 9/11. My most vivid memory of the reaction from some of my colleagues that day was their shock. Not at the form of the attack, or the details, which were indeed shocking, but the fact that people had actually been plotting to kill us in large numbers, and pulled it off, which was not.
I think, and I’m not trying to be partisan here, they had genuinely convinced themselves that talk of national security threats was something that Republicans did because they get off on it–twisted bastards–and Democrats did because they couldn’t afford to look weak on the issue.
The idea that there’s actually an enemy out there, who’d love to kill them too? Them? That was just crazy talk–then the truth of it was brought home to them, and for awhile they believed it. Now they largely choose not to, because they have that luxury.
What’s with the persistence of the idea that terrorists are gonna nuke the Valley? We really should ideate nuking the west side a bit more. You know, if it’s inevitable and all.
Cool mouseovers.
To pick up on this idea that there is no *tool* to go after Transnational Terrorists: there is.
The War Powers granted by We the People to the Congress is *not* limited to merely declaring war. That full-on involvement of the Nation State did, during the late 19th and the 20th century up to the last decade of it, marginalize other forms of warfare that, because the US was founded in the 18th century, are available via Constitutional means. No mere Treaty may remove them as they are a specific grant of Power from the People of the United States to its Federal Government and the only way to change the Constitution is via Amendment or Convention. That not having happened, those Powers, in full, are still available to the Congress and to the Union as a whole. That said actually having a Foreign Policy with identifiable goals and objectives on this war on terrorism would be handy, and the United States seems to be lacking a Foreign Policy that anyone can actually describe.
If we cannot identify the actual goals of what it takes to secure the Nation, then posturing about the use of the military here, there and everywhere is pointless. It does us very little good to go after terrorist organizations that are extremely diffuse with much military might, only to have some freighter slip into a port and remove a city from the map. The attack by al Qaeda was directed not only against the United States, but against the People of the United States. Terrorists, by using illegitimate warfare rarely get into stand-up military fights, and prefer to go directly after the People of a Nation. And when talking about distributed and internetworked terrorist organizations on a global scale, some supported by Nation States but many without such support and that are also internetworking with organized crime, the lethality of both rises and the chances of stopping *either* via military means decreases… if we restrain ourselves to 20th century ideas of warfare, that is. Luckily the United States is *not* limited to the 20th century forms of warfare.
The Armed Forces of the Union are put together to go after National entities. We the People restrict them to that and only give them broad powers in other areas if they are directly linked to hostile Nation States. Transnational Terrorists are *not* Nations and, therefore, the Armed Forces of the Union are not the tool to use against those shipments and supplies getting to the enemy. If they show up in the field of combat, then they are absolutely legitimate targets, but doing much more than that is beyond the conception of the Regular Armed Forces. We the People speak quite plainly on that and the limitations of the Armed Forces to prevent too much power being vested with them. That is a necessary check on Government power and abuse.
Against a distributed enemy that uses the very commerce and lifeblood of the global economy to sustain and arm itself cheaply, the Nation needs a distributed response, carried out by those duly Warranted by Congress to go after them for reward, bounty or the auction of goods seized in the trafficking with the Enemies of the Union. That is the other War Power of Congress: the economic section based on the Letters of Marque and Reprisal to go after the commercial goods sustaining the Enemies of the Nation and letting those who do such activities with them that they have not only lost their transport and all goods on such transport, but are considered legitimate targets for such reprisals until they reform and stop carrying such things to the Enemies of the Union. That requires a full inspection regime for transport into the US… and it might be wise of other Nations to do the same thing and extend that network, as those duly Warranted Citizens and their Companies will be stopping and checking suspicious vessels and warehouses and will have authorization to seize and verify that such goods are there with known destination.
To do that requires not one renunciation on any Treaty as no Treaty may remove or check this Power given by We the People to Congress when the Union is in need of a different way of fighting. It has not been used since the US Civil War, but still remains there, in the Constitution, to this very day. It is the *Congressional* War Power to go after commerce.
Now considering that Congress is willing to pack tens of billions of dollars of PORK into the DoD budget, why not just let them use *that* money to set up the Warrant system and start offering up decent prize money for those goods and individuals on lists that are already existant in the Commerce Department, State Department and DoD along with the Dept. of Justice? Say a 10x multiplier for a Warranted US Citizen or Company to get bin Laden… currently DoJ has hit its limit at $25 million… so call it $250 million. Perhaps $1 billion for transport aircraft carrying weapons, exposives or actual terrorists… or the auction off of the aircraft and all of its contents.
The only thing we need to do is let go of the 20th century in this realm. If the Armed Forces, criminal services, diplomacy and the rest of what the Federal Government has could have solved this problem, then we would not *be* in it. The Federal System is created by We the People with the final arbiter of risk being the Citizens of the Nation. Tell what is needed, offer a system of Warrants to verify people and companies are above-board and willing to fly the Battle Standard and put on recognizable uniforms, which need not be that of the Regular Armed Forces, but clearly displayed as the GC requires, then set the bounties and offer protection from Foreign Prosecution if those individuals and companies are successful and know they will be safeguarded within the Union.
Let go of that boat anchor of the 20th century as it is plunging into the abyss. I would prefer not to be the last victim of that century and its short-sighted views on warfare and community.
Sorry still can’t buy it.
I agree that if anything, the left has made it far more likely if not a given that we’ll be hit again and hit again hard.
What I don’t buy is the notion that in the first 48 hours the executive branch will start pushing the button 10, 20, or 40 times in response to the initial all consuming rage of the man in the street. Even Billy Jeff waited a week or two for public opinion to settle before charting the best course dictated by polling data.
No, I think it’ll be the same as the days after 9/11 when the administration gathered data and came to grips with the issue. You can’t make the Cold War comparison of immediate reaction to attack. In that case, not immediate meant at the minimum destruction of the capability to react at all. Islamofascism isn’t currently capable of an emasculating attack. Brutal yes, emasculating, no.
