I was going home a few days ago, and a thought struck me. Not an idle notion, or an intriguing idea, but a sickening, clammy, dead certainty. The realization struck me with sufficient force that in another era I would have claimed that it was a vision from God. This is a very difficult sort of thing for me to put my finger on, but it was the kind of horrible realization that doesn’t sit in your cerebral cortex, but something you can feel prodding your deeper lizard brain to life. I am having some difficulty capturing it because the kind of tea-leaf reading, prophesying stuff that arises from the deep recesses of cognition is always famously vague, and is, as much as anything else, a collection of unshakable impressions and images – not a series crisp propositions logically linked in pristine deterministic Newtonian sterility.
So even if I’m thinking of this from a completely out-of-the-blue perspective, please bear with me. Similarly, if it sounds overly dramatic – I beg your indulgence.
And if it’s all crap, just ignore it.
9/11 has slipped from current events into the ever-growing arena of history. But I don’t think this country has really ever wrapped its head around that day in any kind of cultural or philosophical way. Clearly, we haven’t grasped the obvious first-order implications of the situation or any one of a number of brass tacks realities, but this fact obscures the problem that we don’t even really know, on a deeper level, how we feel about 9/11.
I liken it a bit to getting a splinter. Sometimes splinters come out quickly and easily, sometimes you have to dig with the tip of a knife, still other times they embed so deeply that they become part of you, and sometimes they bury deeply enough to be impossible to get out but shallow enough that they get more and more infected. 9/11 has embedded itself in our consciousness deeply enough that we can’t pluck it out, but not so deeply that it has become part of the scenery.
Looking at the behaviors associated with BDS, the bitterness over the Iraq War, and these days or the rancor that animates discussion of just about any political topic, it appears that for a very large portion of the population – and therefore the country – 9/11 was a splinter that wasn’t dug out and has become infected. If you think about all the bitter invective which is functionally a displacement mechanism for fear generated by the attack, conflated with a whole host of other social dynamics, it all basically springs from the fact that a large portion – if not outright majority – of the country has never processed 9/11 and has, instead, buried it in the back of their heads to fester.
The problem with this lies in the fact that we will – not if, but will – get tagged with a Very Large Mass Casualty Attack of some variety. It will be ugly and savage – and the aftermath will be almost unimaginable.
We will strike back, and we will strike back with a vengeance. That part isn’t too troubling. The problem is that a Next Big Attack will hit the site of the buried splinter of 9/11 – an already infected wound filled with pus and venom, and it’s those features that will color our response.
To take a small detour, when countries like France make noises about ‘getting used to’ terrorism – they’re not entirely wrong, from their perspective, because a nation (as traditionally thought of can do it in a way the US cannot). All talk of Exceptionalism aside, the U.S. kind of breaks the mold of the Westphalian Treaty State, because it has no prior history and doesn’t exist as anything more than a Philosophical Grand Bargain. You can be a French nationalist, but as an American, it’s incredibly, incredibly difficult. Patriotic? Absolutely! But nationalist? It doesn’t make any more sense than being nationalist about being Methodist or which suburb your subdivision is in.
There’s always been a France – France has cave paintings some 20,000 years old – and you can sensibly ask questions about the ancient inhabitants of France. Granted, the population shifts, but it’s always been a there there. France has and will continue to exist, regardless of whether or not they are occupied by Germany, the Soviet Union, or Islam. France’s existence – as a concept – cannot be threatened by terrorism. If you replace every living Frenchman with Chinese nationals, France will have changed character, not ceased to exist. Because of this, you can say that something is ‘not-French’, but the idea of one Frenchman criticizing another Frenchman of being “anti-France†doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense the way a charge of being “anti-American†carries weight when levied by one American against another. France is a place and many other things, but doesn’t exist strongly as a philosophical concept.
In the U.S. however, we have been a concept, functionally, only since 1789. We’re not really a country, but an idea. Absent the idea of the United States, there’s not really anything, exactly, to talk about. It doesn’t make sense to ask who the ancient inhabitants of the United States were because the concept of the US doesn’t make sense before it came to exist. So, essentially, we don’t have this incredibly huge historical buffer to provide the inertia that allows one to ‘get used to terrorism’. Moreover, the US has no identity outside of its theoretical manifestation. If the body of works of the Founding Fathers is retroactively vaporized for all time, the U.S. – as the idea exists today – will disappear. There will still be a government and borders here, but after that kind of shift, the U.S. as a purely philosophical concept will have no meaning and would look a lot more the more concrete manifestations of traditional countries.
Now, if you look at the United States as an actual real Great Power – and not just a tacky agricultural backwater – we’ve only really been in that role for 100 years, if that. Half of that time was dominated by the Cold War – a world in which death no more than 30 minutes away of every waking minute. Imagine ‘sea to shining sea’ as being permanently and perpetually Death Row. Not just a Green Mile, but thousands and thousands of Green Miles. And not only was the entire notion on Death Row – placed there because of an philosophical fight-to-the-death with an implacable totalitarian enemy, but owing to MAD there was no way to conceive of a future in which the death of the United States of America was not exactly equivalent to the death of all civilization. To recap – the United States, which exists primarily as an idea, spent 50% of it’s adult life half an hour away from execution, along with the rest of all human history and achievement.
And the damning thing about it is that the only way that we were able to forestall this is by threatening, in effect, to pull the trigger first. It is an odd headspace to be in when the apotheosis of civilization can only insure its own survival through the willingness to destroy its self and all civilization. It’s like a very pregnant woman holding a gun to her stomach to take herself hostage for her demands to be met. It’s bizarre, and sick, and just wrong.
But back to the splinter and the festering boil…
When we respond to the Big Terrorist Attack with a vengeance it’s not going to be the more familiar kind of rage that occasionally marks human affairs, because it will pop this boil and it’s going to be messy and foul. Our response will, at least viscerally, be a lot more like one of those very strange temper-tantrums that children occasionally have in which they exhibit hysteric, almost superhuman strength; the kind of apocalyptic anger where it takes four adults to wrestle down an uncontrollable, teary-eyed fury, a runny-nosed rage which has taken the form of a very hurt, very angry 8 year old kid. But make no mistake – it won’t be a childish response and won’t be amenable to ice cream or spanking.
When we go this way, primed by the unhealed wounds and festering sores of 9/11 (and perhaps even Vietnam) we will snap. We look up from the craters of LA, NYC, DC, and Chicago – in the background and these images of people fleeing Manhattan on 9/11 and the Vietnam War picture of the girl running down the road in flames will combine into one horrifying spectacle on our TV screens. And believe you me – in this kind of media world, we won’t be escape the images any more than we won’t be able to escape the images of little Palestinian kids dancing in the street.
The rest of the world will gasp in horror at the terrorist attack, and shed its tears, and then give us the nod to retaliate. And we will. Again. And again. And again. And the rest of the world will start to look on in amazement and slowly, slowly turn away in abject shock and profound horror. We will make Curtis Lemay’s application of airpower against civilian targets look like Wesley Clark coordinating with NATO allies in the Kosovo Air War.
Our appetite for blood will be nigh well unquenchable. That’s what will kill us. We will drink and drink until we’re full and it won’t slake our thirst. And we’ll drink more until our organs burst and split and we start to hemorrhage internally. Then we’ll start throwing it all up – every last drop we drank. But because we’re bleeding internally now, we’ll continue to vomit up black blood until we die.
I suppose the best way I can approximate it in less dramatic terms, is that we will respond on such a scale that we won’t be able to reconcile the mass carnage with the concept of the United States as it stands.
Sure, there will be a country here, borders and all that, but that response will break our souls. Remember what I said earlier about France – you can change the government but France – as a thing – will still exist. The United States can’t change its entire existence that rapidly and radically and remain the United States.
It may sound silly, but think back – as far as Osama is concerned, Islam destroyed the Soviet Union through the Afghan War. Sure, there’s a Russia there – but the Soviet Union? At this point, it’s just a historical entity. While the mechanics of our destruction will be radically different – the US before and after that disastrous future day of carnage will bear as little relation to each other as do the Berlin of 1989 and 1939. It may be, as Ric Locke suggested in correspondence:
It is entirely possible that, as we react to violent acts against us, we might see a merger—philosophical, if not physical—between Child Protective Services and Homeland Security. The result would make the Gestapo look like a Girl Scout troop; NKVD and okhrana veterans would be green-eyed in slack-jawed envy. It’d be crackerjack at fending off terrorist attacks, though, and would have no compunction at genocide if it should consider such measures necessary.
