Lindberg on Tancredo's Threat
Tod Lindberg responds the Tom Tancredo's suggestion that threatening to bomb Mecca would be an effective form of deterrence of Islamist terrorism.
Here, in my opinion, is the meat of Lindberg's article:
The difference between "us" — among whom are many Muslims — and the jihadi terrorists is that "we" are not deliberate perpetrators of the slaughter of innocent people. "Our" moral worldview does not regard civilians as fair game.
But that does not exhaust the interest of Mr. Tancredo's statements, for two reasons. First, a not-inconsequential number of Americans probably agree with him, and who knows what polls would show following the nuclear destruction of an American city or two? Second, Mr. Tancredo, in his Op-Ed if not in his initial comments, couches his threat to Mecca in the name of deterrence: He wants to promise something so terrible to a would-be terrorist that the terrorist gives up his plans. This raises a slightly different question: Is it wrong to threaten to do something horrible in order to obtain a benefit from the threat? On the first point, many if not most Americans nowadays probably do harbor a post-tribal moral sensibility, according to which the deaths of non-Americans register as a loss that matters. This is classical liberalism overlain upon nationalist or tribalist sentiment, which it attenuates. For purposes of contrast, think of the proposition that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" or the moral calculation that justified the firebombing of Dresden. American soldiers are dying in Iraq because of our liberality, our commitment to a decent government for Iraqis: Otherwise we could have flattened the place, turned the keys over to the toughest local goon, warned him to stay away from WMD, and left.
But the hold of this liberality over more primordial sentiments has not been tested by anything nearly as extreme as the death of scores of thousands of Americans in a nuclear terror attack. I hope it never is. But if it is, the authorities had better figure out a response that does justice to Americans' righteous anger. Otherwise they will likely be voted out in favor of someone promising more decisive action.
I agree with Lindberg here, as far as he goes, but I'd like to see some further discussion of what an effective response to such an attack would be. I also think that Lindberg is being somewhat evasive about how well American's "liberality" would hold up over more "primordial sentiments" in the event of a nuclear attack on an American city. I mean, we can speculate, can't we? A nuclear attack of sufficient magnitude on American soil would strip away the veneer of "liberality" pretty darn quickly, don't you think? My prediction is that we'd get down to a "primordial" sensibility so fast it would make your head spin. I'm not making any moral claims about such a response. I'm not suggesting there's anything particularly noble about it. And it's certainly not pretty. When people feel that their very survival is threatened, however, there will come a point at which they no longer care about how many of "their" civilians are killed in the fight against the enemy. The questions that I'd like to see answered -- by someone who's more knowledgeable about the subject than I -- are a) do our enemies understand this about our likely response to a nuclear attack, and, b) if so, do they care?
Here, in my opinion, is the meat of Lindberg's article:
The difference between "us" — among whom are many Muslims — and the jihadi terrorists is that "we" are not deliberate perpetrators of the slaughter of innocent people. "Our" moral worldview does not regard civilians as fair game.
But that does not exhaust the interest of Mr. Tancredo's statements, for two reasons. First, a not-inconsequential number of Americans probably agree with him, and who knows what polls would show following the nuclear destruction of an American city or two? Second, Mr. Tancredo, in his Op-Ed if not in his initial comments, couches his threat to Mecca in the name of deterrence: He wants to promise something so terrible to a would-be terrorist that the terrorist gives up his plans. This raises a slightly different question: Is it wrong to threaten to do something horrible in order to obtain a benefit from the threat? On the first point, many if not most Americans nowadays probably do harbor a post-tribal moral sensibility, according to which the deaths of non-Americans register as a loss that matters. This is classical liberalism overlain upon nationalist or tribalist sentiment, which it attenuates. For purposes of contrast, think of the proposition that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" or the moral calculation that justified the firebombing of Dresden. American soldiers are dying in Iraq because of our liberality, our commitment to a decent government for Iraqis: Otherwise we could have flattened the place, turned the keys over to the toughest local goon, warned him to stay away from WMD, and left.
But the hold of this liberality over more primordial sentiments has not been tested by anything nearly as extreme as the death of scores of thousands of Americans in a nuclear terror attack. I hope it never is. But if it is, the authorities had better figure out a response that does justice to Americans' righteous anger. Otherwise they will likely be voted out in favor of someone promising more decisive action.