In those several days the public mood will shift from rage to resolve and the Jacksonian nature come forward. Hell, we’ve seen indications of it from the most unlikely people when contemplating direct attack – Sullivan, Atrios, KOS…well, no, not KOS…
I resist the “when, not if” fatalism towards another terrorist attack. I had an emotional spasm last year and rejected that mindset once & for all. Our warriors are better than theirs. Our spooks are better than their security. Our cops are better than their infiltrators. Our civilization is better, superior in every way, to the snake pit they call the Dar el-Islam. The only thing they’re going to be able to bring off is the individual stuff, like the lone nutters gunning people down at the El Al ticket counter, or running down people on that university campus.
Victory may look a lot like Salafi Burnout, but victory it’ll be. These are plain and simple murderers, not a stealth army led by some James Bond super-villain. And we will beat them. And if we don’t, it won’t be because we didn’t send our best.
BRD,
Unfortunately this approach takes a great deal of time, and we have to drain the swamp before it comes to all out war, which gives a lot of time for uglier scenarios to play out.
You do know the term “drain the swamp” refers to either genocide or ethnic cleansing, right?
alphie, do you know a guy named actus?
Just wondering.
Since fucking when? What are you, alphie, PETA’s chief head lobbyist for recognizing the Great Mosquito-Genocides of the ‘60s?
Have you always been this moronic?
Since always, Frenchie.
Rather than spend the time and effort to get the bad guys, you simply kill or remove the civilian population they’re hiding among.
What time and effort have you spent to get the bad guys, alphie?
Hey, alphie, I got a great idea that can keep the Reichwingers from causing 1.1 billion deaths.
We build a giant roof in outer space–I call it the SpaceShelter2000–and that way we can be guaranteed that no nuclear missiles could ever destroy anyone at anytime ever again. Also, think of the benefits of global cooling by shading off the middle east!!! We might even have the Sahara bloom into a righteous rain forest!
Think about it, alphie. SpaceRoof. Sure, it’ll be hard, but it is conceivable. SpaceRoof2000, man, SpaceRoof2000.
And so what? You do know that restrained refers to certain practices common to B&D sexual encounters, right? And BRD used it several times in his essay. Not that I think it was on his mind, but just saying. Jackass.
Bullshit. I recall that Chomsky used it as that referent in one of his anti-USA screeds but he neither coined the term nor defined it. He just borrowed it to use in some fanciful allegory. It long predates his use and long predates any genocidal or ethnic cleansing connotation.
I recall the term used many many years ago – too many to admit to. It went something like ‘it’s hard to concentrate on draining the swamp when you’re up to your ass in gators’ and had to do with task management, efficiency, focus, and time management.
I think you must always google two phrases. Whatever the info you want is one, and the second is ‘asinine talking point’. Then you pick the first hit and run with it.
JPT – 2 Googles? You give far too much credit.
I have given some thought to BRD’s grim, doomsday scenario. One might be surprised who rises to the occasion. Or, maybe not. All I know is I’m still depressed by the whole concept.
I’ll confess I didn’t follow the prior thread closely, so forgive me if this rehashes someone else’s point.
The dilemma at issue here arises from the very nature of stateless terrorism. As Lee Harris put it:
And I would suggest to the critics of the Bush Admin foreign policy that this line of thinking—agree with it or not—that is the backdrop to what has transpired since 9/11.
For all of the characterization of Chimpy McHitlerburton’s rodeo ride through history—or the derisive tone of “The One Percent Solution” –I would suggest that the Admin quickly realized that a catastophic attack would quick force the country into a Hobson’s Choice, the longterm effects of which would likely be as catastrophic as the attack itself. What followed from that was the realization that the genie must be kept in the bottle. What followed from that was collating the list of states that sponor(ed) terrorists with the list of those possessing or aggressively pursuing WMDs.
Iraq rose to the top of that list precisely because those so-called cowboys wanted to build consensus by picking the regime which had never really stopped warring with the worldwide coalition since ‘91. The reason the coalition broke down was not because other countries did not find Saddam’s regime to pose the sort of threat the US belived he was, but because Russia, China and France—the nations who armed Saddam for decades and benefitted the most from both lucrative oil deals and the corruption of the OFF program—acted in their short term interest, knowing that the US would ultimately do the right thing. In this way, they got all of the benefit with none of the responsibility, which is pretty much a continuation of “Old Europe’s” policy of subsidizing their welfare states on the back of the US military.
Many of Bush’s critics fit the same pattern. The “Bush Lied” fantasy exists so that they may absolve themselves of responsibility for the current policy while accepting the benefits of it. It also positions them to blame the medium-term hangover that would follow a failure of the current policy on Bush, even as some of them advocate for that failure.
When forced to formulate an alternative policy one of two things tends to happen: (1) war opponents fall back to the failed pre-9/11 “law enforcement” paradigm, as Kerry did in ‘04; or (2) opponents fail to reach consensus, as is the case now, precisely because enough Democrats realize the real-world domestic and geopolitical fallout from a failure of current policy.
As for TSI rejecting the “when, not if” mindset, I would say this: I have confidence that most of the time, most of our people are trying to do their very best to stop future attacks. OTOH, I do not think that US policy should be driven by the notion that we have to play defense (btw, I’m not trying to put words in TSI’s mouth; I’m just riffing here). Given the stakes, the US should not have to be in a position of having to guard against every plot that could be hatched against every soft target we have in this enormously free country. It makes much more sense to attempt to address the threats earlier, and closer to their source. It is also why those who rejoice when the media blows our top-secret anti-terror intell programs should consider what would happen to civil liberties here after a second, catastrophic attack.
It is folly to think that just because our enemy is transnational, wears no particular uniform and is weak (and thus employing the hit, run, and wait strategy of the weak) doesn’t mean that our enemy is not a military enemy. They are organized militarily and have military objectives. I’ve wondered myself if a modern exercise of letters of marque and reprisal wouldn’t be an appropriate and effective tool against such an enemy, but utilizing them certainly wouldn’t preclude the legal and effective use of our military against them.
yours/
peter.
