Are we over reacting?

I apologize if this has been covered already.


Let me preface this by stating that I am in no way making light of what happened on September 11. It was a horrific day for all America. The loss of so many of our innocent citizens is tragic beyond words. The suffering of their families is worse still. The very fabric which makes this such a great nation has been hit and hit hard. Even so, I can't help but wonder if we/our government isn't over reacting a bit...


The animals who pulled this off have long hated our guts. They have made numerous stabs at us (and others) around the world through their terroristic acts. They have been spouting "Death to America" for years. Yet, this was the first such act on Americal soil. Granted, it was a doozy. But should the fact that this has happened exactly once in our history drastically change our way of life to the point where being an American means living in fear?


Everyone talks about the sophisticated manner in which they killed and destroyed so much of America. But was it really so hard for a bunch of crazy and determined zealots to pull off? Take a few pilots who don't mind killing themselves, and how hard is it to take over a plane and crash it into a building? Even though the damage was great, this is hardly evidence of some elite fighting force which should cause us to cower in fear.


Of course, we should take some pre-cautions. Of course, we should remain relentless in our quest to hunt down those responsible. Of course, when found, we should retaliate full force. Of course, we should not rest until the world is rid of every one of these barbarians. And of course, we need to make a statement in a big way that this will not stand. In the meantime however, I see some very real extraneous dangers.


If we are not careful there is very real possibility of creating WWIII. Countries who now are sypathetic to our tragedy and have no desire or real beef with us, will be forced to take sides to protect their interests. Even though our cause is just, other countries can't just let us gobble up the middle east under the pretense of ending terrorism.


What about our government introducing precautions and security measures which border on paranoia? There's no denying this is important. It's important to protect ourselves. It's important to catch and bring justice to terrorists. It's important to let terrorists know that we along with the rest of the world will not tolerate terrorism and that the retaliation from further attempts which we will bring to bear will only serve to destroy their cause. Until then, maybe a little normalcy is in order.

Appeasement will not work with these people. Killing each and every one of the current terrorists might not work either. But killing as many as we can while making the price for governments who help them very high may well slow down terrorism.


The precautions you suggest we take will not work. You cannot secure the good terrorist targets enough to prevent terrorist attacks. Think about it - I don't want to discuss what targets have really no security and could be hit easily causing great psychological shock. I know the terrorists probably know them, but it's sort of gross to talk about. The next time they won't necessarily hijack a plane. And if they ever get a nuke, we will be the second to know about it - about a day and a half after they get it.


People have been warning us for years. We didn't heed the wake-up call of the first WTC bombing, or the embassy bombings, or the USS Cole. So what are we supposed to do? I agree we don't want to set of WWIII, but guess what, Bin Laden and his cohorts do. These folks won't just stop. So we are going to have to react decisively and effectively.

The following is a scene from the Palestinian refugee town of Khan Younis in Gaza three months ago. Khan Younis was founded to house some 200,000 Palestinian refugees that fled from the advancing Israeli army in 1948. The narrator is Chris Hedges, former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times.


It is still. The camp waits, as if holding its breath. And then, out of the dry furnace air, a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker.


"Come on dogs," the voice booms in Arabic. "Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!"


I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: "Son of a bitch!" "Son of a whore!" "Your mother's cunt!"


The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parted on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come.


A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.


Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered – death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo – but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.


-- From Harper's Magazine, October 2001.


Hedges doesn't mention it, but as of from September 29, 2000 (the beginning of the current intifada, and 6/17/01, that date of the events he describes, 154 Palestinians under the age of 18 were killed in the West Bank and Gaza, including 26 under the age of 12. [Palestinian Red Crescent Society]


The scene described by Hedges is consistent with the report of Giorgio Giacomelli, Special Rapporteur to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifth special session, March 21, 2001:


"The effect of human rights violations on children is both disproportionate and cumulative. From 29 September to end February 2001, Israeli settlers and soldiers killed approximately 145 Palestinian children under 18, of whom at least 59 were under 15 years of age. An overwhelming 72 per cent of child deaths have resulted from gunshot wounds in the upper body (head and chest), which may indicate a "shoot-to-kill" policy."


1. Do you think that killing children in the manner described above can fairly be described as "terrorism?"


2. Israel is the largest foreign military aid recipient of the United States, and United States provides more lethal support for Israel than any other country. Does the U.S. and/or the American people bear any responsibility for the events Hedges describes?


3. If so, do you think it's right to kill the "families and associates" of those responsible for it, or would you apply this standard only when terrorism is inflicted upon Americans?


My opinion: U.S. officials should do whatever is necessary short of killing and maiming innocents to bring the culprits of the 9/11 attacks to justice. From a moral standpoint, however, those that avoid taking responsiblity for their own actions have no right to kill those that do the same.


But this is the whacko radical viewpoint.

Would you, Rounder, sit down to play in a poker game against a sucker and a klutz like me, a sucker who (a) doesn't seem to care too much about money so he doesn't mind losing as many bucks as you, the wiz, can take him for, (b) has a habit of biting small chunks of flesh from your torso every time you win a big pot, and (c) has an unknown but apparently huge bankroll?..


Would you get so angry at me for biting off some serious flesh outta you that you'd want to get me for as much mo-ney as possible? Sorta like going on tilt?? Like starting a vendetta?


Nice thinking there, Rounds.

I've re-read my post and I'm not sure where I advocated appeasement. I agree with you more than you think. Quick, decisive and effecitve action is needed. I also agree that the price must be made high for governments willing to aid and abet terrorists. You wrote: "I agree we don't want to set of WWIII, but guess what, Bin Laden and his cohorts do."


Then what do you perceive we gain by letting them complete their agenda? We should be thwarting this not aiding them.


