Well said, Greg, very well said.
We rise above the barbarisms that have limited us in the past, not because we will be safe, but because that is what civilization is about. Civilization promises us intellectual accomplishments, elevated standards of living and comfort, sublime improvements in arts and culture, and many other good things, but it fails to promise us the one thing we cannot let go of: personal safety and survival. Civilization, if it's going to succeed, promises only that it will survive. No individual can, with any connection to sanity, extend that to himself.
Patriotism is only possible in a civilization. It happens on the individual level, but the rewards are never felt at that level, and the sacrifice often goes unnoticed except by those in the immediate vicinity.
Anyway, sorry for the soapbox lecture. As horrific as it was, as traumatic as it remains in our collective memory, 9/11 was simply part of the price we pay for civilization, and for the peculiar version of it in this republic: individual freedom is the foundation of our civilization, and anything done to undermine that freedom undermines our civilization. It truly is as simple as that.
And for anyone reading this that lost a loved-one in NYC, the Pentagon or western PA, I will gladly stand still while you rip me a new orifice... but I won't change or take back a single word.
As Terry rightly points out, I've got some gaps to try to fill, if filling them is at all relevant to the validity of my suggestion. Graydon, the practical answer to your challenge is: the same way we identified the training camps and headquarters of al Qaeda in Afghanistan as the source of the 9/11 attacks. I don't really need to try to answer your question -- in point of fact, because any answer I give will be a guess. Intelligence professionals will confirm or deny the practicality of this aspect in short order.
Terry, I'm forced to agree with you (not that I find that at all objectionable), so I now have to wonder: has the last two Bush administrations botched engagement badly enough to ever be able to recover? Would a change in the White House have any credibility to re-engage? I don't expect you to be able to answer, only the attempt and time will tell, but if you have a speculation I'd like to see it.
Terry, everything you say is true; I'm trying to not get bogged down in the details of the actual results, but to suggest that our approach was the correct one. You'll get no argument from me that some or all of the execution was SNAFU.
I really am suggesting a policy shift, and I'm suggesting that it can be done with little to no prior agreement from rest of the world. I'm couching it as a moral statement:
Nuclear weapons are immoral. We vow never to use one as a first-strike option; we further vow to respond with overwhelming force against any nation or agent that does use a nuke as a first-strike weapon.
I'm submitting a philosophical statement, and I'm filling in the blanks as a way to illustrate the concept, not to dictate how it must be seen or implemented. James definitely seems to follow my gist, because "We can't stop you from attacking us, but we can make you wish to Ghod that you hadn't[.]" is precisely what I'm aiming for.
The major effect I'm expecting -- hence my leading with my chin over my possible monumental naivete -- is that the big players will take us seriously and act to quash the little players: China will force NK to change course; Iran will rein in Hezbollah; any national unit who might be a US target because of an al Qaeda use of a nuke will grab them by the short hairs... that sort of thing.
I don't know strategy and tactics any more than what I've absorbed second- and third-hand from reading history and listening to experts. To say that I'm a well-read layman is a stretch. I do know law enforcement on the ground (so to speak), I'm a community activist and I've had a personal relationship with every police district commander for every home I've had, and the overriding fact is that policing has no chance of succeeding without the cooperation of the local citizens. I'm applying that concept as stated.
My mind is mush right now, so please forgive any mangled references, but I'm wondering...
Wasn't it Teddy Roosevelt who coined the statement, "Walk softly, but carry a big stick"? In any case, this concept seems to have been lost in the shuffle of Cold War MAD, and the need to bolster the self-esteem of nations whose claim to self-esteem is at best self-delusion, at worst outright and deliberate fabrication, all for the sake of "national unity" or diverting their citizens' attention from corruption.
I digress. I've run this by friends and contacts, but none of them have the experience or perspectives shown on this forum, so I humbly submit: why not make it simple? Why not build on the precedent we established in Afghanistan, and then proceeded to botch so thoroughly with Iraq?
Hurt us, and you go down. Support those who hurt us, you go down with them. [Bear with me, I'm trying to keep this from being a magnum opus; I think you all are smart enough to catch my drift.] Back off completely on the nuclear power thing, and tell Iran and NK in no uncertain terms: test a nuclear bomb, your launch site is toast. Use a nuclear bomb against any target, military or civilian, and your seat of government will be a slagheap. Permit any group or individual to acquire a nuclear bomb from you, and if they use it (especially on US soil), it will be as if you launched it.