So Pelosi meant to slaughter the House of Representatives in the first 100 hours? Man, it’s a good thing she’s so ineffective. Or is it?
But really, no, it doesn’t mean that at all, and it never has. It didn’t mean that when Rumsfeld said it, and it didn’t mean that when Chomsky said it. And we “drained the swamp” in Fallujah without committing genocide or ethnic cleansing. Getting civilians out of harm’s way does not equate to either genocide or ethnic cleansing, no matter how many times your moonbat friends care to paraphrase Mao.
Really?
– Just another attempt at narrative hijacking. What America could use right now, is a good draining of the political swamps. We seem to have gathered more appeasement lint among the reticent on the Left than usual.
– I fully agree that the Left will be the knee jerk over-reactionary group in the aftermath. They always overreact in any given situation, auch that todays pretencious “introspective/diplomacy” media-speak/agenda, will instantly shift to “destroy the fuckers” in a heart beat. Ideologs are extreme in collectivism, but lack real conviction.
– One of their favorite forms of excersize is jumping on bandwagons a day late, and a dollar short, and then claiming credit for the change in direction and vision. They are clever, but not very smart.
Thanks for fleshing things out further BRD. Based on the nightmare scenario you envision I would, at that point be less concerned with the mere survival of America -in spirit or state – than with the possibility that the continued existence of any advanced society was in severe doubt.
During the cold war MAD doctrine was created because a massive response was necessary to ensure that no first strike could ever be contemplated nor ever successful. That is, you could not spend one iota measuring the extent or severity of any nuclear assault all you could do is lauch, launch, launch.
Even in your worst case scenario (which I consider to be the widespread smallpox type event because in that type of scenario no one, no matter what podunk they live fifty miles outside of, will feel truly safe) their will be no pressing strategic or doctrinal need to immediately and massively retaliate. It is quite likely that, based on the particulars of the attack(s) their true extent will not even be known by large swaths of the populace for days, if not weeks.
Make no mistake though, I do forsee circumstances where the American populace would demand, and the governement would order the destruction of large population centers of ‘suspect’ nations. And I could see these acts be quite extensive and possibly resulting in casualty rates well in excess of our own. However, I see them as being carried out in a very deliberate manner and, as I’ve stated previously, I do not forsee our society having a great deal of trouble coming to terms with those acts.
Conversely, if I am wrong and we do go off the deep end, and our acts rise to a level of barbaric infamy heretofore unseen on the planet, it is not just America who ceases to exist, it is any and every ‘state’ capabable of possessing nuclear weapons. Then the change would truly be metamorphic as no one could ever ascribe any degree of rationality to any future nuclear actor – prometheus forever unbound.
alphie’s a baaaaad person. Such an insulting hijack attempt, didn’t realize the main insult was to itself.
Back to the topic, I’m not sure I agree as to consequences and timeline, but one keen observation was made – often those who have the most unrealistic desire for peace (even expecting peace from those whose stated intent is war), have the most violent response to an attack.
Not only do they face the reality of defending against an enemy, they are caught off-guard because they had denied the possibility of an attack.
To complicate matters, they, unwilling to consider seriously that violence may be needed, did not spend any time considering the nature, and proper use, of that violence. When they do have to use force, they use it gracelessly and often excessively, because of that lack of consideration.
Which just leads back into that “off-guard” part.
I have often noticed on a personal level that people who prepare to use force use force in a way they believe to be appropriate (rightly or wrongly), i.e. deploying a level of force that will control the situation, no more or less (in their estimation).
People who did not take the threat seriously tend to overreact for fear of insufficiency, and because their response is emotional (oh my God I’m being attacked!) and not intellectual (I am faced with a threat of level x, which should be countered or diverted with application of response a).
Sometimes the personal response is emotional overreaction anyway, even for trained people – but just about always for untrained (that or collapsed acquiesence).
BTW “red in tooth and claw” is Tennyson, but somehow I always associate it with Neitzsche, which seems oddly and doubly appropriate.
It wasn’t a hijack attempt.
Amidst all the tough talk and straw man construction, “draining the swamp” was the only suggested course of action.
Where we gonna put 25 million Iraqis?
– We’ll send them over to your place alphie, and you’ll have the chance to learn up close and personal just what the Islamic murdering thugs think of candles, “caring” politics, and kumbiya clusterfucks.
alphie, just in case you’re just mind-bogglingly obtuse instead of ill-intentioned, the rest of the world (you know, that thing outside the room you’re in) doesn’t automatically read “genocide” when they see “drain the swamp.”
Given the context it was used in at the head of this thread, the most obvious interpretation (for a sane person) is the surgical but thorough removal of dangerous elements (i.e. the killing or capture and imprisonment or exile of active thugs, jihadis, terrorists and their supporters) within a given country, region, city, etc.
While that is a tall order, to equate it with genocide is either disingenuous, severe paranoia, or partisan obtuseness the likes of which one does not see every day, unless one spends way too much time on the internet or works in a public school or government agency.
Though, your continual insistence that a phrase MUST mean something that the user of the phrase and everyone else present is telling you is incorrect, well, that leans back to disingenuousness.
Or perhaps clinically diagnosable obtuseness, which I admit is a possibility.
That would be the exact opposite of the term’s meaning in the context of fighting insurgencies, though, Mero.
What would be the term we’re looking for?
An alligator hunt, maybe.
What is it with stripping the last four letters from my name? I mean, EVERYONE does it, but only recently! Spoken aloud, I sound like generative matter inside hollow bones.
Anyway, alphie, bravo, you have now presented one person (not the author of this post, nor to my knowledge posting here on this thread) who uses the term the way YOU want it to be used.
Unfortunately for you, the author of this post didn’t use it that way. No one else here is using it that way.
What you are doing is imputing meaning into someone else’s words that they explicitly did not put there.
