Interesting web site on crisis

Check out this website and article that was written about what we should do/have done before the attack


http://www.claremont.org/precepts/296.cfm

This article was written in 1996 by a "distinguished fellow" of the right-wing Claremont Institute in apparent response to the dilemma of wanting to declare all-out war against terrorists, instead of dealing with identified terrorists as international criminals, but not being able to identify a particular nation whom we can declare war.


It therefore identifies America's "larger enemy" as "the Nation of Terrorism." What is this "nation?" It is "a chain of bases, training camps, safe houses, and other facilities that dot portions of the map of the world, going into and out of other sovereign states."


Note the curious concept of "training camps" and "other facilities" that go "into and out of other sovereign states." The writer clearly realizes that he cannot say: "I know there are terrorist training camps located in country X which we should bomb." This realization is consistent with the advice President Bush reportedly received from his military commanders on Tuesday when he asked for a list of immediate targets, and was told that there weren't any, as well as President Clinton's bombing of the pharmaceutical plan in the Sudan that from all available accounts had no connection to terrorism or Bin Laden or anything else other than being in a Muslim country too weak to fight back. But since the distinguished fellow is dishing this up for people who like to think that there's something so elaborately evil that it requires all-out war, he has to equivocate by pretending to refer to specific infrastructure while effectively calling for a less discriminate response.


Some glimmer about just how indiscriminate comes in another curious point. He writes that it is "irrelevant if an individual group responsible for a particular attack is called ‘The Movement for Islamic Change' or ‘The Tigers of the Gulf' or some other name." No doubt true, by why does he mention it? Has anyone ever suggested that we should refrain from attacking terrorist groups because of their name? Of course they haven't, not ever.


What he's more likely trying to tee up is a case for attacking a broad variety of groups of people, not things, that may or may not have any direct connection with terrorism or even politics, but might arguably have some connection with the incitement of terrorist acts. "The Movement for Islamic Change" certainly sounds like a likely candidate.


We're going to see a lot of this: forceful demands that we kill "terrorists" followed by the killing of whomever, mostly just folks in the wrong place and time, if history is any guide, followed up by more articles by other "distinguished fellows" contending that whomever we killed must have been whomever we were talking about killing, perhaps with a tear or two for the inevitable tragedy of "accidental" civilian deaths.

If someone suggested going after nation states or ethnic groups Chris would tell us that was too indiscriminate, and of course he would be right.


But he also argues that to go after terrorist groups is slippery right-wingism.


Maybe he would rather we invite the terrorist to kill more people? What is his need to defend the indefensible?

Did you really read Chris Alger's post before rushing in with your reply, Gil? I doubt it, since Alger suggested nothing like an amnesty for terrorists, as you imply. You had almost an hour to read the post.


It's disappointing.

I don't think you read mine very carefully or the article we are discussing. Do your homework and try again.

"But he [Alger] also argues that to go after terrorist groups is slippery right-wingism.


Maybe he would rather we invite the terrorist to kill more people? What is his need to defend the indefensible?"


Neither of these statements are remotely true. What I call "slippery" is not going after "terrorist groups," but calls for the massive use of military force against targets that are somewhat specificied in clumsy rhetoric, but ephemeral in reality. It means indiscriminate killing, which both constitutes and causes more terrorism.


And I haven't said a word in defense of terrorism.

It's interesting to see the kind of interpretations you bring to reading a very straight forward article. Nowhere is there a call for indiscriminate killing, just not for allowing the terrorists to hid behind the skirts of the innocent.


You have not, and I didn't say you did, defended terrorism but you have objected to every suggestion that some forceful action needs to be taken.