From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 22:16:35 MST
Mike Lorrey writes
> [Kai writes]
> > War against terrorism is not comparable with conventional wars. It
> > means fighting against belief systems and against the causes for the
> > motivation of those people.
>
> On the contrary, all wars are caused by different nations or cultures
> having dissonant belief systems. Wars are won when one side so
> thoroughly beats the crap out of the other that a state of cognitive
> shock occurs in the minds of the populace...
There is a lot of truth in this. Suppose that the U.S. had
really gone ballistic in the days following Sept. 11, had
adopted a full war-time economy, and had methodically invaded
Afghanistan, Iraq, and the whole Middle East. For all the
belly-aching of the rest of the world, it definitely would
have set the terrorists back much further than they are.
(Whether in retrospect that will turn out to have been
a good idea depends on how successful the present "war"
on terrorism is, and what the ultimate shakeout is.
Hopefully, such a sweeping response will be properly
judged by later history to have been an unnecessary
over-reaction, but if Middle Eastern nations do succeed
in arming terrorists with WMD, the U.S. will indeed
regret not having "gone ballistic".)
> In WWII, we bombed... Germany so significantly that most
> all of the populace [decided they wanted nothing ever to
> do with Hitlerian solutions]
Yes, though in fairness, their consciences bothered them
as well. Still, as you wrote, nothing creates
> a state of cognitive shock in [enemy] minds
as a total and thorough drubbing.
> We kicked Japan's asses so hard that they realized that their
> militaristic regime was inferior...
Yes, the same thing there. I do hope that the U.S. doesn't
soon regret not having conquered all nations harboring
terrorists. Observe that such an action would also have
had an effect on even the U.S.'s closest allies, prompting
them to greater domestic action. Notable also would have
been the effect in Pakistan and North Korea, to mention
just two.
People don't like to think about this, but *everyone* is
going to be SERIOUSLY EMBARRASSED if during the next month
or so Saddam Hussein ignites a nuclear device in the Iraqi
dessert. What would be even funnier would be if he announced
that he had succeeded in smuggling a few into the U.S. and
Europe, and that he did not intend to have a repetition of
the Gulf War take place.
And I can just *hear* some people supporting him: "After
all," they'd say, "is it fair that the U.S. can target
cities in Iraq and Iraq cannot target cities in the U.S.?
And if it is right for the U.S. to be able to nuke Iraqi cities,
why is it wrong for Iraq to be able to nuke American cities?"
How utterly logical. And yet, how utterly puerile and stupid.
Lee
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