So, essentially, you are either calling ALL of us liars (and genocidal racists), without any evidence, which is rather rude, or you are trying to hijack the conversation for your own agenda.
Which is, as it happens, also rather rude.
In either case, you are adding nothing substantive to the conversation. Which, from what I’m seeing, is par for the course.
What is it like being the kind of person who creates umbrage from thin air and applies it to people you want to disapprove of, then ignores the reality of the situation and insists on your temper tantrum?
I imagine it would be a lonely lifestyle. Tiring, too.
I mean, imagine this happening in conversation.
John Doe: “Well, guess we gotta drain the swamp out behind the house.”
alphie: “Did you know that the term “drain the swamp” is used to refer to genocide?”
John Doe: Umm, okay, I was referring to standing water.”
alphie: “Here’s a book where the term is used genocidally.”
John Doe: “That’s nice, but I’m talking about water.”
alphie: “So why do you support genocide?”
John Doe: “I don’t, I just have standing water ruining my lawn.”
alphie: “I don’t understand how you could be so sick!”
John Doe: (quetly to someone else) “Call the police…”
You’re a smart guy, so I can’t believe you didn’t see it…
It’ll be our fault, of course. Go ahead and pick any of a number of root causes. Israeli “money men” pulling the strings, oil, theo-cons who believe in the Rapture…Any of a few of these conspiracies (and it doesn’t matter if they negate each other) will explain it.
p.s. Just make sure that you include a link to a photo of RUMSFELD!!! shaking hands with Saddam
Mero,
Just an effort at clarity.
I think it’s a problem if we’re using a term to describe our final shot in Iraq and people think it means two different and opposite things.
Don’t you?
I think you should shut the fuck up, alpo. Don’t you?
An effort of clarity? What clarity is produced intentionally taking something out of it’s context.
You truly are our lowest common denominator.
SpaceRoof2000, alphie, think about it.
BTW, who the fuck has ever used “drain the swamp” to refer to genocide?
I want just one name, allpie, just one, and I want that one person to not be bugfuck crazy.
Produce just one.
Alphie, et al…
I am not using the term here to refer to genocide. Rather, I am using in the terms that JPT mentioned earlier:
In other words, here it will be difficult to focus on stabilizing and rebuilding the Middle East as a region governed by liberal democracies as long as car bombs and riots keep punctuating day-to-day events.
It is not a ‘code word’, it isn’t intended to have a ‘double meaning’, or be some sort of surreptitious dig. Quite simply, it is recognizing that pretty much any solution to the troubles that plague the Middle East will not be quick and easy, and will take a great deal of time and effort to implement.
—
JPS, Merovingian
You hit solidly upon one of the most important bits – the reaction of those have never really conceived of an outside threat being legitimate or real. As Sean M. indicated relatively late in the thread, the blame will eventually be redirected to the traditional targets of the left. However those first few bits of time before reflexive, ancient hatreds take over, it could be dangerous indeed.
BRD
How about the entire Mao loving moonbat left, huh?
Oh. Nevermind.
Cynn,
It may sound odd, but I would like to thank you for giving some thought to the “grim, doomsday scenario”. I just went over to check to the left-leaning blogs that linked here. Evidently, they’ve decided that I’m some sort of batshit crazy loon, sitting in the dark deriving some sort of sexual pleasure from writing warporn.
Which really is depressing. The people that I’m trying to engage with this post are very much the people that don’t see eye-to-eye with me on all matters defense related. For it will be the conversations that we have now that will help forestall the worst possible outcomes.
BRD
Nope. It’s meaning in context was clear. You insist on assigning it a different meaning. That’s not a problem with the post. That’s a problem with your comprehension of the post. And just yours, since no one else discussing the post seems to have any problem comprehending it. They might not agree in all particulars – I don’t – but they comprehend it.
And again, so what? As a matter of fact, the post’s author specifically mentions you by handle in the post more than once as someone he considers witless, wandering, and misinformed. So it’s a safe bet that he dismissed the idea that you would comprehend it as a moot point up front. He did not expect you to anymore than he expected a 10yo to. Although for different reasons. I think.
BRD, you can’t have a rational discussion with people to whom reality is irrelevant. They’re absolutely not interested in it. While I sympathize with the desire to do it, it is, in fact, a complete waste of your time, like trying to teach a pig to sing. Ignore them, and take heart. There are those out there who are NOT howling, they’re just reading, trying to get a handle on this crazy world we live in.
Sometimes we forget that the blogosphere has a lot more eyeballs on monitors than those that belong to we who bang the keyboards.
Ok,
Does anyone else find it nearly this amusing that Alphie is coming here of all places to argue that the author does not control intent of the meaning of a phrase the author used?
BRD
BTW, BRD, it seems you speak of the loss of American soul to the rise of discordant politics at once divorced from reality and seduced by demopaths.
But it would be impossible to ignore something as brutal as a nuclear terrorist attack; it would destroy every philosophy or political creature that currently denies that possibility. That happens immediately after a nuclear event. New pathologies arise thereafter, but they take time.
Pain is a wonderful clarifier of things. If we lose millions, everyone will have known someone that has lost terribly. Then the fire from heaven scarring out ancient peoples from the world becomes a comfort not a horror.
And afterwards comes insanity.
Pablo,
FWIW, I credit Cynn and Dour Steve with trying, honestly and legitimately, to try to think about issues. Granted, they may get awful prickly on occasion, but I think they’re trying to engage. And to be fair, everyone gets a bit riled up from time to time, so I am quite willing to cut them slack.
I had, however, gone to read the comments elsewhere, and…. well… I guess you get lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it take its head out of its ass.
BRD
The thought struck me – maybe the issue isn’t alphie’s comprehension, but rather that he believes that the author’s intent is subordinate to his interpretation. I wonder if just we’re dealing with someone who took his english 101 at Broome Community College and hasn’t unlearned that baloney yet.
Best me to it.
I’m confused about something:
Atop this thread are some responses to what was apparently a comment by Just Passing Through that apparently used the words “emasculating” and “brutal.” Yet this original comment by Just Passing Through is nowhere to be found.
