Loren Thompson of The Lexington Institute:
"Back in the 1960s, before Britney and Ludicris were even born, Frank Zappa was the most outrageous act in popular music. Zappa delighted in lampooning the complacency of middle-class America, most memorably in his a capella song, "It Can't Happen Here." The message of the song was that the worst nightmares of white suburbia -- anarchy, drugs, interracial dating -- really could happen here. Like Sinclair Lewis' 1935 satirical novel of the same name, the song was a warning that no matter how safe we may think we are, we are not immune to the shocks befalling people in other places.
It seems this is a lesson that we are in constant danger of forgetting -- even though we all remember 9-11, and even though the war in Iraq provides unpleasant surprises for U.S. forces on a weekly basis. Only two months into the new year, Sunni insurgents have (1) used new tactics to down a quarter of all the helicopters lost to hostile fire since the occupation began [JK: ]see Bill Roggio's reporting from Iraq]; (2) stepped up employment of explosively-formed penetrators that can punch through most armor; and (3) started combining lethal gas [JK: chlorine gas a la WW1, and isn't that a war crime?] with high explosives in their suicide attacks. Each of these developments appears to have caught U.S. commanders and intelligence analysts off guard.
So of course the whole nation will be caught off guard when terrorists again mount an attack within U.S. borders. Even though logic and experience tell us such an attack is coming, emotionally we have been lulled by five years of peace on the home-front into believing it isn't really going to happen. That is why the Bush Administration sells its Iraq strategy on the implied guarantee that as long as we keep fighting there, we will be safe here. That is why critics in the Democratic Party feel free to attack the war effort as if there is no connection between what they say and whether terrorists are emboldened by the prospect of American retreat. Both parties, unconsciously, have fallen into the trap of believing that terrorism can be contained "over there"....
Yes of course it can and will happen here.
A nuking of an American city is at this point inevitable.
After that, IMHO it's likely people will self-organize and take drastic steps ala the Vigilance Committees of the 1850's in SF.
"That is why critics in the Democratic Party feel free to attack the war effort as if there is no connection between what they say and whether terrorists are emboldened by the prospect of American retreat."
So you admit the Republican "over here vs. over there" fooforah is a sham but still see fit to criticize Democrats for calling it such?
Also, nice attempt to use "war effort" and "American retreat" in its vaguest sense. As Bush once said, "THE ENEMY attacked us". Its very much more so justificatory that way.
talboito --
Osama has argued at length (and Khomeni before him) that if you attack the Americans and cause enough casualties they surrender and specifically cited Vietnam and Somalia as his proof.
Withdrawal from Iraq will only be interpreted by the wider Muslim world that both Khomeni and Osama were correct in their conclusions about America and that therefore the wider Muslim world should back the "strong horse" in Osama's words because America as the "weak horse" can bring no consequences for attack at home.
Recall 9/11 had the approval of the Taliban, which means likely the ISI in Pakistan (which is part/parcel of the Taliban) and also senior Iraqi intelligence officials (which means Saddam) since according to sworn 9/11 Commission testimony Iraq's Intelligence Service attended and facilitated a 9/11 Planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Furthermore according to the 9/11 Commission, Iran did not stamp the passports of 9 of the 12 "muscle hijackers" as they passed through Iran in the company of senior IRGC and Hezbollah commanders.
Such orders in Iraq and Iran respectively could only have been given by Saddam and Khameni, and the men would only have given them if they had not been convinced that America lacked the will to do anything meaningful about it.
If Dems explicitly coupled a rejection of the Iraq and Afghan Wars and immediate pullout with a policy of sealed borders, expulsion of all non-citizen Muslims, closed mosques where hatred is preached, preventive detention as in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the UK for terror threats up to three years, and explicit plans for internment of all Muslims in the aftermath of a mass terror attack plus nuclear retaliation on a strategic level of a list of well publicized nations including Pakistan, Iran, Saudi, and Syria well then they'd not only get my vote and their plan would actually work.
The message to Muslims externally would be: attack the US and die. Internally Muslims would realize the terms of residing in America is a choice between Islam and America; failure to back America means being kicked out or interned and kicked out if some mass casualty attack takes place. You'll keep an eye on your son's Jihadi activity on the internet if you fear you'll lose everything and be sent back to a radioactive Pakistan. Even the hardest jihadi will admit a nuclear submarine beats a beheading of the infidel on the internet.
But the deterrence ONLY works if people believe it. Peaceniks have been Osama's best ally because they re-inforce the message that America can and must be attacked with impunity.