We might become the For Serious World Conquering Imperialists we’re so often accused of being. We might start applying the “I’ll give you something to really cry about, you dumb bitch!†theory of domestic relations to our interactions with the rest of the world. We might rip ourselves to shreds in a paroxysm of self-loathing rage, and unassailable guilt. We could really start a Total War against Islam around the world – and don’t think the slaughter of 1.1 billion individuals is impossible, or that we could never be crazy enough with pain and rage to try. Or that we could never be consumed with enough guilt after something like that to want to turn the metaphorical gun on ourselves. I don’t know what will happen. I just don’t. I don’t know, but it does scare the crap out of me.
We can’t really see beyond this particular event horizon, but I can sure as hell tell you that beyond that point there is no more “United States of America†that would make sense to any of our grandparents – heck, there’s a good chance that we won’t be able to recognize it.
So, yes, we will lose the War on Terror – but not in any sort of way that’s obvious. Islam will succeed in destroying the United States – something else will rise in its place, but the United States of then and now will not be the same beasts. I fear, however, that the attendant destruction visited upon the Islamic world in the process will not be metaphorical in the slightest.
Will post this later.
Well.
FWIW, ever since I turned on the TV on that clear blue early autumn day in 2001 and watched the carnage and felt the pure, unadulterated rage and helplessness and anguish, I have had just one visceral, ubiquitous fearful feeling that haunts me to this very day, this moment: What happens after they hit us again? What happens when NY, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, or LA is a smoking, radioactive crater? What then?
Thought-provoking. Makes one wonder what we’d be truly capable of if the provocation were great enough.
Consider a comparison:
I’ve heard it said that the best evidence that the Russians are at heart a compassionate people is the simple fact that after what they did to the Soviet Union in WWII there are still Germans left alive today. After all, examine what we did to the Japanese after Pearl Harbor – chased them all the way across the Pacific, firebombed their cities into ashes and nuked them twice – all in payback for their bombing of a remote naval base in a place that wasn’t even a state back in December, 1941.
Hold onto that thought for a moment, and imagine what we’d have done to the Japanese if they’d have done to us something like what the Germans did to the Russians in 1941-42: invaded the US west coast all the way up to the Rockies, and murdered 10 million people in the places they’d occupied … Bill Halsey’s remark after Pearl Harbor to the effect of, “By the time we’re finished, the Japanese language will only be spoken in Hell” wouldn’t necessarily sound so hyperbolic, would it?
But I wonder … there’s a big difference between the WWII generation of Americans and the current generation. They weren’t wallowing around feeling guilty about who and what they were. They weren’t ashamed of themselves, their government, their society and their way of life. Present the “Greatest Generation” with what it perceived as an existential threat, and they knew how to win a total war to eradicate that threat.
But today? Given that a large percentage of our population and one of our two political parties seem comfortable with, if not enthusiastic for our defeat less than six years after 9/11, do we really still have the capability to wage, not to mention win, a total war?
I’m not so sure.
I don’t think so, BRD.
What do you think the last 5+ years have been about?
I think it has been about appropriate response.
We got fooled one.
Never again.
Spurious,
I’m not the greatest WWII era historian, but I don’t know that the Russian people had a vote on the fate of the Germans. Stalin had a vote, maybe Molotov and a few others. I think their “mercy” for the Germans was more a function of exhaustion and consolidating their gains in eastern Europe than of compassion. Anne Applebaum’s fabulous book, Gulag, documents that a huge number of German troops that were overrun on the eastern front were either executed on the spot or sent to the Gulags, never to be seen again. I don’t remember the numbers, as it’s been a while since I read the book, but I want to say that estimats are that the number of German prisoners that were not repatriated runs into the hundreds of thousands.
I agree with most of the rest of your post though. I worry that the current generation of Americans has developed to much of an entitlement mentality to turn and fight, until possibly it’s too late. And generally I’m an optomist.
Lo, an example speaks. There will always be someone ready to lash one of our hands behind our backs.
Oh, and those of us who have been in OEF or OIF have learned to differentiate between the desire for dead bad guys and making the rubble of Berlin or Tokyo a bit smaller.
“a” being the example…not Sticky.
For fuck’s sake alphie.
The last 5+yrs has been about forestalling “appropriate response”.
We’ve seen some of what the savages are capable of. Just as we saw some of what the Axis was capable of in the yrs ‘35-39. They were allowed the freedom to do something so stupidly heinous that the approriate response was national near-destruction. Our Islamic enemies have been working up to something a thousand times worse than Pearl Harbor or Guernica for almost 30 yrs. The appropriate response to the coming attack will be much, much worse than nuking a couple of medium cities with low yield weapons. We just might do genocide.
I want you to remember that I said this: Should it come to that, the blood of the dead from both sides will be on YOUR hands. You and every other moron who for whatever reason has no comprehension of human nature whatsoever. None.
Exactly, MJ, alphie does not realize how much his behavior increases the likelihood of BRD’s fears.
Speaking of an example.
LeMay was a scociopath, a self admitted war criminal.
There is little doubt that a certain part of American society is willing to slaughter masses of people on the scantiest evidence (or none at all).
I think we’d forgotten that, but now we remember and will keep them in check even if we are hit again.
You’re a fool every waking moment of your life.
Alphie’s high.
Again.
I came to the very same conclusion recently, BRD.
Do you seriously think for one second that if, say San Francisco were hit with a nuclear weapon, and that all that was left was a smoking radioactive crater, that the American people would, what, stand for it?
You are a fucking moron, alpo.
Spurious and Sticky-
The difference between the WWII fight and the “Future Fight” that BRD describes is that we now have easily deployed and highly lethal nuclear weapons- on the order of 10,000 of them (if I’m not mistaken).
So our rage could be so deep that we “lay on the floor like an 8 year old pitching a fit” for a day or two- but in that day or two, much of the Islamic world could or would cease to exist.
Yikes.
Wake up solider. We will not lose the war on terror. Oh there will be a slap down for our arrogance and laziness in not staying sharp–but when that happens Fat Rosie (if she is not killed in some massive bomb blast) will start liking Bush again. Then we will get serious again. It is human nature.
Plus I can see those 9/11 highjackers down below in the lower depths of hell. Where I am , I am drinking a neat bourbon right now and Winston is working on his second bottle of scotch and is smoking a big stogie. Mohammed Atta is getting reamed in the ass by a flatulent demon.
Stand for it, N.O.?
I doubt it.
But we will be much more careful deciding who’s responsible and what we’ll do about it next time.
Name me one Democrat who’s fucking serious about, well, anything.
Dick.
BRD;
A serious post.
“Moreover, the US has no identity outside of its theoretical manifestation.”
This seems the salient feature of your piece.
We are a nation of laws. If we sidestep or circumvent those laws in the interest of (insert
your private or public interest here) don’t WE, cease to exist?
“We can’t really see beyond this particular event horizon,”
The stellar phenomenon you reference is apt. If the gravitas of National Identity becomes egocentricity, can light escape it’s pull?
The singularity is both preserver and destroyer.
Our orbit is degrading every waking minute.
alphie: Point to one statement by the US government where we wrongfully decided who was responsible for 9/11 (ie. I’m assuming you are tying in the decision to take out Saddam who nobody in the Bush administration ever argued was behind 9/11).
Historical revisionism doesn’t work here. Try again.
How soon we forget, Alan.
Here’s 5D Dick making just such a claim.
Historical revisionism doesn’t work here. Try again.
Right back attcha.
BRD –
You lost me when you started talking about how we’ll cease to exist as “America” because we reacted too strongly.
What’s “too strong” when the enemy is the party to the fight that declared death preferrable to defeat?
We listen to news reports out of Iraq (sometimes it’s Afghanistan or Israel)every single day that have an obligatory “X number of (shia pilgrims/Jewish civilians/US or coalition or contractor personnel) died today as a result of a (VBIED/suicide bomber)”.
