Roc:
Waiting 10 days is not necessarily restraint. Bush could wait 10 years before laying waste to Afghanistan and it could still be a knee-jerk reaction (note I say
could ). Tolstoy did say that the 2 greatest weapons at any general's disposal are time and patience.
In sofar as Bush has yet to define the limit of his intentions he is showing a lack of restraint. His stated war on global terrorism is by definition, limitless. What will he do when it comes to the IRA or the UVF and UFF? Will he bomb NI? Will he take action against the so-called Irish-Americans who rattle the collecting tins for the IRA in the bars and street corners of Boston? They too, after all, support terrorism and the taking of life for a political ideology by those who seek to bring down a democratic government elected by due process. Will he take on extremeists in his own back yard? I would admire him for doing this because it would be a sure fire vote loser, but if he does it non-the-less then he would demonstrate a courage not seen for decades in domestic politics. Will he remove guns from the street? exactly where does he intend to go, or draw the line? Who and how will he define terrorists or terrorism? Will he call down vengance on Martin McGuiness, a past IRA quartermaster and head of the Belfast brigade now that he is sat around the table of government in NI? These issues are not clear cut and as black and white as the rhetoric would have us believe. And surely he must understand that he will fuel fanatics, not remove them.
As for putting the frightners on terrorists of Arabic extraction, he must surely realise that they exist on the language of personification, illiteration, an synonim. Who can forget the "Mother of all battles" and descriptions of "our gallant eagles of the sky". I doubt that we will be putting the fear of God/Allah or anyone else into them. Besides, fundamentalist, extremist moslems look forward to death during Jihad because they believe it will gain them entry into heaven. given that many of the members of OBL's army are dirt poor Afghans and Pakistanis they have got nothing to lose by sacrificing the life her now for the life hereafter.
The Gulf war of '91 was a much more strategic game play in terms of how we fought the war. The enemy was defined, the objectives set, and it was one faction fighting what was esentially a war of attrition against the other. The so-called war against terrorism is much more fluid. The enemy is not defined, it could be the man in the street as much as the man in the Afghan cave. It can be fought by the enemy with missiles, rifles, or a pen knife and a hijacked 767. We have begun to understand in intricate detail how to fight this kind of war. Many of the British contributers on this forum have spent time in NI, some of us having patrolled the streets unsure of who the enemy is. We have fought this war patiently, covertly and overtly, and by means of more than air strikes. Jacko and i share a scepticism of the global war on terrorism because we know that when you strip away the rhetoric there are only 2 options, the first a short, sharp all-out attack that will draw you into heavy losses and a sustained war if you want to go all the way, the alternative being a truely inaffective carpet bombing campaign that kills indiscriminately as was evidenced in the strikes against Serbia. The second option is to figh a sustained covert operation that tries to win the hearts and minds of the opposition's country men while undermining the ability of those who would do us harm to attack through intelligence, insurgence, political pressure, and depriving them of the oxygen of propeganda and publicity.
Let us consider for a second the US/UK bombing of Serbia. Hardly any hardware was destroyed. Innocent lives were lost. Billions of dollars were spent, the Serbian army dug in, and the net result was an expensive
PR exercise that failed to deliver any tangible results. Is this what any action against Afghanistan will be I wonder? Another Serbia? Will it be all talk by the politicians followed by a quick carpet bombing viewed by the world on CNN with no tangible results or goals achieved? Will Bush et al then pat themselves on the back for a job well done and proclaim once again that the might of the US has saved the day for the free west, while teaching the evil, demented and demonic middle east who is really in charge? Without careful consideration by men of thought and word now the men of action who will be sent to carry out the wishes of the politicians will be undertaking entirely the wrong deed. We should be asking the difficult questions now before we act, and I do not believe those tough questions are being asked. We are going dow the oft travelled and easy road of sheer retaliation.
I will comment briefly on some of the things you brought up. Indeed why should the US have got involved in WW2 prior to the Japanese attack? It was, as you point out, a European war. Had the US not been attacked it would have gladly ignored the plight of Europe unless it suited it for political or economic reaons. Fair enough in and of itself, yet had the US been attacked and Europe been at peace how long would it have been before Roosevelt had asked Churchill or de Gaul to commit to the fight? Who knows? but in recent decades the US has done what it will without thought or consequnce to other nations, yet you ask why does the world hate the US? This belief in your own benign nature masks the true picture that the US since the decline of the USSR has acted like a school yard bully because it has the size and capability to do whatever it pleases. I do not hate the US. It is a country for which i hold deep and lasting affection. It's people are warm and and loving. but as a friend of the US, I cannot stand back in silence and watch it make a mistake that would affect all of us in such a dire way words cannot begin to describe.
We may not have the forces we once did. We may have been responsible for our own share of history's tyrrany, but we have learned a number of lessons in recent years that the US has either declined to notice or has not yet been through. Domestic terrorism is one of those hard lessons.