Hawk, I'm not suggesting a retreat inside the borders, waiting for the next attack. <there's no need to exacerbate the situation. Rather than invading Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and so on, to get rid of the mullahs and mania, it's better to defend the homeland and keep Islam in its own zone. >
I just meant that an all-out Crusade isn't a good idea. Sure, Afghanistan was a good cause, since the Taleban people clearly supported Osama. New Zealand troops were high in the hills, hunting Osama's troops. There was quite general global support for that attack on the 911 attackers.
There was less support for the attack on Saddam, though in my opinion it was a reasonable idea to defeat him and his government and that obviously had popular support from Iraqis. The Cow had a fair amount of support from around the world.
I don't think there would be support for or wisdom in attacking other Moslem countries at present, since they aren't conducting or supporting significant Islamic Jihad murderous operations. Iraq is enough of a handful for now.
The big question is not 9000 shells with some chemical or biological warheads, which Saddam is alleged to have lost or hidden. They are trivial. What matters is what the heck Pakistan has done and is doing with their nuclear bombs.
North Korea maybe took delivery of some. Maybe some other countries, Libya or Iran or Syria, have already taken delivery of some. The chap in charge of Pakistan's nuclear bomb programme was obviously happy to enable other Islamic countries, and presumably North Korea, to develop nuclear weapons, so I don't see why not supply the actual finished product.
That's the really scary stuff.
I actually think that Ghadaffi and Saddam and Iran's Mullahs have got more sense than to shout "Allah Akbar" and let them rip. They might be belligerent, superstitious and irrational, but they aren't MAD [in the mutual assured destruction sense of the word]. I think they would use them in the traditional way as a serious threat to use in the event of in-extremis self-defence.
So, I think the requirement is to treat the whole business as seriously as you suggest, but to do it through global geopolitical processes rather than military confrontation in their home territories.
Meanwhile, secure borders to avoid smuggled nuclear weapons are essential. Aerial delivery is much less likely than delivery by donkey, yacht and parcel delivery van.
As with dealing with Hitler's Nazis and Stalin's megalomania, there's no good answer, just continuing defence of freedom and the open society, and the incurring of the suffering and cost involved in doing so.
The USA can do more than just push the PNAC and a military response. the more effective response will be in geopolitical harmony in confronting the threat. 1 billion Moslems without a lot of money can't dictate to the other 5 billion of us with wealth and technology backing us, even if every one of them wants to be a suicide bomber. They can't bring us to heel and force dhimmitude on us.
The way to defeat them is to get the more sensible of them inside the tent, sharing in the benefits of civilization. Making more and more enemies with careless collateral damage and idiotic interrogation techniques, as seen on tv, is just more of the same stupid alpha male tribalistic dominance approach which has been rejected by civilized people.
Osama is already after the UN. He is certainly sensible enough to see where the next move is likely to come from and is keen to terrorize UN staff, starting at the top. What's needed is not just to shove an ill-designed UN into the breech, only to see further failure, the need is to rev up the UN into the serious geopolitical entity it should have been for a couple of decades now.
China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Europe, North and South America, Oceania all have good reasons to oppose Islamic Jihad, with many of them on the front lines, and already with many graves filled with their citizens.
Mqurice |
