NUKE 'em all!
Who are they?
What if it turns out to be the work of US citizens, based in (say) Chicago, sympathising with Bin Laden? Or the Palestinians? Or, for that matter, McVeigh?? Nuke the Windy City? Or maybe the whole of Montana and Wisconsin, becasue they've got some backing there??
Remember, the UK's had to live with terrorism for longer (literally) than I can recall. One very early memory of mine is being hurried out of a shop in the local centre by my mother: turns out there had been an IRA bomb in a pub one block down (in Woolwich, SE London, if you're interested).
Substantial force, even when targeted - i.e., shoot to kill - didn't work. Even with very few attested civilian casualties of the Army - even fewer who were not 'sympathisers', so to speak. It just does not work.
I don't think napalming the whole of Fermanagh would have won our case either.
I don't like it, myself. My own preferred gut solution for NI, even now, is to fence it off, airdrop guns in, and shoot everyone trying to leave. We'll make peace with any survivors.
But I don't truly think this is ethical, still less realistic.
No need to turn the other cheek. But if a stone's thrown at you in a crowd from an unknown direction, you don't open up all round with an Uzi just in case. |
