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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: Bilow who wrote (146265)	9/24/2004 12:52:17 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Hi again Carl. In my post I wrote that; "The climate for the aggressive use of American military force is bad. But remember that it could change in an instant if we had a Russian school-like terrorist attack here at home." You replied: No. Another terror attack in the US would prove that the war on terror was failing, and that would call into question the whole Iraq debacle. Plenty of experts have been testifying that the Iraq war made regress instead of progress in the WOT and those experts would end up trotted out saying "I told ya so" if there were another attack here. I think you're wrong. I think that when Americans are mad and scared they don't think first, they act first and think later. If our leadership "wants" to find a basis for more aggressive action then they will have the mandate as long as they can give any rationale that satisfies the revenge and safety feelings of the public. After all, remember that "9/11 emotions/Iraq invasion" was not just rubber stamped by the uniformed; many of our "bright" minds went right along. In addition, take a look at what has happened in terms of the Israeli response to Palestinian terror attacks. Long before they started building a wall the Israelis were busy punishing the entire Palestinian population and turning moderates into radicals. I can understand WHY they did that but it doesn't change the fact that it was a counterproductive response. If America saw it's children murdered, torn, and mutilated and if America was given ANY barely credible rationale for striking back at Iran or some other "sponsoring nation," I suspect there would be plenty of support for that action. Because no one has had the nerve or the desire to tell us, "toughen up and live with the fact that there are going to be attacks and there isn't much we can do about them." In fact, you can argue that the attacks of 9/11 that sent America on tilt may well have been just what the "war of ideologies" fanatics on both sides of the conflict wanted. Let's face the fact that there's an element of instinctual rage in all of us when the safety of our families or our tribe are threatened. In the grip of that emotion we don't really care much how much of a threat something is; we don't want to tolerate ANY level of threat and we go out and start clubbing possible suspects. We did it in Iraq, our soldiers do it in battle and it's a big part of who we are as humans. So I don't think we'll start thinking about how our policies failed us in the event of an emotionally charged terrorist event. I think we'll get out the clubs and then later think, "gee, why did we do that." I suspect that the terrorists understand that and that they WANT to force the emotions that create that reaction. I don't think it was an accident that the Chechnya attack on Russia was targeting children because I suspect that the real nuts want to generate overreactions that will force moderates to take sides. Ed

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