Thus requiring PROOF of deterrence by actually doing most of the actions above: kicking out or interning Muslims (which IMHO would get the vast majority of Americans to support it after another mass casualty attack by well, Muslims) and nuking the hell out of a couple of Muslim nations.
I would submit that if the goal is to minimize bloodshed and prevent a mass internment/expulsion of Muslims GWB Iraq policy (using the conventional military to make a point about deterrence) is far preferable. It has obviously failed mostly for political reasons due to Dem peacenik weakness (the belief that the world is like the Disneyland "It's a Small World" ride filled with singing and dancing children).
How do you propose to deal with Iran's nuclear weapons and the slow fall to the Taliban of Pakistan (and their nukes)?
Funny coincidence, just a few hours ago I posted on Graham Allison's judgment that a nuclear 9/11 is "more likely than not in the decade ahead." His piece is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2owovn (PDF)
Mr. Rockford.
A lot of words you wrote there. And all I can see is blah, blah, blah...I saw this great show 24...blah, blah, blah...don't make me create internment camps...blah, blah, blah...because I will and then you will be sorry...blah, blah, blah...I'll nuke mecca too, and let's invade some other people...blah.
Jim Rockford - Good points to talboito. Those like talboito do not understand that the question in the present day is not if but when. Should the Jihadis get a nuke or two, then we are into the worst of our nightmares. One for Tel Aviv, two for NYC....
These Pollyannas have not made the connection and no doubt never will. They cannot be bothered to read the words of the likes of Suleiman Abu Gheith:
From MEMRI Special Report #25
Uh, when did we ever use CBR on them? Answer: Never. They have used them on each other - see Iran-Iraq war at Wikipedia.
These kiddies need to find out what Islam has in store for them.
Islamist Watch
MEMRI
talboito - You have homework to do. Get going. It took me a year to dig thru both sites. Come back when you are done.
The Hobo
Sorry, Jim, I was a tad late. Don't pay attention, he is thusly just a troll.
The Hobo
Yes, sometimes America is weak. We've reduced whole countries to rubble and dropped nukes and firebombed civilian populations of industrial cities and turned whole patches of SE Asia ugly shades of brown and charred black.
I don't think anyone in the Middle East has any doubt what would hapen if another terror attack were to be successful here, which is entirely a different thing than besting us in a slow war of attrition with a couple of nasty xmas suprises. One should not conflate the two.
--
RIP Frank Zappa, conservative andenemy of theocratic fascists everywhere.
A good man.
I'm glad they named an asteroid after Frank. Seemed appropriate, somehow.
Taliboto, it is possible to say that "over there vs. over here" is not a 100% guarantee, and argue that the GOP has erred in mistaking it for one in its rhetoric, without believing the concept to be 100% false. Elementary logic that Lexington understands and.. you don't.
It is also possible to treat - as a separate issue - the Democratic Party's consistent rhetoric of retreat and defeat on all fronts of that war, and to consider its implicit consequences. Just because the GOP is wrong doesn't mean the Democrats are right. We're back to elementary logic 101, I'm afraid.
A nuking of an American city is at this point inevitable.
Even though I wasn't alive then, my parents have beleived this would happen too.... 40 years ago. Against an enemy with intercontinental missiles, stockpiles of nuclear warheads and crazy leaders to boot, somehow we made it out just fine.
So before we declare that the end is inevitable, let's try to stop that from happening. I admit that the border still needs securing, our ports need greater security, and we need a more dependable intelligence system which accurately gathers and maintains intel.
Now on Iraq, our focus there has been so restricted that we are failing to branch out to other conflicts. Afghanistan is falling apart. The leaders of Al Queda are still out of grasp. And even though we our putting all of our eggs into Iraq, it's still falling apart. Yesterdays terror attack on the VP is showing increasing ability to attck protected targets. Maybe Iraq isn't fueling terror, but what is fueling could be even more deadly: an islamic WWIII, which is bound to funnel into a harder islamic front, and eventually eliminate moderate voices in the ME. It almost sounds like some people here are hoping that this will happen.
I'm not really into the democrat strategy, I think it's oversimplified. ON the other hand, so is dropping nukes on unarmed civilian cities. Part of the problem is that the pollitical parties have a developed a "with us or against us" personality, that basically fails to get anything accomplished.
We'll see. I would like to see something geting better (at home or abroad), but I'm not willing to accept the worst-case scenario yet.
Watched Zappa skewer both sides on Crossfire. Frank was a very good debater as well as a talented artist, and his approach to defending a no compromise position under strong attack is educational in form as well as in substance.
alchemist - Useful point re: the end not being inevitable. It isn't, and we should be focused on what to do about it.