Additionally, while the original BRD post is time-stamped 2:23 p.m., the first comment visible in this thread is marked 7:03 p.m. While it’s certainly possible nobody commented for nearly five hours, it would be unusual.
Did something happen to some comments here?
For little Alph; “When your up to your ass in aligators it’s difficult to remember that the original objective was to drain the swamp.”
has to do with what whosis said above. Time management and planning. Engineers used it a lot.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Back to the topic.
I would like to think that if the unthinkable happens-more and more likely with the dems in charge-that our response would be much like it was after Pearl Harbor. We Appraise the situation and then marshal our resources. The respose should be swift, sure, but also measured.
Chris,
I wrote the post, but left in as a draft for a while before publishing it – hence the delay in response.
BRD
I just think that nobody really likes BRD; I would call him a “faggot” but I really want to make it three straight days without rehab.
“In a furious argument over Bosnia, Madeleine Albright … complained to Powell: “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?†Powell recounts that he thought he “would have an aneurism†at this rhetorical question, at the very notion that the US army consists of toy soldiers to be moved around a global war board at the behest of the likes of Albright.”
Colin Powell’s inability to understand what Albright is saying is why he should never be near any posiiton of power ever again. His clueless “realist” fantasy world where he doesn’t comprehend that there are certain actors who refuse to play by the rules of diplomacy actually makes Madeleine Albright look wise.
Oh, well that’s convenient, BRD!
Explain the gap! Does it really take five hours to get KKKarl Rove on the phone for your marching orders?
And what is your relationship with Opus Dei?
OK, I see the other part of the reason I’m confused: JPS’s first comment is a response to the 7:36 p.m. comment by Just Passing Through, but for whatever reason, JPS appears at 7:13 p.m.—before Just Passing Through.
This is all quite disorienting, dear me…
Chris,
That is odd – hmm…
BRD, I’ll largely agree with that, and they certainly contribute to keeping a discussion moving and forcing things to be fleshed out. That is a service to the silent reader. But the howling, shit flinging monkeys? Don’t waste your time.
From alphoids link:
The problem may be that alphie has no clue what genocide is, imagine that.
This isn’t the way their minds work.
I don’t believe that the people who are opposing us now in the WOT (you cited Alphie as an example) will “convert” in the wake of an apocalyptic attack and demand retribution against the ideology responsible for it.
I believe that they will become more feverish in blaming America and Israel. The anger and blame will be focused inward, not outward: We will see massive riots and attacks on the government, possibly even a civil war.
Yes. And they will waste no time in attacking the motives, the intelligence, the very humanity of anyone who wants what they’ll “revenge” for something all those little Eichmanns deserved anyway.
And they will be, as they have been all along, relentless and impervious. And gradually more and more of those who actually live in reality and understand what needs to be done to keep this nation alive, will simply say “Fuck it” and tune out, leaving the field to the moonbats.
Aldo, McGhee,
I think that the more proximate an attack is to the Bush administration the more likely such an outcome, but you’ll observe the reverse response towards Clinton immediately after 9/11.
And in any case, it’s the first few witching hours after the attack that are the most dangerous and unpredictable.
If, as many others have suggested, we take a deep breath, take stock, and then react, I think we’ll be able to, in large measure, live withourselves after the response. However, if we submit to the instantaneous impulse, then we’ll be in trouble.
BRD
V: Sanity is highly over-rated, take my word on this. Why does everyone here assume that a is American? I am one that read57.
Bill,
He self-described Republican and implied American. I may doubt it, but I have no compelling evidence that would suggest that he not be taken at his word on this. Besides which, it doesn’t really matter what country he’s from when he makes observations of the text on hand.
BRD
Perhaps, and even likely, but not initially. For all their posturing about their intellectual superiority, the left truly operates on a purely emotional level. It doesn’t take much to whip them up into a frenzy characterized by interpretation of events that has no relationship to logic. These people are led by preconceptions to any conclusions they come to, not just bereft of, but in spite of factual evidence.
More to the point, the same lockstep emotional response that makes these useful idiots so amenable to manipulation by their priesthood makes them very apt to break away from control when the prospect of immediate physical danger rears it’s head. To paraphrase what a wise man once said – nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of being immolated in the morning.
But, and this goes to the heart of the matter, it is the emotional response of the flighty, not the visceral response of the Jacksonian nature. And visceral responses trump emotional responses every time. Visceral response will translate into resolve and that has staying power.
So I do think that given another catastrophic attack, the left will initially scream for protection from their own folly. It won’t be long, days or at most weeks, before new or old refurbished talking points are defined by their leadership and they’re herded back onto the farm. There won’t be riots. Riots are not emotional responses, they’re visceral ones.
There may and probably will be marches but they won’t matter. The course will be set by those with the resolve to see the matter through and support leadership that has a plan to do that, not body painted puppet heads following each other.
Thanks for clarification of parameters. I apologize for going off thread, it was just something that I wondered about. Next47
It is also worth remembering that the nutroots aren’t the Democrat Party. I am from a family of union, rural Democrats that are in it purely because of the union protections and entitlements they get. They are church goers, lifetime members of the NRA, don’t like affirmative action, don’t want gays teaching their kids or getting married, most of them are bigots, some are outright racist. They oppose the war because they would rather the money be spent on them, and they don’t think those people are worth saving. If those people piss them off they would much prefer we just nuke their ass than waste time, money and American lives as we are doing now.
I believe there are alot more of this kind of Democrat than people realize,
The Left will be gape-jawed at another catastrophe. The worst of them have denied even the possibility of that happening (a la Moore’s infinitessmal ‘chance of being a terrorist victim’
. Others have maligned the threat:
But then, they shall be afraid. And their fear will contort them into morbid grotesqueries.
It is because they do not have a moral center. Guile makes them pliant to the silver-tongues and the beautiful people. They will cast their lots with anger and then they will resent the current and seek out the rebels.
