My scary thought for the day...
May 22, 2002

Stories like this about a possible biological or dirty nuclear attack on the U.S. really give me pause. I actually live right next to was-and-will-be-again target so, unless the Fates are kind, any major hit and I'm either a diseased zombie or a pile of radioactive ash.

But that isn't the scary bit.

One of my best friends is moving to New York later this summer, and another friend of mine is crewing on a Woody Allen movie there for the next few months. As I doubt NY is out of the woods just yet -- it is still a tempting target -- I'm certain someone is going to try something nasty again. Leveling Manhattan with a nuke or rendering it uninhabitable with a biological agent is extremely likely. So is taking some of my friends along with it.

But that isn't the scary thing.

I'm fairly certain that any nukes let loose on the US, any biological weapons triggered over our cities or any devices detonated so as to unleash hazardous amounts of radioactive contamination amongst the unsuspecting, will be met, on our end, with a fairly devastating response.

On the order of sand-fusing-to-glass.

Persia would become a giant mirror, a monument of rage for future generations to both reflect on and to fear. We are the only nation to have used nuclear devices in combat. We currently have a standing policy of nuclear response to any first use against us. Tactical nukes remain at the ready for battlefield commanders. Stealth and B-2's can reach any point on the globe in less time than most of us spend awake on a typical workday. Our national sense of outrage and anger over any such attack would make 9/11 look like tearing up over E.T. going home by comparison. I don't think considering our use of such is too much in out field.

The damndest thing is the use of nukes isn't really what scares me (much.)

What scares me is that, on the pure, self-reflective, navel-gazing-because-I-can level, it wouldn't bother me one bit to illuminate the terrorists and their respective states by the supreme and permanent use of x-rays, gamma rays and nuclear fusion.

I've said before that military response to terrorism should be measured and appropriate, that widening the war to cover just anyone who disagrees with us is dumb (if not criminal), and that International Law must be respected because law and ideals are pretty much the only things that separate us from both animals and the jungle. But thinking about it, thinking about the kind of appropriate response to any person or group that uses sheer terror on such a vast and final scale to cower, level and dominate, the only kind of response that makes any sense is of a kind that is even more savage, more vicious and of such finality that nothing is left to be questioned.

There is some hypocrisy in that last bit, at least on the face of it. After all, by unleashing such destruction on even more innocent a number of people, aren't you, in effect becoming the very thing you are fighting against? By vaporizing any non-combatants who have the misfortune of being near by hasn't fear then become your tool for getting others to acquiesce to your particular will?

Here's the thing -- it's also part of the scary thoughts for the day -- if we loose, if the West and it's institutions of democracy, free speech and open debate are destroyed or rendered irrelevant to a noxious and wicked brand of dark-age thought whose applications of justice mock the term -- then the argument over whether such a response is right is moot. Under the system of government proposed by those who destroyed the towers, dissent dies, debate ceases and freedom devolves to mean the choice between which prayer to an angry sky god one reads from a greatly schizophrenic tome that day. All that makes our lives meaningful -- all the nobility of dissent, the questioning of establishment, the pomposity of talk radio and the beauty of cute life guards -- is ended completely. For without the ability to debate these questions freely and across all fields and venues the mind is wont to go -- which is what would happen if such a totalitarian system were to gain hold -- then all the advancement, liberty and social justice of the last 500 years has been for not.

I am a liberal (or more exactly a progressive) so I often have a good deal of disagreement with those across the aisle on many matters both fiscal and social. (Which is okay, because I have a great many disagreements with those sitting next to me too.) I know that talking, sanctions, diplomacy, debate, censure, and even the judicious use of force all have the ability to get positive results, to ensure freedom, and to make life a bit better for all of those involved. Circumspect restraint and thoughtful contemplation are the hallmarks of civilization and justice. But when all of the tools of civilization, all the generally agreed on norms of discourse and diplomacy that just about everyone, an any aisle, gap or divide agrees on as useful and necessary, are ignored, demeaned and rejected, there really isn't much else to do. All bets are off, civilization becomes a quaint idea and the disquieting sounds of the jungle -- and the monster tearing out of the jungle and towards your jugular -- are all that exist. At that point, it's survival of the fittest.

And I have little desire to be rendered unfit.

Posted by Jody at May 22, 2002 12:32 PM

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