Yeah, yeah, way too simplistic, and rhetorically provocative, but I can't help thinking: if Iran (for example) had a good sense that we'd actually do this, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect them to do our policing for us, and nip the terrorists in the bud themselves? Who would be in a better position than the very supporters to not only say "don't do this" but to catch wind of their attempt to do it.
Anyway, I apply the principles that Greg alludes to, but in this specific way: unless we want to conquer the world, there is just no way, diplomatic or otherwise, to prevent another 9/11. Given sufficient motivation (and there seems to be no lack), a group with the resources and planning skills will pull it off. The analogy is that in a free and open society, the collective will tolerates the possibility of homicide because it realizes that the only way to prevent it is to be anything but free and open; blood is part of the price we pay for our liberty.
So, is there anything of value in there, or am I just monumentally naive? Pull no punches, I come to learn.
Thanks for the explanation for disemvowelling. A word for the favorites list, for sure; it rolls of the tongue in a most satisfactory manner. I sympathize completely: I'm a moderator (we're called volunteer hosts) for Beliefnet. We do not have editing capability, only hide, move and delete. Disemvowelling would be an excellent practice there, methinks.
I'm completely new to this forum, so can someone answer my dumb question: why is post #108 devoid of vowels, but is quoted in the clear by subsequent posts?
Joe, the thing of it is when out of 12 soldiers assigned to the duty, six of them decline to obey what they see as an illegal order (hypothetically, of course), reassignment to Baghdad becomes less of an option, and once the word gets out (and it will), those commanders will have no choice but to play politics.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.
IANAL, constitutional or otherwise, but the this section of the Constitution is rather clearly an inclusive conjunction. What remains is litigation and legislation attempting to clarify it within specific circumstances, a process with which any First Amendment lawyer is quite (painfully) familiar. :)
Thank, Fidelio. Being new here I had to ask/mention it. :)
I don't mean to be one-upping here, but it didn't occur to me that my own heritage would be relevant... and I'm not quite sure it is even so, but here it is.
My late father was a convicted war criminal, in absentia of course or I'd not be here writing this. He was a chetnik, a native son of Montenegro and an officer in the Serbian royal army when Tito and his partisans set off the first phase of the Yugoslav civil war. The charges were treason (an odd thing, considering the government he "betrayed" came into existence after his defeat as a member of the losing army) and the more serious charge of collaboration with the Nazis. That, I cannot get into, because he never discussed details with me, but I can speculate: the chetniks were outmanned and outgunned almost from the beginning, and were even worse off when their only source of supply, the British, was cut off in the early stages of the Nazi conquest of their neighbors. They certainly gave intelligence aid to the Nazis in exchange for basics like food and ammo; it can be demonstrated by some that the intelligence was in whole or in part fabricated. Desparate times bring desparate measures.
Anyway, something can often be said about the accusers of "war crimes", and the old saw about the winners writing the histories. My father's permanent exile brought him to a country he loved, as much for its opposition to his communist enemies as for its military traditions, with which he was as much at home as he was in his youth.
Fidelio, I hope you are at least a little facetious about coup d'etat; I had no intention of even implying it.
"I am required to advise you" is something every commander hears at some point, if the situation is serious enough and he has a command staff he trusts. An admiral or general should find this introductory phrase coming very easily to his lips, no matter who is president or what the situation is. As a well-read layman, this just seems completely intuitive to me.
Dylan, you make an excellent point. I causes me to ask: if a treaty signatory passes a domestic law contradicting one or more treaty obligations, is that not a de facto violation of that treaty, thereby making that nation an ex-signatory?
Does anyone have any notion or guess concerning whether one of the Joint Chiefs has stepped forward to advise his Commander concerning unlawful orders? Somehow, I must expect that one of them at least knows how this works, and doesn't see the need to wait for a JAG to make an "expert's" statement about it.
This is the part that gets me the most. No one expects a president to have any military experience, let alone be versed in military law and protocol. That's why a security council exists, and why each Chief of Staff sits on it. I'd prefer to not believe that every one of them is a wimp, unable to stand up to authority when the issue is clear, and the advise obvious.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 13 |
Total: 13 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Franklin Evans:
Show all comments by Franklin Evans.