It’s going on five years now. DAILY. Four or five kids collecting soccer balls and candy here, some kid from Kansas walking an alley there, Jordanians attending a wedding, a hundred Iraqis waiting to sign up for the IP or just a construction job.
Every fucking day. Ten, twenty, a hundred or more. And for WHAT?
The enemy generates the attacks. The enemy understands that right now we’re not fighting to win. The enemy are the only people on the planet other than the Democrats that think that a US withdrawl will benefit them in the long term. They aren’t just barbarians, they are even more ignorant that Nacy Pelosi and John Murtha.
On the duplicity scale, it’s gotta be called a tie…
The enemy is state supported fundamentalist Islam. Who says there has to be a winner or a loser in our lifetime? I’ll just tell you this: as long as states use Islamist terror to vent their own failed nations/cultures/societies, there will be honor killings, Beslans, and WTC’s enough to keep any number of NGO’s and Leftoids blaming America for everything.
Anybody who carries a concealed weapon (should) knows that his/her ONE option in a life or death situation is to STOP the THREAT.
We haven’t even NAMED the threat. Not as a nation. In this time of miracles we live in there may well be a new and novel way of stopping this assault on civilization. A soft way. It might happen.
If a larger portion of Western Civ’s richest and most blessed weren’t living in their self-loathing navels, maybe we’d be able to rely on Media to carry some of the load… for the Soft Way.
Nah. The killing goes on. And half of America’s polity roots for the barbarians.
A cookie for the person who posts the correct victory condition as recognized by either side, infidel or Islamic, who fought the last four rounds in the Islamic war against civilization.
What did it take for a territory to be “won”?
The hour99 of decision is… way the hell down the road. Sadly.
Here’s 5D Dick making just such a claim.
Is it worth responding to this dishonest fool? No, it is not.
But for the benefit of the kiddies at home, I’ll just point out that “had ties to al-Qaeda” and “was behind 9/11”, are not the same thing.
Shut the fuck up, Donny..er..alphie.
I disagree with BRD because I don’t believe he sees exactly what drove the Greatest Generation’s response to Pearl Harbor.
The Jacksonian concept of American visceral response to what they see as immoral war practices is one I feel colors every war the US has fought in. It’s why the Greatest Generation responded with the fervor and bore the sacrifices that they did. America’s Jacksonian response was to fight the war with total focus and total resolve and with no slightest thought of failure, but, and this is vital to understand, with a limited scope of what the end result should be.
Japan would be defeated. End of story. No doubt. No half measures. Including the bomb. But that’s where it stopped. No genocide. Bull Halsey might throw out the soundbites to roaring approval, but it was never in the man to see Japan utterly destroyed. Patton might do the same half a world away, but when the Germans were beaten, that was the end of it. No scorched earth in Japan or Germany. Just remove the threat. Make damn sure the bully is knocked flat. Then go about your business.
Had Roosevelt made the first move and attacked the Japanese directly and they responded with an attack on Pearl, the war would have been very different. We would have probably knocked them back to the home islands, but stopped short of knocking them flat. The same Jacksonian mindset would have been, ‘Well, ok, we came against you and you won a couple of rounds. Fair enough. We won the fight in the end, but you had a point. No need to embarrass you in front of the wife and kids. There’s an end to it.”
We were able to walk away from Vietnam because the nation could not see the war as justifiable. It did not meet the Jacksonian definition. It didn’t until after we left SE Asia when the gulags were set up in Vietnam and the killing fields in Cambodia. And by then it wasn’t a matter of standing by and letting it happen. We’d figuratively and literally gone home to go about our own business.
It may happen again in Iraq.
The Jacksonian response to 9/11, the expression of that deep and abiding trait in American character, was in the roll back of the Taliban and AlQ in Afghanistan. It isn’t in us to kick Islam when it’s down (and if anyone cares to recall the mood in the mideast capitals – the core of Islam – after he US rolled through Afghanistan, they were down. Shocked and scared silly).
We may walk away from Iraq if the BDS crowd has it’s way. It would be stupid and shortsighted and leave us open to future grief but it’s possible. Some very smart folks have been looking to the future and attempting something there that might prevent that grief and they might succeed despite the plethora of useful idiots. Hope so. But it’s a cerebral and diplomatic initiative, not a visceral Jacksonian response, and the public, while it might approve, won’t let it interfere with business if it gets out of hand.
So I think that while staying in Iraq long enough to leave a stable house behind us when we leave is important, it isn’t going to end the threat of terrorism. We aren’t the kind of nation to do what horrific things that would require at this point.
On the other hand, we aren’t the sort of nation that would do those horrific things when the inevitable next strike on us happens. Jacksonian ideals would prevent it. We’d come down like the Hammer of God on whoever was responsible with no thought of stopping until the bully was down, but though the response implacable, the scope would be limited.
That’s the way we are. If we weren’t, they’d be no Japan. They’d be no Germany. Patton would have rolled into Russia behind a curtain of Lemay’s bombers.
Alphie, you’d be more impressive if you bothered to read the things you link to. At no point in that article does it identify any administration official who said that Saddam was responsible for 9/11; Cheney said that there were ties between al Qaeda and Saddam’s regime, but did not say that Saddam’s regime was responsible. We know who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks: al Qaeda. They said so themselves.
More apocolyptic drivel from the Chicken Little brigade.
BDR
I understand your paranoia given the current partisan atmosphere in the country, but in the event of an attack of the magnitude you invision I believe that much of the divide would evaporate, if only for enough time to make the response by our military meaningful and decisive. Obviously our response would need to be focused on the perpetuators of the attack. Our response would not necessarily need to be an in kind attack(i.e. nculear for nuclear)although I would not be opposed to that if the circumstances showed that a nuclear attack would eliminate any future attacks on us. In todays terrorist based threat environment probably a tough call. But, a blood lust reaction? I don’t think so. I’m not seeing proff of that in your argument. I’m probably more inclined to see a sense of nationalism in our country, not a bad nationalism, but a good one. The French parallel escapes me because they have had nothing to be proud of for too many years.
With the possible exception of alphie and his like minded lemmings, most Americans have recent and ongoing reasons for their sense of pride in our country.
Rick Smith
BRD,
I too occasionally look at what may come about or feel sickened by the antics of those who oppose the war today & think that there is no way in hell we can ever win or inspire the level of progress that it will surely take to begin real socio-political reform in the darkened corners of the world or address those undeveloped recessions of the soul of man. I look at the conflict in the Middle East, then I see what awaits the world in Africa & the horror that is most of South America or Asia & I feel overwhelmed & wonder will there ever be a point when the real concepts & actions of civility will encompass anything more then what seems to be the last & only bastion of hope, the West or possibly America. It seems & feels like we have nothing more then outright fighting & struggle ahead for countless generations, only to encounter some new conflict or circumstance to re-open old or cause new wounds. Its then that I look at a generation of Americans that lived through, God only knows how, the Great Depression, the Civil War, WWI or WWII & not only rebounded, but decided that they would recreate the world in a better image & set out to do just that. Its then that I look at my father’s generation & the men & women who answered the call of duty & went, fought & died in Vietnam only to survive & come back to a country who not only questioned their actions, but ignored their sacrifices outright & branded them criminals. It then that the actions of George Washington & the utter hopelessness that the Revolutionary Army must have felt, daily, that inspires me. The feeling of hopelessness & dread for what, temporarily, seems as the evitable outcome has always besieged those caught in the beginning or middle of dramatic & possible world changing events, but history, especially American History, has shown us time & time again that we eventually overcome it, purge it or use it to fuel or propel us further. Whether it is the examples of the Washington’s march on Christmas Eve, the Battle of the Bulge, the Boston Tea Party, the response of the firemen, police or general citizenry on 9/11, Americans seems to be their best when things seem the darkest.