Having said all that, we're ticking closer to midnight in so many ways, while facing an enemy trained to believe in suicide/murder as the highest sacrament. Rockford's prediction certainly isn't 100%, but at this point I'd put it above 33% by 2025 - and the only reason it isn't higher is that fact that uses of nukes elsewhere can bring about a sufficiently terrifying/ educational nuclear scenario that evokes a world-wide set of responses, without involving American cities.
One contributor to the trends I've mentioned is that Pakistan is falling apart. Which is also the root of the problem in Afghanistan.
JR - I do believe America needs to create more deterrence via legal consequences for Imams who preach hate and/or terrorism and for their mosques, and change the calculus of Muslim communities so that supporting terrorism is seen as having significant downsides. Right now, it isn't because it doesn't. The threat of internment camps, however, doesn't strike me smart or right; not a good way of doing what you want, or of advancing the war, and not a moral option given present circumstances. Consider the full ramifications of what you're advocating.
SAO -- Since 1945 America has not fought a total war and generally has acted to fight very limited wars.
Many people in the ME DO indeed believe America lacks the will to do anything; why else would we have run away in Somalia where we had a free hand. If we ran away in Somalia (and run away in Iraq and Afghanistan) what evidence is there to suggest we would not indeed surrender in the case of a nuclear attack.
[Taiboto's main point is instructive. America is not 100% morally pure, therefore should do nothing at any time to further it's interests. The mark of an elite uninterested to hostile to national interests and more interested in their own class. Liberals are very akin to the Priesthood circa 1100 AD, with all that implies.]
Alchemist -- "somehow we made it out just fine." ... is not a plan. That's trusting to Providence and IMHO is idiotic in the extreme. The Cold War MAD deterrence depended on:
1. Survivable triad on both sides of nuclear submarines, ICBMs, and SAC planes.
2. Extensive early warning systems.
3. Extensive co-ordination and knowledge of the enemy's systems and intent. [Through mutual "opening the silos," spy networks, and electronic spying]
4. ONLY two major players.
5. The two major players actively denying nuclear technology to other potential players to maintain their monopoly.
Today the dynamics are fundamentally different: many players with no consequences. Pakistan's ISI leaders likely feel that Al Qaeda will provide them with a deniable proxy to attack the US with nuclear weapons. See also Iran.
ONCE a nuke has been used on an American city by a deniable proxy, simple logic dictates that it will be done again and again and again unless the level of pain is raised to such great heights that no one will dare think it. Thus we are not talking trading city for city but wiping out a nation or three just to make the point.
My challenge to you Alchemist is what factors deter Pakistan's ISI post-Musharraf or Iran from giving Al Qaeda a nuke or three covertly to attack a US city? I would submit now there is nothing.
Internment camps? I do not advocate them but see them as inevitable following a nuclear attack on the US. I don't think the US is that much different from Britain where the Manningham-Buller Report estimates 200,000 Jihad supporters and 2,000 active jihadis intent on terrorism. In the UK internment has already been broached by Labor figures in the event of mass-Beslan or nuke attacks.
What is significant is the total failure of the US Muslim community to choose America over Jihad. Aided and abetted by the Dem Party and Media. The number of Wiccans in the USMC outnumbers that of Muslims. "Sudden Jihad" syndrome where Muslims for no reason anyone can figure out murder Jews or other infidels seems an epidemic (Utah, SF, LA, Seattle, North Carolina, etc).
Just to be clear, the factors I see as making a nuking of a US city inevitable are:
1. Deniable cut-outs and proxies and no clear articulation by both US parties of consequences to the wider Muslim world of a nuking of a US city, i.e. Mecca, Medina, and a list of Muslim nations cease to exist.
2. Proliferation, i.e. Pakistan and Iran have or shortly will have nukes; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Turkey, Yemen have all announced nuclear programs. In ten years time or so that leaves by my counting 11 hostile Muslim nations with nuclear weapons.
3. Inability to show potential attackers political will to retaliate at a level that makes an attack counter-productive (i.e. the attacker and everyone in their clan are dead). The moralizing and "we need proof" legalism of Liberals, Media, Dems is devastating in this regard because it makes retaliation impossible.
4. Lack of Early Warning systems and open channels of communication to potential attackers. Besides Al Qaeda there are LeT, PIJ, JI, GPSC, etc. a plethora of Jihadi groups all of which can find patrons in the military forces of hostile nuclear Muslim powers. The Muslim powers themselves are fractured and in disarray; Pakistan being a good example of a set of fighting tribes armed with nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Given that the method of attack will be covert, through a shipping container likely sent to Latin America and smuggled up through the open Mexican border, there is no way to detect an attack in the early stages. Even worse there is no one person to call as in the Cold War to warn that hostile measures will be met with instant and total retaliation.