Absolutely, at least in terms of their representation in the public discourse. That vast majority of Americans don’t think America is evil, nor are they afflicted with BDS. Those who think these things are a loud but tiny minority.
Much of America is just tired of being at and hearing about war. This is why the Democrat leadership can’t come together on a platform, especially one that won’t render them radioactive at the polls.
That state of affairs is subject to change, and a significant attack on American soil would likely cause such a change.
In the full-on catastrophe scenario hypothesized by BRD, I’m not so sure that this sort of familiar pattern would hold. The modern left is able to do its thing because it operates in an environment of comfort—it has the luxury, in a sense, to morph its emotions into intellectual games of devil’s advocate. In the wake of such catastrophe as described here, that easy luxury simply would not be available again within “days or weeks.”
Put bluntly, it would be the mugging-of-liberals-by-reality on an enormous scale.
And for those nitwits still reading any of this as “war porn,” trust me: No, none of us want this. I pray that we continue to enjoy the sort of environment in which you can afford to be delusional.
Several terrorist nuclear attacks – or their equivalent in destruction – here will elicit a measured response, imo. But someone is definitely going to “get it” in some way or other. And I’m pretty sure there is already a short list of targets and methods, as was discussed a while back on this very blog, as I recall, totally apart from having to prove the actual involvement of these targets in the attack upon us.
I think the potential targets already know that they are potential targets, which tends to decrease the possibility of an attack on us to begin with, even if the potential targets would have never actually participated in such an attack. This stems from the Bush Doctrine itself and its application in the case of Iraq.
Perhaps short of any nuclear retaliation, however, is the possible option of an ultimatum or “blackmail” directed at one or two or even three potential targets to do exactly what we want within a reasonable time frame, or else. We could even possibly allow time for civilian evacuation of the targets before a strike, if we thought that would accomplish enough in terms of its degree of domination compared to the attack upon us.
I don’t know if this latter scenario is realistic or not. But I just don’t think a kneejerk reaction per se is in the cards, despite what the denial-of-reality Faux Liberals would probably call for post attack, while obsessing fearfully about pre-attack.
Does anyone have the exact Duncan Black quote about “Fuck them”? I was curious to see the original cite and verbiage.
Thanks!
J. Peden,
For what it’s worth, the Cold War doctrine of Massive Retaliation made no distinction about what size of nuclear attack would result in a massive response. This was extended to include nuclear blackmail as being equivalent to use of a nuclear weapon, which in turn, was not viewed as being different from a large-scale attack.
To be clear, the doctrine of Massive Retaliation was not every seen as proscriptive, but was established policy to allow maximum freedom of action in times of crisis.
BRD
You all really MUST go see Mona in high dudgeon. BRD is now being sullied for his relationship to me—the same cries of LUNANCY, etc.
Also repeated there is the new truthiness meme that I wasn’t offered a contract renewal from PJM. Because I’m TOO CRAZY even for the wingnuts. My bloodlust knows no bounds!
This is patently false, of course—all of it—but no matter. It’s Mona—a low rent Glenn Greenwald hoping to profit from the same kinds of tactics he profits from.
Opportunistic fraud. I didn’t think it was possible to be more cloyingly self-righteous than Sullivan or Greenwald, but if anyone can do it, it’s that fanboy demagogue.
Are you sure you used enough words while you were bumbling around and not making a point?
I’m pretty sure another 5,000 or so would be helpful. So get going.
Hey – are you John Kerry?
Mona seems to have set herself to high dudgeon and ripped the knob off.
Once upon a time, I’d have bothered to engage. But frankly, it’s just such a fucking bore dealing with these preening “reality based” fools, and not worth the time it takes to dissect them.
tw: …or the effort36.
There was, once upon a time, when ‘thinking the unthinkable’ was considered a responsibility of all those who hold office. Sad to see that’s no longer the case…
alphie – if your intent was clarity, you would have stopped pushing your bizarre eliminationist alternative explanation when the point was made clear. You didn’t. QED.
BRD – Thanks, and yes, I noticed that alphie chose this of all places to challenge intentionalism.
ajacksonian made a valid point as well as raising a hairy issue early in the comments that hasn’t been discussed much, I think probably because alphie was obsessing on imputed meaning and most of the rest of us take it as granted.
There’s a lot of discussion that could go on about that, some other day. I’m too busy kicking my clock into the curb because I don’t have a Congressman handy.
It goes all the way to eleven.
Oh, it still is, BRD. Thankfully, the only office Mona holds is Greenwald Sycophancy Coordinator. Nothing serious, and nothing to concern yourself with.
– The moonies, fully aware that despite anything they will admit there’s no point in expecting sensibility from the Islamists, know whats coming, and are moving from surrender monkeys too head fully in sand, and full metal jacket franeticism. Thus they will do anythig to avoid discussion of the possible, probable, or even remotely plausible, and attack any such efforts desperately. Discussing it would mean its no longer an impossible/unthinkable endgame, which they refuse to emotionally accept. Reality is their monster under the bed.
– And it means naught in the scheme of things. Their ideological, emotion based teddy bears, will not change a thing, or “save” them. In the still of the night do they fear the horrorible possibility that for them, like Jesus, their teddy bears are all dead?
Well, Mona has written… “at” me, I suppose. She made it clear that she has ”zero intention of engaging [me] in a substantive discussion”. A bit later, she cuts more directly to the chase:
Refreshing really, isn’t it? To see such honesty in service of democracy?
BRD
If an attack is inevitable, BBh, wouldn’t America be better off taking all the money we’re blowing in Iraq and spending it on survival strategies and equipment for American civilians?
I understand Israelis get quite an array of survival gear.
– Would be a nice out if “survival” ploys worked, by seige mentality has proven down through the ages to be just another way to subservience, even should you somehow manage to survive.
– Using a current reference, even the Spartans, bred for war, couldn’t avoid the enevitable. Put another way, all isolationist gambits, particularly with the type of enemy stratedgy we face, lead to an american version of Hussiens spidey hole.