It is this characteristic that separates us from the French you use an example. Sure, France has always been there, but unlike France, America was earned, tamed & manufactured. Its whole is more than the sum of any tradition or happenstance of locality. It is the fact that America is a concept which requires birth & rebirth, action, hard work, struggle, sacrifice & all of the other characteristics that define character within a person or a generation. It is this concept, applied to reality & fueled by man’s natural instinct or desire for survival that allows America to sometimes appear, if not be horrible, brutal or childish, & at the same time or in the span of a second be worthy, heroic & strong simultaneously. It is the fact that this nation or most representative governments in general, are made up of & reflect the individuals who constitute not only the citizens of a nation, but define themselves first by their own actions, beliefs & stances taken to survive. The product is more than an accepted culture or series of beliefs, it is man at his best & most humane.
While a large part of the US may or may not recognize the events or beliefs that allowed or led to 9/11, this malaise has unfortunately always been so – going back to the very formation of the country. But that is not what has ever defined us. I repeat, THAT IS NOT WHAT HAS EVER DEFINED US! It has always been the actions of the few trailblazers or those individuals that saw a different way or something to fight for that has always led the way through the rough & tough dark times. Why would now be any different? It is the shouldering of the hard work or the facing of the sickened reality that has defined us throughout the ages & what has tallied our successes & utter failures.
This is the struggle that each of us must shoulder, accept the burden of & face in order for us to not only progress or to merely survive, but for us to be Americans & live up to & match, to earn that title of being an American. So what if the majority of them do not see it? It is & will always be the act of an American or Americans, simply being American, that will inevitably force us to move forward – whether alone or en masse – & that will carry us through these troubling times.
Korea was a stalemate, Vietnam was a political excuse of an exit & yet the Berlin Wall still fell. Britain was the most powerful military & political force on the planet, yet “The Shot Heard Around the World†was still fired.
All that I can say is please do still acknowledge the worst, but never accept it or sell your hope for something as paltry as the future as you have envisioned here today. Use that potential image of the world to fuel the courage it will take to prevent it & no matter what the outcome, you & I at the end of the day will be all that we can be, simply Americans… nothing more & nothing less. It’s that concept & birthright that will keep us on course no matter how rough the seas & its lack of that, will always plague the likes of France whose self concept id defined in location or region. And if you think that the other side has anything near as valuable or rewarding to offer than that, then take a deep breathe, relax & re-focus brother, because they offer nothing more than stagnation or death – be it politically, economically, spiritually or materially. As Americans that may be the immediate result, but it will never be what defines or makes us what we are or have been.
It is the concept of us that not only separates us from everyone else, but inherently drives our success. It is the lack of self concept or identity that has always lead to the down fall or failure of the likes of the French – where the mere survival of the location or region marks their identity.
There is a middle ground, a harsh one, that Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame alluded to a few years back (with his characteristic wry humor):
(my emphasis)
That’s another way of saying, “You keep calling us colonialists and sending murderers our way, and we’ll show you real colonialism.”
TW:true92. Dammit, Jeff, does the ‘dillo make these Turing words up on the fly or something?
Alphie, your incompetence used to be endearing.
alphie:
What did LeMay do to get on your shit list?
Save the cheerleader, save the world.
Just because LeMay was nuts doesn’t mean he wasn’t right.
He ran the Air Force during the Cold War on war footing, because he was one of the few who understood we WERE at war. The age of modern warfare and the implacability of the totalitarian foe made it that way. We could no longer afford the peacetime complacency, like pre-WWII. We had to be ready, at any time, to turn the enemy into radioactive grit. If we weren’t, we would have been toast.
BRD – In general as someone pointed out, a thought provoking post.
– The senario you set, in connection with the condition of MAD is not correct. We were like a pregnent woman whose own baby is being threatened, along with herself, and she arranges to hold an even larger, ultimately destructive weapon over ALL of the enemy. Shoot if you must, but know its your end without mercy. Quite a different proposition from that which you postulated, and in no way a willingness to self destruct. In fact it was very directly ment to do exactly what it accomplished, that is, to present the enemy with a personally unacceptable, and total loss result, should they be stupid enough to act.
– A better analogy would be the Elliot Ness offense. If they beat up one of yours, put 6 of their’s in the hospital for an extended stay. If they kill one of yours, you take out a complete group of them with extreme prejudice.
– Incidently, some of the people who were envolved would later say that the very idea that all of Russia, probably all of Europe, would vanish, but a possibility existed that some small cadre of Westerners would survive, played heavily in the USSR decision making. Simply put, something they could not bring themselves to be responsible for with any amount of rationilization.
– There are other aspects of the post that would bear alternate interpretations, but just to cut to the chase, we will not lose the WOT, we will absorb it, and yes in doing so, will change as a nation, which is what America does. Adaptibility, that which we possess as our greatest “secret”, and greatest strength. Not only the ability to adjust, but the mandate to do so, as a fundemental tenet of the core idea experiment called “America”.
In his recent book, novelist Nelson DeMille outlines a strategy called “Wildfire”, under which the US gov’t has made it clear to the leaders of the Islamic nations of the ME that any nuclear or biological attack within the US will be met immediately by a devestating nuclear attack on Mecca, Medina, Tehran, Damascus and every other city of any size or importance with the Arab world.
In this scenario, a form of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, has been determined and committed to by the US policy makers which would turn most of the population centers of the Islamic world into radioactive wastelands.
This strategy would make it imperative for the Arab leaders of the ME to rat out the radicals within their midst and devulge any plans that may be brewing within the various Islamic Fundamentalist groups that their own intelligence services have undoubtably infilitrated, or risk their own destruction.
Could this be one of the reasons that we’ve not experienced another domestic terrorist attack in the US since 9/11?
I think this part is where I have trouble following the bouncing ball here.
If our reaction manifests along the lines of becoming the “For Serious World Conquering Imperialists we’re so often accused of being,” and it’s quite imaginable, then China, Russia, France will have anticipated this as well. My tentative guess would be that we would find the Middle East quickly partitioned, with at least each member-state of the UN Security Council staking a claim.
pvrwc – That example captures the purpose, and tactics of MAD perfectly.
– In the origibal playground showdown, the line in the sand was actually drawn in the sands of Cuba, albeit, not to the degree that would later be achieved.
– The politoburo “got it”. Kruschev did not, and became an early MAD casualty.
PVRWC
Who knows? But, the way I remember the book it was the bad guys that hijacked a defense iniative and tried to make it happen with no justification
other than personal motives.
I’ve not found DeMille to be overly left oriented, probably a sign of the times for fiction writers.
Rick Smith
BRD –
I’ve had the same dream. It always ends the same way – no more Islam, and the rest of the world turned against us for the hell we unleashed.
I said to a friend recently that if Islam doesn’t undergo some form of reformation and get rid of their apocalyptic strain, then Islam will not last out my lifetime.
Considering that 20% of the population of the planet would have to evaporate to make that come true, it’s quite a terrifying dream to have. Maybe it’s a nightmare instead?
Great, now I’ll never fall27 asleep.
After his first post in this thread, I thought, “Holy crap! I agree with Alphie!” Then I read further down and realized he meant that no one would be as stupid as Bushco the next time, so I felt better about disagreeing with BRD. And believe me, I disagree respectfully.
BRD, you and everyone who finds your nightmare scenario plausible has been reading way too much apocalyptic science fiction. I am reminded of a short story I read during the Cold War. The gist was that the Russians had invented a bomb that destroyed infrastructure but didn’t kill people, while the Americans had devised a bomb that killed people and left infrastructure intact. The World turned away in horror and disgust, Canada built a fenced corridor to allow all the naked Yanks to walk to Russia. Once they got there they started to adapt to the existing Soviet infrastructure, started calling each other “Comrade” and showed that it was the Communists who won the Cold War since there were no more Americans anymore, just Sovietized people living in Russia.
You guys give the groups we are fighting way too much credit. It would take a nation-state to deal the kind of blow you are describing. No, I obviously don’t believe that they can get their hands on even one nuke, let alone enough to take out the four most important cities in America. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, they manage to slip ONE bomb in. A nation-state would not be able to hide its involvement. The Ryan Doctrine (see Clancy’s Executive Orders) would come into play. Pinpoint, unambiguous targeting of the responsible regime would serve to Gaddafi-ize the rest of the players. Collateral victims will be mourned alongside our own dead, and we will move onward and upward.
I have way too much faith in the American people and our moral resilience than to believe otherwise.
Jo Blo – welcome to the side of the ostriches, whose dereliction will necessitate such a response.
