ABCNEWS.com : Poll: Americans Fear More Attacks. Not surprising; they should be expected, really. And isn't instant polling a wonderful thing?
The Washington Post wants us to declare war. They aren't sure on whom, as yet, but they want it done.
Mitch Albom, Miami Herald: This is war in the 21st Century. The horror is in the possibility of more horror. The drive for revenge. [...] the tact Israel has been using for years … you attack us, we attack you back … will be the only U.S. alternative. But as angry as we are, as vengeful as we'll feel in the days to come, we must be careful not to strike out wildly. These are dangerous dominoes we want to knock over. And terrorism, like weeds, is often plucked in one spot only to emerge in another. We must be especially careful not to lash out at our own American brothers and sisters, simply because they may be of a similar ethnicity or religion of the people we suspect did this horror.
The Los Angeles Times: For the United States, battles happened somewhere else. Never again can this nation be quite so secure.
And a commentator on an ABC News broadcast -- former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, of all people -- states that we should conduct indiscriminate reprisals against the whole of Afghanistan. Despite the fact that as yet, we STILL do not know for certain that bin Laden is responsible. Apparently, it's to our advantage to gain a reputation for insane reprisals. (Seriously, that's exactly what he said.) He says it'll depress the activity. Said activity consisting of one attack every three years, assuming that an Arab terrorist group is in fact responsible -- the original Trade Center attack, the attacks on the African embassies, and this one. I'm not sure how you depress wild card attacks much more. And indiscrimate reprisals, aside from the initial shock and regrouping, would seem to create more attacks; it gives motivation. After all, indiscriminate reprisal doesn't seem to have produced quiet in Israel; it just produces more indiscriminate attacks by both sides.
You know, in normal times, you could not muster the political will in this country for that type of policy. If you did it now, today, this minute, then people would cheer. And not mind terribly if it turned out that we'd obliterated the wrong country ... until much later.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!