Oddly, alpo, you’re capable of buying that yourself. Take the money you saved from reduced tax rates and put it into survival gear, if it makes you happy.
Of course, when the Bush administration suggested doing just that, people made fun of the recommendation to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting.
BRD does not label the the type who he suspects to be most susceptible to blood lust in the wake of an apocalyptic attack, but he names Michael Moore and Glenn Greenwald as examples.
I think the reference, then, is not to mainstream Democrats but to a new ideology (if it is coherent enough to qualify as one) on the American political scene associated with the nutroots. I call it “neo-McGovernism.” This is an ideology that does not track precisely with partisan identification.
I believe that mainstream Democrats would not hesitate to employ the military in response to a direct attack on American soil. The Clinton Presidency proved that mainstream Democrats will even support the use of military force in support of objectives unrelated to American national security (Haiti?) as long as the deployment is ordered by a Democratic President.
The neo-McGovernites, though, generally do not see Islamist terrorists as people with their own ideological ends (certainly not religious ends), but simply as the instruments of a “Blow-back” toward American and Israeli policy.
In the neo-McGovernite worldview, the bigger the terrorist blow-back, then, the bigger must have been the American blow that precipitated it. I believe that any terrorist attack in the next couple decades will be laid at the feet of the Iraq war by the neo-McGovernites.
In the aftermath of an apocalyptic attack such as BRD describes, the imperative for the neo-McGovernites will be to seize the controls of American power in order to make America stop doing the things that are causing the “freedom fighters” to lash back, and to offer appeasement to salve the “root causes.”
That is why I consider civil insurrections or civil war to be the most likely result of an apocalyptic attack.
The only question in my mind is how large, or really how influential the neo-McGovernites are on the political landscape. I suspect that, as the Dean campaign suggested, they may be a small fringe movement that is able to project a larger image through savvy use of the internet as an echo chamber.
You beat me to it (and probably said it better than I would have anyway). It’s a very convenient line of reasoning. Anything we do to defend ourselves or to prevent an attack is automatically pressed into service as the very cause of that next attack. It’s kind of solopsistic in a way because in this scenario, we’re the only ones who have any will. Our adversaries are mere puppets, reacting predictably to everything we do. (And naturally, whatever we do, it’s bad.)
Robert crawford,
…and to keep enough food and water on hand to get through the period immediately following a disaster or an attack. And then when a disaster hit (Katrina), they complained that people were starving to death 24 hours later. And that it was the Federal government’s fault.
Well, here’s my take so far…
There are a few, precious, precious few who will even countenance discussion.
Among them (you might be surprised) are the MarkG8 who was commenting on Jeff’s thread, Cernig (who is the one who dubbed me “Protein Psycho”) and one of Mona’s commenters. As it happens Cernig is a Brit – and I find it more than a bit dismaying that I should get response from a foreign national than from someone in my own polity. But hey, that’s the breaks.
Cernig actually seems to have considered this stuff, so I will be reading through and considering his posts. As for the rest of the reasoned responses, the one that amuses me, by far, the most is one from Mona (emphasis mine):
Past that she has also been extraordinarily straightforward in her disdain for debate and engagement. Which gives me no end of faith in her confidence in diplomacy as a instrument of the state.
BRDsout
It’s my opinion htat we Americans are too complacnet to engage in a modern Civil War. Consider, also that given the divisions htat exist, the training and materiel to do it resides far more with one side than the other, though there are notable exceptions, neo-Copperheads tend not to have served nor to own firearms. Divisions within the military don’t seem likely to me and the proto-American fear of the “man on horseback” has always been a myth, though a potent one.
I think our present Civil Cold War will and would continue, but the periodic tendency to detente would cease.
BRD
I do wonder about the violence and scope of any response our government would have to the scenarios laid out here.
Interestingly I was struck by alf’s riff on the US government issuing survival gear to us.
I realized that here in home, I expect to take care of the outfall from any attack myself. I expect the government to research what we might need and put it out there. They have done that part, so it is up to me to take it from there.
But when I think of Americans being killed out at school, at work, at the mall or at a sporting event… I realize that I expect local government to be prepared first responders. I expect them to care for the casualties and to start kicking down doors of susppects immediately.
At the federal level I expect the government to appear as the cavalry… the second wave. I expect the response to be massive, swift and sure.
On a global scale I expect justice to be served. Served. Not sought.
I also realized that when I travel abroad I skip a few steps. The locals are not responsible for me. I am. If I get my head chopped off on YouTube, I’ll go to my God knowing it was my time, but I still expect justice to be served… hot or cold… but served.
I’m not particularly vengeful and if I’m dead anyway it’s not like I have a say, but i think I have a contract with the federal government as a citizen that includes justice served on my killers…. I do not actually have that contract and am not entitled to justice, but I like to think I do…. and I like my enemies to think my government will serve justice because it makes me safer.
I bristle at the alf’s of the world because if I was maimed in the twin Towers, they’d just call me a “little Eichmann” and say I had it coming.
If I got my head sawed off on Youtube they’d say it was Bush’s religious crusader neocon oil grubbing evil ass that was responsible.
I worry more about the dumbasses capitulating and dissembling than I do about them pulling out a disproportional response.
Hmmmmmm,
maybe Harry reid would eventually wait too long to serve justice and then serve it too hot… maybe Pelosi. But I primarily doubt they serve anyone but their ideology with anything, much less justice.
It’s interesting how quickly the left is preemptively assigned blame for any outcome following another terrorist attack. If the complacent left is suddenly bitchslapped into demanding a bloodthirsty vengeance, then we are responsible for a disproportionate response. If the cowering left hogties the administration from responding decisively, then we are sniveling appeasers.
The idea of another horrific attack on this country is awful to contemplate, but I think that trying to predict the political and social reaction immediately afterward creates more of the festering that BRD describes, although it is useful to consider.