Lack of response to the embassy takeover led to the Beirut Marine barracks bombing. That in turn led to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Failure to finish that off led to the disaster in Somalia, and cut&run there led directly to the first WTC bombing and the Dhahran attack. Failure to respond to that led to the African embassy bombings (with several hundred injured, but you probably missed that since most of them were black, like the Sudanese Christians being slaughtered in Darfur) and failure to respond to the embassy bombings led directly to 9/11.
Fail to finish Iraq this time around and Iraq and the tinpot pissant dictators of the ME will come away from it with greatly strengthened hands. BTW, if you didn’t notice it, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, Pak has them, Iran will soon, and Saudi – that great funder of Salafist terror – has indicated it is going to build them.
Oh well. Like Duncan Black said – if anybody pulled that shit, Fuck em. We’d nuke ‘em to oblivion. Guess he’s one of your pants pissing chicken littles too, eh tough guy?
Perfect, BRD. I know precisely of this sense—call it an inescapable, instinctive flow. I know it from another field of endeavor and it’s immensely painful, painful in proportion to eventually finding out, as you already know you are, that you’re right when you’d do anything to deny you were. (Denial being the provinance of moonbat pissants that can pop up in threads like this—ridden with that denial, unable to control their massive egos as they slather it over their fear.)
The point being trajectory. That trajectory is writ in history yet to be fulfilled. The mental experiment proves the model and the model does not conflict either reason or history. Not much to argue against it, is there?
The irony is that in this play, even resisting what must be resisted, as the Bush Administration shows us, adds to the inevitability of that trajectory. There are and have been no good choices. I doubt even MAD will deter what’s coming. In fact, MAD enables it.
We’ve collectively known it would come to this for years, decades, perhaps, when you include the history of the mideast, centuries. Efforts to squelch it only feed it, but pacifism feeds it more.
I suppose there’s a grim consistency—the only one I can lay a finger on—in the Left simultaneously invoking the perceived indefinite resilience and faithfulness of a system of constitutional law during time of national crisis while simultaneously thinking this threat isn’t capable of what you imply, correctly, it certainly is. Of course, that fantasy stands in abrupt contrast to all their cries against national security measures since 2001, but then that’s the damnable American Left.
One thing’s for certain, much as that pathetic, mewling, self-absorbed NPR went stone-cold reality-based for about five short weeks following 9/11, there’ll be a similar sentiment in the days, weeks, and yes, months and years following the Big One, just as you intuit. This time it won’t end.
It’ll happen and when it does, not one of those fools will have the integrity to stop grovelling and finally wish to God they’d never thought and said what they did back in 2002 or 2004 or 2007.
Bravo Romeo Delta:
Interesting essay. I think I disagree with you, but it’s thought-provoking. I like JohnAnnArbor’s Scott Adams quote.
I agree with you that things are going to get very ugly before this is through. I also believe we’ll do what we have to do to win, and somehow hang onto the American soul while doing it.
N. O’Brain asks: “Name me one Democrat who’s fucking serious about, well, anything.” Right now I’d agree that the Democrats are profoundly unserious about heading off the nightmare scenario. I think a huge majority of them will become serious if (a) the war escalates to the point where our survival hangs in the balance; and (b) even they can no longer choose to believe that we’re overreacting; that the threat is being hyped by Republicans with something to gain.
My main objection to them is that, taken as a party, they want to wait until we get to that point.
I disagree with BRD’s prognostication. Unlike our enemies, we are not cowards. Yes, we will probably end up fighting a “real war” that will make our enemies understand that religion is bullshit, but I am still of the assumption that we will still be against any longterm occupation or “imperialism”.
Brian
There are probably people in the Middle East trying to bring a sense of sanity to the masses, much as we have people in this country trying to address the now generational quagmire that the Afro-American culture has fallen into thanks to the welfare policy of the Democrats. We can hope that the sane and responsible voices will be heard, but the mainstream discourse, both here and abroad, on both issues, is not being given a fair hearing. Maybe a true ‘truth to power’ speaker will appear someday and restart thinking on a more rational path. Wouldn’t hold my breath though.
Rick Smith
JPS – You understate the problem with the Democrats. They are fundamentally unserious about everything.
Literally everything. Financial policy, education, defense, health, infrastructure, liberty. There is not one item of any importance upon which a Democrat has a serious position.
All they have is hate. Hatred of civilization, hatred of freedom, hatred of success, hatred of wealth. Hatred of self.
Listen to the Democratic policy-makers. You can hear the self-hate in their voices. See it in their eyes. I used to think they were socialists, or communists, or fascists. I’m starting to realize that they are perfect nihilists.
TW: Unserious – especially about money82. HOW DOES IT KNOW?
Put me down somewhere between Rickinstl and General Patton.
I do not quite forsee the metamorphosis envisioned by BRD. I can think of no historical precedent for such a transformation. The west, like most cultures, has a vast capability for turning a blind eye to it’s own shortcomings, especially once they are safely in the past. Genocide is nothing new.
In a worst case scenario I see the west falling like most empires have, out of inertia and decadence. I find this unlikely, because for all of our recent bouts with junk philosphy and self-doubt we still possess the greatest levels of initiative and creativity ever displayed by humanity. Yes we are a few dozen nukes from the early industrial age, but we know the way back home.
More likely I see the west learning hard lessons about the costs associated with discounting the earnestness of your enemy or over indulging the infantilism of certain segments of your own populace. I fear that the internal response would be the darkest part of our reckoning.
The main issue I have with BRD’s scenario is this idea that the US will still be a single polity after having “killed its own soul”.
IMO the real danger is civil war, which would explode shortly after this “very angry 8 year old kid” starts lobbing bombs. This is because the 9/11 “splinter” went into flesh already a touch feverish with faction after the 2000 elections, thanks to Al Gore.
I disagree with BRD’s prognostication. Unlike our enemies, we are not cowards. Yes, we will probably end up fighting a “real war†that will make our enemies understand that religion is bullshit, but I am still of the assumption that we will still be against any longterm occupation or “imperialismâ€Â.
I hope you are right, RoA—and more, I hope that we can do it without ripping ourselves apart or killing our soul.
NPR would definitely have to go.
BRD: I’ve generally liked your stuff in the year or so of reading political blogs like this one but I have to say that I disagree this time.
Now, this was a long piece and has generated many long responses. So I have to reduce things down, and perhaps not do justice to the proceedings. But let me try to some up the argument (I have already seen versions of this argument):
1. The United States might win the WOT in two ways. One, (this is the usual), by lacking the will to fight, and/or (and this is a major distinction), lacking the willingness to kill.
2. A willingness to kill means inter alia a willingness to kill hecatombs of bad guys. This covers everything from relaxed ROE’s to nuking the crap out of everyone.
3. The novelty of your argument here, is that you have taken the last point to the logical conclusion of destroying ourselves through a rage-response, “destroying our souls.”
Since this came in a dream-state, I cut some slack. But what I see it as, above all, is unprocessed rage for 9/11. I felt the same way in September, 2001. I won’t go into any personal feelings, just say that, I wanted to visit a terrible vengeance on Islam.