I agree with Lindberg here, as far as he goes, but I'd like to see some further discussion of what an effective response to such an attack would be. I also think that Lindberg is being somewhat evasive about how well American's "liberality" would hold up over more "primordial sentiments" in the event of a nuclear attack on an American city. I mean, we can speculate, can't we? A nuclear attack of sufficient magnitude on American soil would strip away the veneer of "liberality" pretty darn quickly, don't you think? My prediction is that we'd get down to a "primordial" sensibility so fast it would make your head spin. I'm not making any moral claims about such a response. I'm not suggesting there's anything particularly noble about it. And it's certainly not pretty. When people feel that their very survival is threatened, however, there will come a point at which they no longer care about how many of "their" civilians are killed in the fight against the enemy. The questions that I'd like to see answered -- by someone who's more knowledgeable about the subject than I -- are a) do our enemies understand this about our likely response to a nuclear attack, and, b) if so, do they care?
posted by Kate Marie | 3:02 PM | Permalink
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27 comments
27 Comments:
Comments like Tancredo's are wholly irresponsible, a man holding elected office should have more shame, self-respect, and reverence for the dignity of his office. Lindberg's commentary is only slightly better, as he gives Tancredo far more credence than he should deserve. Imagine if a Representative suggested that bombing the Vatican would be an appropriate deterrent to abortion clinic bombings, who would give a moment's reflection to such tripe? Comments like Tancredo's play directly into Al Qaeda's hand, as they reinforce a sense that the world is divided between Islam and its enemies.
If anyone with any kind of real authority issued such a barbaric threat, Muslims around the world would turn against the US in droves. We would have achieved what Al Qaeda couldn't, we would galvanize the Islamic world, official and nonofficial, into a united and openly hostile enemy of the US. Carrying through on such a threat would do little to hurt Al Qaeda either- true fanatics allow no one but themselves to be the arbiter of the sacred. The radioactive waste that had once been Mecca would become a site just as holy (or holier) than it had been before. Hajjis who died of radiation poisoning would be guaranteed sublimation to paradise.
No one who has heard of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath can have any doubt about US resolve in the face of an attack. I feel very confident that Al Qaeda understands this aspect of our national character and simply does not care. In fact, the more Al Qaeda can goad us into unleashing the destructive forces at our disposal, the happier they will be. In their warped view of reality destruction is a good unto itself- whatever is destroyed is just a new opportunity for God to build anew.
Sheesh. Calm down, Madman. I don't think Lindberg is giving Tancredo more credence than he deserves, but simply asking a legitimate question prompted by the Tancredo controversy. What kind of threat, if any, would constitute effective deterrence of Al Qaeda? You seem to believe that the Al Qaeda fanatics know exactly what our response would be and simply don't care. That may be the case; there are some who argue that prior to 9/11 Al Qaeda (and bin Laden) misunderstood how the U.S. would react to such an attack, but I really don't know.
If you're right, however, and they will not be "deterred," how should the U.S. proceed diplomatically/strategically? Should we give any signal as to the possible consequences of a catastrophic attack on U.S. soil? And if, God forbid, they do carry out a nuclear attack on a U.S. city, how should the U.S. respond? Is there something wrong with asking these questions?
Kate Marie,
I don't think my response to either Tancredo or Lindberg is at all inappropriate. I was furious when I first heard of Tancredo's cretinous remarks, I'm aghast there has not been more of an uproar in the media about them. Lindberg's talk of Tancredo's remarks having "interest" makes about as much sense to me as someone saying that Timothy McVeigh's actions were an "interesting" response to Waco. Please understand, I am not offended by Tancredo out of some tender-hearted concern for the dignity of Islam or Muslim people, I am offended because of the sheer imprudent idiocy of a US official speaking in such a manner given the vital nature of the political struggle against Al Qaeda. Lindberg collaterally offends me because his pseudo-intellectual dissection of Tancredo's gaffe gives it legitimacy it simply does not deserve.
All of this discussion of "deterring" Al Qaeda betrays a fundamental ignorance of the nature of the threat Al Qaeda poses, it is the same type of thinking that led us into a war in Iraq while the enemy is camped out on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In this new world of the 21st century nation-states are no longer the gravest threats to peace, and sub- and trans- national groups like Al Qaeda can not be treated as nation-states or expected to behave as such. Anyone who reads Al Qaeda's literature or reviews the record of their deeds can be left with little doubt that Al Qaeda can not be deterrred. I have no detailed knowledge of either Tancredo or Lindberg's backgrounds, but their remarks betray a typical secularist bias. Al Qaeda perceives themselves as serving ultimate ends that make "deterrence" meaningless. Moreover, they operate under the assumptiont that they are only instruments of God's will, so the notion that their actions might have regrettable consequences is (from their perspective) ridiculous.