I share the frustration with the extreme nutroots, however. They absolutely do not speak for me, and as much as I may be contrarian, I do want our civilization to prevail. Sometimes I wonder about their sense of self-preservation.
Cynn,
It’s one of the biggest reasons that I keep trying to engage the Left as being distinct from the netroots. I may disagree with the analysis the Left puts forward, but I would like to think that they have the fundamental understanding that we’re all on the same team.
The nutroots? Not so much.
In the immediate post-9/11 environment I think there were more than a few people on the right who were pleasantly surprised to find folks on the Left standing by their side. The nutroots never will, but hey, that’s life.
Maybe by keeping the Left engaged as best I can, the nagging fear that many have that they could end up on the parapets in a time of need, with the Left hanging back, could be diminished, and that, I think, will do a lot to eliminate the festering that could make our national response unhinged.
BRD
BRD—I think in America, we have our own little Cold War going on. You cite a fear that in the event of a national emergency, we will abandon our countrymen and withdraw into a collective fetal position. We look at the right and its handling of foreign and domestic affairs (granted, we are predisposed to be suspicious), and we fear that if something ungodly happens, the right will embark on a blustering campaign of civil repression. There is always a natural tension between different ideologies, but it seems that the element of mutually assured destruction in this case is that one or the other will become completely ascendant and destroy the country.
Frankly, I see this unhealthy relationship getting worse, not better.
Hey, no fair! RTO beat me to it!
Cynn,
This is one of the things that I’ve been kind of mulling over. By way of analogy, you could read Orwell’s 1984 from a right-wing perspective and walk away convinced that it’s a complete forecast of some sort of dark left-wing future. Conversely, it is equally easy to read if from a left-wing perspective and walk away certain that it describes a dark right-wing future.
I really, really, really, don’t think that either party is more inherently totalitarian than the other. Conversely, there are classically liberal elements of both parties. It’s just that getting folks to rally around the restraint of government is ferociously difficult.
I think that exercises, like demonstrating that the Left isn’t axiomatically in favor of running away screaming would be well served by reciprocal demonstrations that not all of the Right spends Sundays polishing their jackboots, to make sure their nice and supple when they go out to stomp on civil liberties.
But, politics, being the zero sum game that it is, makes this meeting in the middle a difficult task indeed.
It makes me wonder if the Cold Civil War isn’t an unresolved byproduct of the Cold War. Beats me.
BRD
SteveG,
Not sure why you lump me in with the lefty straw men.
I just view our current war on terror as costly and pointless. Not much better than sacrificing people on an alter to “ensure” a good crop next year.
I could get behind a military policy that made some sense.
I don’t know who all else is up reading this post, but the quality and maturity of the responses I’ve managed to get – although to their credit, I wasn’t banned – causes me more than a small bit of sorrow.
We may not be the elders of Athens here, but I had at least hoped that something deeply scary, troublesome, and absolutely unresolved would have at least merited a bit more engagement.
I mean I had rather assumed that the individual who had the most intelligent and least hostile things to say would be one of my own country – you know, the whole debate and engagement thing. Oh well. I guess on the bright side, after a while, some folks responded.
I’ll chew through their comments, and see what they imply and get back to you all later…
cynn, BRD, RTO,
In talking about the Cold Civil War, have any of you read Empire by Orson Scott Card? It’s an interesting (if fanciful at times) portrayal of a modern civil war breaking out along the lines you’re speaking of. The violence is actually very limited to a few areas of the country, and is low-level, but it’s an interesting take. Just something to consider.
I think the left gets blamed a bit much… on the other hand, the nutty left’s blaming on Bush or Americans for 9/11 has irritated the heck out of me.
Blame Clinton for his part, blame Bush’s dad for part, blame Jimmy Carter for his weakass response to Iran, blame whoever for the policy of fighting Soviet war material by proxy through Israel… and then for the gloating over the giant mess of burnt out metal that war machine turned out to be.
Blame whoever decided to restored the Jewish state in an area populated with enemies that make the Nazi’s look like amateurs.
Blame Hitler. Blame anti semite racists who have always hated the jews and who caused their dispersal to the four winds. Blame Christians for seeng them as Jesus killers, blame Jesus for screwing with the whole messiah program.
Blame God for screwing up the whole Middle east by Chapter 2 of Genesis.
Blame humans for believing in God.
The blame cycle is endless.
Why is it easier for me to lay pre-emptive blame on the left?
Because they let people who throw piss on our soldiers under their umbrella. They let Michael Moore and his “documentary” lies and his MoveOn.org run their party, because they fund it.
Cowardice is considered brave. Lies are considered “truth to power”.
Does the right have its hypocrites and assholes? yep. Am I one of ‘em at times? Yep.
But I will always vote for those who understand that bravery most often requires action because defense requires activity. It takes brave men and women to provide security…. they must patrol outside the most barren and hostile outposts, inside the crowded and dangerous marketplaces.
The left too often thinks this type of behavior is unseemly. Turn the other cheek. Negotitate. Appease. All good things… if the patrolling continues, and asskicking starts when needed. We have an enemy, and the left acts like it is us…. I will never vote for anyone who pays lip service to our enemies and who concentrates their venom on our bravest…. and somehow in that vein I think of John Kerry, the last of the left to be thought of as “Presidential”.
Please send us someone to run who hasn’t already sold us out….
Please, SteveG, enough with your meandering invective. The left is no better or worse than you are. I must say, that your sputtering rhetoric indicates that we are over our heads in Iraq. So what is left? And what is next?
How, pray tell, did you pull that out of Steve’s comment, cynn? Just what is it that we’re over our heads in in Iraq? Does this factor in?
Cynn, if his descriptions don’t apply to you, why be offended?
Oh, and yeah, I do blame god. Since I won’t have to deal with him ‘til I’m dead and naked.
How many times did the guy say “BLAME?” And in that classic stretch that you guys just love, I’m going to extend that to mean that if there’s BLAME, there’s a crime to be accountable for. So there you have it: your mental calisthentics for today. Courtesy of the rabid left.