Some practical objections:
a. Nuclear deterrence still exists on a state-state level. No state will ever nuke the US because they know they will be nuked in return.
b. Nuclear deterrence does NOT exist on a state-TO (terrorist organization) level. The reason, clearly, is that we can’t just nuke Tora Bora or some such.
c. Most TO’s in the Arab world exist outside of state power. They may be funded by agencies of various state powers, but they exist and are able to function because the actual physical space they inhabit is not controlled by whatever state they inhabit.
d. Therefore, if you nuke, say, Afghanistan, you might kill the terrorists, but you will also destroy the infrastructure of the state that you NEED to control the space to prevent terrorists from setting up their little camps. That, BTW, was an error of OIF: we didn’t have a plan for securing the ground properly post-invasion.
e. Of course, if a state is successful in controlling it’s territory, THEN that state can be held responsible for international terrorists in their midst. Otherwise, there’s no point in taking it out on a state.
f. It stands to reason that, the future security of the United States depends first on ensuring security throughout the Arab world, so that either (a) Al Qaeda has no place to hide, or (b) if a government actively supports them, THEN we can overthrow them.
g. Generally, the disenchantment of the US seems to be limited to Iraq. I never encounter anyone who objected to Afghanistan. In the way you phrase it, one can see why: if the security of the US is the main priority, then overthrowing dictators and establishing democracy is at least a step or two away from establishing security.
h. Now, I realize you see all of this as a continuum, I don’t, but we both agree that we shouldn’t leave Iraq now, so I am just bracketing off that disagreement.
i. Keep in mind that 9/11 was a decidedly low-tech affair. I doubt if anything like that will happen again. However, a mass killing scenario is CONCEIVABLE under one other option, and that is via some kind of WMD.
j. OK. WMD’s that are biologically or chemically based presuppose technology. So it’s up to our government to track the production of precursors of chemical and/biological WMD’s. Chemical WMD’s I think are less likely, the most lethal are complex, don’t keep particularly well, and, most importantly, would require large quantities (likely much more than TO’s could acquire) to kill thousands. Plus the antidotes to most nerve gases are relatively simple.
k. Biological warfare is much more to be feared, in my mind, and could, via, say, a smallpox epidemic, could wreak havoc. But, here again, there are antidotes.
l. The real threat then—the real threat that conjures this idea—is of a nuclear weapon. Supposedly our intelligence tracks this stuff. Rocket delivery is not likely. Ship container—conceivable. Yet at the same time, we could control the introduction of any kind of nuclear device simply by controlling our borders and our ports. Why don’t we do that, since that is the easiest way to protect ourselves? I don’t know.
m. If a nuke does go off in the US, it will probably follow the pattern we saw in “24” but with greater loss of life. Three things can be predicted. #1 The country would be placed under martial law, #2 We would finally close and control our borders, and #3 we would retaliate.
n. I seriously doubt we would retaliate by nuking anyone. Although we might use such a blast as a pretext for bombing Iran. But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of nukes out in the world, and if we start firing them, who’s to stop someone else?
o. That is why I see your response as a kind of expression of unprocessed rage. We are, collectively, only 5% of the world’s population. We can’t just go about bombing the rest of the world into oblivion. No POTUS of the United States would ever give those kinds of orders.
p. If we are that concerned about the Arab world, then we have to arm. We have to re-militarize our culture and we have to have an acceptable message as to why that is necessary. Right now, the American people aren’t buying it because the message isn’t there. If we had such a message, if our armed forces and our economy were truly on a war footing, then we could invade this or that country in the Middle East (including, if necessary, Iran) with overwhelming force and forcibly control our Empire (I do not say that pejoratively.)
q. But I think the idea that the American people will just go with the flow—as they are now mostly doing—only to be galvanized after some future TO attack to nuke millions of Moslems is just not going to translate into reality.
r. To get the US on board, you have to give them a specific enemy and a specific reason why they have to sacrifice what they have to defeat that specific enemy. So far, we aren’t getting that. When we get that, then maybe we’ll get there.
You’re right. We’re a Jacksonian nation. And if Jacksonians get hit hard enough, they will go into “not enough room on this planet” mode in a heartbeat.
And although I agree that the experience will affect us profoundly, it won’t destroy us. With any luck, the destruction we rain down will be limited to a single nation. Les autres seront encouragés.
With a lot of luck, the next time we get hit it will be below this threshold, but still be enough to force us to get our wits about us and deal with the enemy before they manage to initiate catastrophe.
yours/
peter.
The most depressing post ever. I always had faith in you, for some dumb reason.
We’re a Jacksonian nation
-Peter Jackson
No personal bias there, eh?
Careful, BRD. The last time someone (Tancredo) started talking about “The Big Payback” in the wake of a WMD attack against the US, the “women” got nervous.
Disclaimer: I’m an actual woman.
Apocalypse Now (1979):
Picture of Cheney + “Hussien” / “9/11” in next paragraph = Bush Lied.
The alphagarean Theorem
Biological attacks are being underplayed here. Remember we have no precedent here by which to gauge how we’ll handle that – from a response perspective or on a societal level. It’s a known unknown.
Props I think to pvrwc for mentioning it, and Steve takes note but downplays it with:
and
The technology to bio-engineer contagions is more a function of determination than sophistication. I think we all know a lot of this on an intellectual level, but the extent to which it is left undiscussed – both in the present context and generally – is a significant correlative of how savagely traumatizing such an attack would be, even if the attack were only fractionally as catastrophic as a nuclear detonation.
Someone’s daughter died in their arms covered in pussy runny bloody sores. THEY did it. The contagion is among us, it could surface anywhere. THEY unleashed it. We don’t have enough nukes to make that right, as you hear your daughter in the living room, softly coughing.
I think the biggest barrier, happy, is who, exactly would we attack with our nuclear tantrum?
Our Saudi allies?
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, maybe?
Hard to believe we’d just start nuking random countries no matter how upset we were.
Steve,
Might I suggest an exercise? Go back through your post and identify every time you implicity, or explicity describe what the state/government must do.
Then consider that we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. What happens to that concept when all those ‘must do’s’ are left undone and the people suffer the consequences?
Might this not cause you to reconsider some things?
We very well can, and we very well might. When the choice is anarchy here or carnage over there the powers that be will choose expediently. Our unwillingness to acknowledge this potential may very well hasten its occurence.
I saw a photo on a blog the other day. It was at a base, I’d assume. It was of a dry erase board with half of the frame catching a soldier’s silloutte in the background. It wasn’t one of those artsy, intentional half cuts that are posed for dramatic effect. It was more like a quick grabbed cell phone camera shot. The only thing on the wipe board was the statement: “America is not at war. The Marines are at war; America is at the mall.”
I don’t think that’s all togather true. Personally, I’ve never been to New York. I’ve never seen ground zero. I don’t know anyone killed in the 9/11 attack. Today, however, I have family and friends in places on the other side of the globe doing the same thing my father did in Vietnam, or my Uncle’s in Korea or my grandafthers in Europe and Wake Island.
Slice the politics any way you want. Global, national or even local. They fought against the same things: ideas. Nazism, socialism or communism. All three wars started different ways, all three attacked our same cause: Individual Freedom.
I think the American response to any future tragdey has the potential to be incredibly devastating. We have the capability to do that for sure. Despite the bemoaned situational moralism and relativism of cultural equivelence, I have little doubt that more Americans than myself would rather fight and die than to see our family brought under the rule of a calipahte.
To be sure, I am a Christian and despite the admoniation of the Quran that there is “no compuslion to religion” or conversion to Islam, I would not allow my wife or sons to be subject to the fickle interprations of Islamic scripture. I’ve seen enough beheading videos to know that a life not Islamic has no value to some, and one that is Islamic is merely martyred if that is needed, by those same men.
So, I’m aware that we are once again at war with ideas. In this case, Ideas within a religion.
While in many ways the condemnations of the statement of being “at the Mall” can be derived as negative, notice what followed that statement.
Nothing.
That, THAT, is the strength of our country and the reason that I believe that America will transcend any future attack. The American mind doesn’t need that backing. I’m sorry, but it realy doesn’t. Sure, they troops want our moral support, but they don’t fight and die protecting moral support. They fight and die to protect America. The fight and die to protect freedom.
There are people that we all know that are “great people” and we also know that they are abosultely worthless. They live for themselves and nothing more. They are the sum of their consumption, for the purpose of self furfilling consumption. To expect much of them isn’t wise. However, there is also a wide section of our country who lives for themselves and the other. This isn’t some ambigious entity and it isn’t divided down politcal or racial or religous lines. It is fundimentally human. Every man that loves someone and wants to assure their future. Every woman who is a mother and wants the best for her child.
I cannot deny the existence of those who care for themselves more than any other but their number is drastically less than those who love someone else more. And every American, selfish and selfless understand that human characteristic through the lens of individual liberty.
So while I have no doubt that we would garner destructive force the likes of which no man has seen on the face of our planet to loose upon those who would attempt to destroy those we love, Americans will always guide that force with a hand that seeks to seperate the oppressor from the oppressed because it is too ingrained into us to see the individual and to see the value of their freedom.
Idealistic? Overly simplististic? I don’t know.
But the aspirations of greatness that created this country were not created by governments, they came from the desire for freedom of men who would sacrafice for someone other than themselves.