5. Lack of fear of consequences by Muslims in the US on further terrorism. The PC Multi-culti police and Dems prevented an open discussion of attitudes towards Muslims and as a result CAIR and other pro-terrorist groups both dominate Muslim life in the US and Muslims do not fear the consequences of turning a blind eye to terrorist organizational and logistical support in the US. An open discussion of summary deportation to Muslim hellholes sans any property will generate real fear and action among the Muslim community. A man might sacrifice a son to Jihad and not fear the consequence in the PC-heavy environment. If a man is impoverished and sent back to say, Pakistan without a dime if his son commits Jihad, that's another thing. Such a son would be promptly informed on because men fear above all else dying poor.
[The fate of reformers such as Wafa Sultan is instructive. Death threats from fellow Muslims is the rule.]
6. Lack of any plan and the use of the trump card, the ordinary US citizen, in the case of a Mass Terror attack. No one has discussed what people should do, how they should self-organize among destroyed communications, what actions to take among the aftermath of a nuclear attack and how to prevent another attack. My fear is that this reveals utter complacency that invites attack.
7. Lack of articulation to Iran and Pakistan directly on just what will happen to those nations in the event of a nuclear attack on a US city. How many millions will be killed, by what forces, and how it will be done automatically: leading the nations to see a real deterrrence.
Sen Sam Nunn and others have said that a nuclear attack on a Western city is certain in ten years. IMHO they are over-optimistic. I see complacency, trusting to providence, and many other happy thoughts largely out of post-Cold War fatigue and desire to return to the endless 1990's party.
No one has discussed what people should do, how they should self-organize among destroyed communications, what actions to take among the aftermath of a nuclear attack
Well, some people are discussing it:
http://tinyurl.com/3y9vl7
POMMI- True. Most are not discussing what to do, the depth of the discussion is too hard for most. OR those who discuss it are immediately marginalized as nut cases or fringe members of a militia. True? Yes?
Or there are those who quietly make plans. And say nothing to the public at large. I recommend reading one of my favorite authors on the his post-apocalyptic vision:
Orson Scott Card's - "The Folk Of The Fringe"
Four very complete and moving essays. His description of the aftermath of an extended nuclear exchange is very, very enlightening.
Also, when I first discovered these things, blogs, there was an essay that moved me to do research on Islam, modern Jihadism and many other topics. I believe it dealt with a car bomb of the nuclear variety smuggled over the Mexican border by Jihadis and detonated in San Diego. I cannot find it, but that essay led me on my final journey down the road from Liberalism to Libertarian-Conservatism. I had tended there for a long time but could not make the final move. I had always been interested in globalism and it's effects because I work in a global industry.
I do recommend that everyone read Wretchard's Three Conjectures and examine it closely. I believe it is a pretty fair take on the issue.
The Hobo
There needs to be a very clear message sent:
A WMD is used on the US (or any other allied country) and Islam dies. Mecca, Medina, Qom and the fifty largest Islamic cities, including the capitals of all Islamic nations, die. No arguments, no negotiation, no delay.
The difficulty is in getting them to believe it.
You mean the ulta-right wing, super mormon who thinks we should return to chaperonage,. He is a very strange man, even though i liked "Ender's game" (but I thought several other books were terrible, and scientifically unsound).
Yes, I agree we should mention (not-so-subtly) to other countries(it doesn't even have to be a specific nation) that if a bomb with their radioactive signature is detonated in america or it's allies, that site (and possibly collateral damage, depending) will be obliterated.
The problem (as noted by Roben wright in a article on fighting terrorism over the next 50 years, which I cannot find at the moment), is that the problem is greater than Islam. Assuming we survive this 'clash of cultures', there is going to be another after this, with an enemy yet undetermined (probably China, and then...) . It's preety much gauranteed at this point that poor nations will use terrorism to gain collateral in third world countries. And with the ease of obtaining biological and nuclear weapons, it's going to get harder and harder to prevent whacko's from getting weapons in the future (wether it be islamofacists or other).
My point is that this is a more complicated issue, where we are going to have to seriously rethink a long term strategy to preventing rogue nations from gaining these weapons. And althrough some gut-reaction politics may be necessary to prevent this first wave of nuclear growth, we are going to need a long term strategy to deal with the next wave.
sorry, robert wright.