You also wrote: "Think about it - I don't want to discuss what targets have really no security and could be hit easily causing great psychological shock. I know the terrorists probably know them, but it's sort of gross to talk about. The next time they won't necessarily hijack a plane. And if they ever get a nuke, we will be the second to know about it - about a day and a half after they get it."


I agree we and most everyone else in the world is vulnerable to another terrorist attack and as you stated, the reason has little to do with security issues. Some of these issues are are helpless to prevent attacks from a determined terrorist. Again, we agree more than it appears. Swift decisive action on our part is needed.


But you didn't answer a possible significant question I posed. Why now? As you said, it is and has been impossible to prevent certain terrorist attacks. You don't think they could've hijacked planes 10,5,4,3,2 years ago? I understand that if we fail in our objective and there is a next time, it will likely just be another form of attack, but the question should be asked, why now? I'll tell you what I think it is. The situation in the middle east is ripe for starting a third world war which is exactly what they want. In an all out serious third world war, NO ONE will emerge a winner. The best that can be said of the victor, is that they were the least severely damaged. There are children in this world. There is more to life than destroying an entire world for the sake of vengeance. We should be decisive and strong in our retaliation, but let's have our own agenda and not help them complete theirs.

They killed thousands. Was their appetite for our blood sated or whetted?


I fear the next attack will target thousands of thousands. Japanese terrorists have already used Sarin (a nerve agent). I fear mostly an aerosol release blanketing an urban center with unfortunate meteorological characteristics (meaning captive air, no breeze).


I hope we CAN fight the dirty war needed to identify and neutralize this enemy.


How can when one "overreact" when millions (literally) of lives are at stake?


[By the way and for what it's worth, war traditionally has been defined as a struggle for control of the earth's surface and victory is defined as having that control when the fighting stops.]

"How can when one "overreact" when millions (literally) of lives are at stake?"


But this has always been at stake. It was at stake on Sept 10, 2001 as well as Sept 10, 1995.


Our efforts need to be in weeding out the production of these weapons as well as disposing of the people and groups who are likely to use them in acts of terrorism.


Look. Millions upon millions of American lives have been at risk for the past 40 years due to the prospect of nuclear warfare. Nothing much has changed except now there exists a relatively small fanatical faction who possesses the dangerous combinations of stupidity, insensitivity, evil, along with balls big enough to committ such a heinous act. These people and those who support them must be eliminated. Wiped off the planet. But please tell me what is to be gained by starting a world war.

World war? I proposed world war?


Give me a break.


Another successful attack upon a straw man.

'"How can when one "overreact" when millions (literally) of lives are at stake?"'


"But this has always been at stake. It was at stake on Sept 10, 2001 as well as Sept 10, 1995."


Wrong. In September 1995 one-way "pilots" were not in the US seeking their specialized flight training.


"Look. Millions upon millions of American lives have been at risk for the past 40 years due to the prospect of nuclear warfare. Nothing much has changed except now..."


Wrong. A whole lot has changed now. For almost a half-century the rational atheists of the Soviet Union and ourselves were looked into a Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) stalemate. It gave us some anxiety perhaps but half a century of nuclear peace certainly, the _pax atomica_. Now, we face what looks like the eventually certainty of attack by chemical, biological or even nuclear means. We are going to be at the mercy of, collectively, Abdullah the Twenty-First Century Well Poisoner with an Agenda from the Almighty if there is no dramatic improvement in prognosis. And nothing much has changed much in your view?


"But please tell me what is to be gained by starting a world war."


You tell me; you broached the subject. I do believe that Mr. bin Laden did describe, in a videotape he released six months ago (in Arabic, or course, so I couldn't appreciate it directly) that he was preparing a provocation that would force the US and its Western friends into a global jihad with the world's one billion Muslims. Address your question to him.


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In summary, consider understanding what you're writing about before tickling the damned keyboard.

The problem here is that I have questions while you seem to have only arguments.


All I'm saying is that a terroristic attack could've just as easily occurred 10 years if a group were so inclined. People hated us then and I do believe we had a few planes flying around this country which could've been hijacked. So I simply asked, "Why now?".


I suggested, "If we are not careful there is very real possibility of creating WWIII."


To which you replied,


"I hope we CAN fight the dirty war needed to identify and neutralize this enemy".


I'm sure you'll nitpick and point out that you didn't say anything about WWIII, but I took this to imply that we should do whatever it takes even if it means starting WWIII. Sorry if I took it out of context. If not, I think we need to have a more carefull thought out approach than that.

...where our sources of information are as undesirable as our targets of that information and our overt actions are often "wet jobs". For reasons that should be clear to anyone who heard the arguments of the early sixties regarding Indo-China, there is to be NO INTELLIGENCE GATHERING BY TORTURE!!!


I don't believe I'm premature in warning against it. I remember hearing our sneaky petes advocating it for Vietnam in '61 or '62. Just in case someone thinks it's a good idea, here are several reasons it isn't:


1. It produces unreliable and unverifiable information. It can be a big source of confusion.


2. It encourages the adversary to act even more despicably than he would anyway.


3. It discourages voluntary surrender. If you'd want your adversary to oppose you onto death, even when their situation is hopeless, just let him believe that torture is the inevitable result of capture.


4. It is WRONG!!!! I believe in the ultimate efficacy of morality in the conduct of our nation's business the way bungee jumpers believe in rubber. I will not tolerate a stain upon us. And I don't need any of the other reasons.

"All I'm saying is that a terroristic attack could've just as easily occurred 10 years if a group were so inclined. [sic] People hated us then and I do believe we had a few planes flying around this country which could've been hijacked. So I simply asked, "Why now?"."


Because we should have known better. Because we didn't appreciate that such barbarism was even conceivable. Because we did nothing to prevent it.


Fixing blame and fixing problems are not the same thing.