France? France is just land. America is in the heart of every man who wants something more for someone else. By any other name, America is the individual freedom and that will assure the existense of America’s spirit until all man ceases to live.
Sorry I didn’t say more about the biological threat, however, even in the domestic engineered anthrax attacks it is understood that relatively sophisticated measures were required.
The problem with a biological attack is that you’d have no way to prove where it came from. Think of things like SARS or avian flu. At times, those have seemed as real threats. Yet I can think of very, very few who have blamed these on Al Qaeda.
An effective bio-weapon would have to have a slow incubation, high rate of mortality, high communicableness to other humans, and be resistance to most antibiotics. In short, some kind of flu would be ideal. But it would take years to track it down. I just read the 1918 flu epidemic, which killed 500 K Americans, and 2%-2.5% of the world’s population—was finally placed to a bird-man species jump at Fort Riley, Kansas, decades after the fact.
The image you describe is heart-rending and if it occurred, obviously, that individual would be overwhelmed with angry grief. But the POTUS is not going to make decisions on an emotional level. Unless the POTUS’ name is “Clinton”
Of course, we are a representative democracy, Thomas D. That was deliberate, precisely to prevent the machinery of government to be driven by passions such as you describe.
In fact, what you seem to describe is a scenario where a nuke goes off somewhere, and there is rioting in the street demanding the government to nuke other countries? Is that what you are describing? If so, then we’re going to have real problems here, but I repeat no POTUS will respond to American riots by nuking some other country. And no presidential candidate will ever get elected on that platform, either.
BRD,
Excellent post.
If I may be so bold, I believe that you are saying that terrorists will keep at us until we finally do something so heinous that we end up “winning” the war, but losing ourselves in the process.
I’m not so sure that will happen.
I’m not fully certain we even understand who we are. Even if we could qualify what sort of beast we are today, there is no reason to think the beast we are today would in any way resemble the beast we will be tomorrow.
Nothing in this universe is static. The “Status quo” of everything is change. Evolution is natural because with time all things change. This is true on every level and in all things.
You fear the changes that you believe are coming. You fear the unknown… what exists beyond the next event horizon.
Let your heart not be troubled. Is it possible that we will fall victim to bloodlust? Certainly. We may become what we despise and we may sink this whole world into darkness. Anything is possible.
However, just as day turns to night and summer turns to fall, another season will follow and another generation will replace us. When they do, they will more than likely be faced with a new evil.
Just because we change does not mean we lose. Change is inevitable. The only people who are destined to lose are those who resist change. Not all changes are bad, either. It is certainly possibly to make changes for the worse; however, on the whole I don’t believe free societies tend to make such changes.
Every generation has been forced to confront evil and every generation has left its mark. Every generation has made changes for the better. So I guess I don’t really see the US as being in much danger of losing itself.
Woops, I meant BDR, not BRD
(if someone could fix that and delete this, good. if not, oh well)
All of you guys, alphie included, make good points that I largely agree with – I share the view that I our response would be measure, appropriate, and rational. But I can definitely embrace the plausibility of what BRD is sketching here – particularly his core argument that there may well be a threshold of terror at which the character of our nation is irrevocably compromised. And I notice nobody objected to nuking NPR. Cool.
Well, gee, happy, thanks.
One thing to consider, though, is a nuke dropping on Washington, D.C. and taking out the administration, Congress and the Supreme Court.
If that were the case, I think BRD’s nightmare would have a better chance of coming true.
To avoid such a scenario, I think it would be a good idea to designate an alternate capital (somewhere in the MidWest) and a quick method of appointing replacements for Congress and the Supreme Court.
The Senate, for instance, would be appointed by the state governors. The Democrats now hold (I think) 28 governorships after the last election, which would mean the Senate would be 56-44 in the Democrats favor (which would then decide the Supreme Court replacements).
The House would have to wait on special elections.
One quick fix – let every member of Congress and the Supreme Court appoint their own temporary replacement in the event of a successful terrorist strike against them.
I have seen the blind anger after 9/11 of some, and how it caused us to allow our government to go into Iraq and into a war that cannot be won. I think you make a very valid point.
The conclusion that I have come to is that for us to alleviate the terror threat we will need to destroy the Islamic belief system or moderate it through economical and psychological factors.
We did it with the Soviet Union through psychological and economical factors. However, because we are beholden to the Middle East due to oil, the “war on terror†may be harder to win and push Islamic belief towards a more modern frame of mind through economics; and we have lost the psychological edge that 9/11 had given us when many innocents were killed, by invading the country of Iraq through false pretenses.
Unfortunately, the alternative would be a total war that totally annihilates the Islamic belief system.
Somehow, it’s almost a relief to realize someone with Alpeas grasp of reality and current events doesn’t remember the fact that Air Force One left FL heading for NE on 9/11. And by the time the leftards figured that out and started carping about it, we got the live shot of Dubya crossing the White House lawn into the Oval Office.
You know… BECAUSE OF TEH COWBOY!
You probably didn’t get that, little a, so here’s the simplified version:
Your side tried to call the President a coward for considering taking himself out of harm’s way, as you suggest. This just underlines your general lack of knowledge re: the way America works.
TW: From the hall81s of Montezuma?
Not sure who you think my “side” is, Red.
Bush had close to a 90% approval rating after 9/11.
Having a plan to rapidly reconstitute the U.S. government if Washington, D.C. gets nuked wouldn’t be opposed by anyone.
The fact that we don’t have such a plan indicates to me that the government doesn’t think the threat is that great.
I hope folks are still reading this in the morning, cause I saw one of those glimmers of hope today that you’ll never see on CNN or the NYT.
Today at work we celebrated a young Navy Ensign, who has already spent two tours intercepting ships in the Persian Gulf area. He’ll be leaving Corpus Christi this Sunday, having volunteered for an IA (Individual Augmentation?), willingly taking on what was billed as a very hazardous assignment. He’ll be training and driving himself in Humvee convoys in Iraq, thus becoming a veritable IED target.
It really choked me up just to shake his hand and tell him we’ll keep him in our prayers; such a humble kid, just determined to do what he can in defense of the homeland. And THAT is the only reason BRD may lose this bet. There seem to be many, many young men who still understand that the “concept” of the United States is something worth sacrificing for.
On a lighter note, there was also the news this week that the crazy astronaut lady is going to be reassigned right across the street from where I work. That ought to liven up the O Club in the evenings!
TW: almost91 time for beddy-bye
Is that a fact?
TW: Seems someone wants to tell someone to put11 a sock in it…
From CBS News Sept. 11, 2002 (not hard at all to find if you look):
“I wanted to come back to Washington, but the circumstances were such that it was just impossible for the Secret Service or the national security team to clear the way for Air Force One to come back,†says Bush.
So Air Force One set course for an underground command center in Nebraska.
TW: Looks like there’s gonna be another one… george48
Old Blue the Heretic,
Correct me if I’m wrong here, Blue, but it seems that you’re suggesting we shouldn’t have done it and then that we should do it again.
We went into Iraq not only because of Saddam Hussein, but also because it was judged as the place where such moderation and reform had a hope of succeeding.
Destroying the Islamic belief system will never happen by force. The best hope of that is enlightening it’s adherents.
I wish I could. The last five and a half years have left me doubtful.
It took Rome several centuries to reach the point I perceive us to be after only two.
I think you’re missing my point, red.
Imagine a worst case scenario. Terrorists drop a nuke on Washington, D.C. during the State of the Union address.
The President, VP and the cabinet gone.
All the members of Congress gone.
The Supreme Court gone.
All the departments that run the government probably gone, too.
What’s the plan?
Seems like the fight over what to do next could very well lead to BRD’s nightmare. And not out of some need for revenge, either.
A simple mechanism like I suggested, where everone has a designated replacemnt and we have a designated alternate capital would be the best plan.
You know, alphie, don’t you, that ONE member of the cabinet always stays away from the joint sessions and other mass meetings? Not that anyone is going to feel all warm and squishy to be taking leadership cues from the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (to use one possible example), and though the article is categorized as lacking in sources, Wikipedia has information that two Senators and two Representatives also stay away (one from each party. It’s a minimalist plan, but it’s a plan.
I can see your thinking, BRD, but I don’t think your fears are justified.
In human history, there has never until now been a single state which, possessing an overwhelming military or technological advantage, did not use it to conquer its neighbours- occasionally, some quite distant neighbours.
Until the United States.
The USA is far from perfection, but rather like Democracy, it seems to me to be the least bad alternative to that elusive goal.
Think of what you are- A nation of immigrants, determined to learn from the errors of your countries of origin and not to repeat them in the new nation that you are building.
You have come under grave provocation, and you will continue to be tested for a long time to come, but keep the faith.
America is the future, not the past.
Yeah, I knew that Michael, but as you say, it’s a plan so minimal that it isn’t really a plan at all.
If you want to avoid chaos, people will need to see all the branches of government back up and running smoothly in short order.
Imagine how long the debate over just where to establish the temporary caiptal could drag on for…and just how nasty it could get.
And then we’d get to the uncontroversial selection of nine brand new Supreme Court justices.
Yikes.
And while I’m at it, this verse has given great comfort to those of us who have not always liked what we saw coming at us out of the East.
SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
Alphie:
Reiterating for clarity the assumption that DC and all its building and records are unusable after an attack, I don’t see the States sitting on their hands waiting for a skeleton Federal government to rise from the ashes. They and the people will expect and, perhaps, demand that the Acting President and whoever else remains limit themselves to the powers enumerated in the Constitution and the States will pick up the slack. As a conservative, I see this as a silver lining.
The temporary capital will be wherever the Acting President decides it will be. (Home is where you hang your hat.) Once a functioning government is back in place, there might be wrangling over the location of the new permanent capital (if DC is too hot to expect a quick recovery) but the longer they wrangle, the better the odds that the place the Acting President picked as a temporary location would become the permanent capital.
Full disclosure: I read a lot of Harry Turtledove.
Oh, and the biggest danger to Constitutional liberty I see is that, lacking a functioning Supreme Court, the Appellate Courts could end up causing all manner of disparities in the application of Constitutional law, especially the Ninth Circus.
The destruction of D.C. by nuclear weapons and the rebuilding of the US government was never considered and planned for in the Cold War?
Learn something new everyday.
For a nation with a military stronger and more competent than any other in the world—stronger, in fact, than many imaginable combinations of several relatively “powerful” nations’ forces—there is no such thing as a “war that cannot be won.” There are only wars that we refuse to win, or lack the will to win, or in which we fail to properly or clearly define victory. But “cannot”? Nope. It’s the liberal fallacy in a nutshell: seeking to blame a failure of will on nebulous larger forces beyond one’s control, and using weakness as a prop for irresponsibility, while seeking to hide the disgrace of it behind a pose of aggrieved victimhood.
Apparently alphie is supporting the other John Edward, it is all starting to make sense now.
I’d hope you are right, though I have doubts about Louisiana, or at least New Orleans. Maybe the rest of Louisiana will help them out. (Contrast Mississippi.)
Alphie, you’re a real John Edwards.
I’m not sure I follow what you are saying about France. France, as a country or a political collective, has not always been in existence. Sure, there has always been a large portion of the Western European continent where a country called France would eventually emerge. But to say that France has always been and will always be, doesn’t ring true.
There was once a country called Prussia in Europe too. Try to find it on a map today.
Someone was positing the other day that leftist political philosophy these days seems to be primarily shaped by acute narcissism, which is reinforced by Alphies theories on disaster preparedness, which seems to be if he doesn’t know about it, it doesn’t exist.
False. We do have a precedent, and it was set shortly after 9/11.
We’ll do absolutely nothing. At most we’ll blame internal suspects convenient to certain political groups.
Alpo—there’s already a “continuation of government” plan in place. When it was being developed, the leftards wailed and gnashed that Bush was establishing a “shadow government”.
alf…
DC could never be hit by a nuclear device….there’s a balloon fence.
And that secret plan to whisk away heads of State?
pssssst it’s secret… if the details, rally points and sequestered locations were all public record it’d hardly be useful.
Last administration I heard the plan was to ignore the ringing phone until Monica was finished…. after all, Al could see into the future and just know there wasn’t ging to be an attack
To be fair, that isn’t just Alfi’s theory on disaster preparedness. That is alfi’s position oin everything, and given how little he knows, it gives him one hell of a platform from which to pontificate.
Alphie doesn’t know about the backup government that has been set up since 9/11. Basically, we have resurrected our nuclear war alternate command systems that we let lie fallow in the Nineties.
To BRD’s point: what’s important to remember here is that the American people are quite capable of waging total war while maintaining their democratic character. I don’t see us turning into some fascist state because of our having to wage a war of annihilation against the Islamic world. I do envision us turning into some sort of Starship Troopers Republic because of the necessity for survival. That’s what happened in WWII. Heinlein was channelling his experiences of WWII when he penned the novel.
Americans are, at bottom, a free people, not a slave people. They will choose to remain free, and exterminate those who threaten that freedom. The Muslims do not realize this; more’s the pity for them.
By the way, allow me to suggest that when his safety is threatened, alphie will be the first to insist that the Muslims be rounded up and sent to Manzanar. Activists always are.
Actually. For most Americans, the loss of the federal government will have very little effect. Well. Except that there would be no federal taxing body.
Several thousand words of unadulterated horseshit.
You give Americans both far too much and far too little credit.
Too much credit in thinking that even nuclear terrorism would lead to such a devastating response. You’re wrong. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or a good thing. Personally, I’m not entirely opposed to the idea of actually acting like the empire the anti-American left claims we are. History is written by empires.
But even the worst attack imaginable will not bring the response you envision. Guaranteed. With exactly one exception: if we were actually threatened with extinction, as in the France in WWII example you describe.
And you give Americans far too little credit in their ability to remain, at their core, Americans. If you don’t get that – I kind of feel sorry for you. No nation is eternal, but it will take far more than terrorism to actually fundamentally change the national character.
I realize pessimism is in intellectual vogue at the moment. But you couldn’t possibly be more wrong.
Read your grandkid’s history books in half a century. You’ll see.
You expect we should have sued for peace? Let bygones be bygones? Do the words “unconditional surrender” ring a bell?
I’m going to disagree with the premise that vengeance motivated our attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Project our casualties from taking Okinawa across all of Japan and tell me you are for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. My mother-in-law, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, told me that at least it allowed the war to end.
Wars are won when the enemies will to fight is broken. I suspect we will do whatever it takes to achieve that, and no more.
American history has been replete with losing ourselves in the process. At the very beginning, we’ve classified a group of people as not really people but 3/5ths of people. We used that justification to enslave those people. When enough people thought this concept was morally reprehensible, they employed the best technology at the time to unleash a maelstrom against the people who still believed in the concept of a 3ths person. We sometimes have to “lose ourselves” to truly exercise what we believe in in the long run.
Yea, amazing ain’t it?
The American character is already fundamentally changing, and for the worse, one which demands entitlements as rights and protected classes as social foundations. It has abandoned unconditional respect for innocent human life. An inherent component of the philosophy that justifies that desertion blinds the American character to guilty and inhuman enemies who deserve retribution, if only as one instrument in the national defense arsenal.
I thought 9/11 would shock Americans into reform, but I feared the commitment would fail and it is, I think. Americans cannot match the resolve of religious fanatics and will eventually collapse under the weight of its philosophical contradictions, a failure to know history, and contemporary leftist political agenda.
I hope I am wrong, but the predominant cultural forces in the nation are irretrievably leftist and will not submit to a reversal of the moral bankruptcy so far achieved. If nothing else, Islamism will aid in the destruction of components of the national character leftists hate the most, and then the Islamists can be vulcanized when they become too inconvenient (as a final sacrifice to achievement of international socialist order). They know what is best for us, after all, right?
Man, am I cranky this morning.
Don’t look now, but your ignorance is showing.
1)Slavery and servitude existed in North America long before the Constitution, in fact long before the arrival of the Europeans.
2) The people who insisted on the 3/5ths compromise were opposed to slavery. The slaveowners wanted slaves to count for a whole person. The more people in the South, the more power they had in the government.
So the 3/5ths compromise was not used to justify slavery, and was in fact a means of weakening the power of slaveowners.