I myself do not believe that Al Qaeda was surprised by the US response to 9/11. They might have talked themselves into believing that the US would not invade Afghanistan, but they never had much too lose on that score. The failure of the US to secure Afghanistan and pursue Al Qaeda's leadership into Pakistan must have left Bin Laden and his crew feeling that if they were wrong about the US's willingness to use force in the wake of 9/11, they were only half wrong. The invasion of Iraq no doubt surprised and delighted Al Qaeda- by removing one of the secularist rulers they so despised we did their work for them.
As for what response the US should take in the terrible event of a nuclear attack- there is only one answer. Unfortunately, the only response would be the same as that made necessary by 9/11- find those responsible and bring them to justice, wherever they may hide. Punishing Al Qaeda by proxy with attacks on innocent Muslims and holy sites would be as pointless as it would be monstrous- it would be like throwing gasoline on a fire. I can guess what would happen in the wake of such an attack on the US- thousands of US soldiers would pour into Pakistan on land, air and sea, and would scour that nation's terrain until Osama bin Laden was found. The fury of the US public would brook no delay, so there would be no time for diplomacy- the situation could thus quickly escalate into an all-out US-Pakistan war that might itself turn into a nuclear exchange.
All this is to say that the best response to Al Qaeda is to beat them on all fronts before they have the capacity to launch such an attack, an imperative which makes the nearly four years lost since 9/11 all the more tragic. If the US had focused all of its military, diplomatic, economic, and political energies on pursuing Al Qaeda into Pakistan Osama and his crew might have been captured without setting off a war between Pakistan and the US. Now that the US is bogged down in Iraq that possibility is out of reach, perhaps permanently.
Why the ad hominem ("pseudo-intellectual") against Lindberg? How was his editorial a "dissection" of Tancredo's gaffe rather than a launching point for his own legitimate questions? Or, again, are the questions themselves somehow illegitimate because you believe their premises (the possibility of a policy of deterrence) to be false or incorrect?
"The invasion of Iraq no doubt surprised and delighted Al Qaeda- by removing one of the secularist rulers they so despised we did their work for them."
-- *No doubt* surprised and delighted them? You sound awfully certain about their mindset. So if they were so eager to get rid of Saddam, why didn't they do "their work" themselves with the kind of suicide-bombing campaign that they are now waging in Iraq? I'm sure Stalin was delighted by the defeat of Hitler, too -- is that a good argument for leaving Hitler in power?
As for outrage in the media over Tancredo's remarks -- you should get around the "center-right" blogosphere more. There's been plenty of outrage there. I can provide lots of links, if you're interested (Hewitt, Lileks, Captain's Quarters, Instapundit, and on and on).
Now, as for our response to a nuclear attack, would you advocate any domestic measures in response? Denial of immigration from terror-sponsoring countries? Deportation of non-citizen immigrants from terror-sponsoring countries? Close monitoring of schools that preach hatred, violence, anti-Semitism? Anything?
Kate Marie,
My description of Lindberg's remarks as pseudo-intellectual is not ad hominem, they embody the surplus of style and dearth of thought that precisely merits the epithet. Certainly the question of whether Al Qaeda can be deterred is legitimate, but that fact does not imbue Rep. Tancredo's remarks with any more "interest" than the legitimacy of the question of eugenics imparts to the work of Josef Mengele. If I began an editorial with a remark like "We all know Mengele was extreme, but that does not exhaust the interest of the scientific questions he sought to answer" I would deserve just as much attention as Lindberg.
"-- *No doubt* surprised and delighted them? You sound awfully certain about their mindset. So if they were so eager to get rid of Saddam, why didn't they do "their work" themselves with the kind of suicide-bombing campaign that they are now waging in Iraq?"
Al Qaeda's mindset is not really difficult to reconstruct if one reads there own pronouncements seriously and critically. There were, in fact, suicide bombings and other guerilla attacks carried out all throughout the regime of Saddam Hussein. Most of these were perpetrated by Shi'ite Islamist groups like Dawa and SCIRI (The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq). Al Qaeda and its ilk were squeezed between both ends of the political spectrum in Iraq, as both Hussein and his Shi'ite opponents were lethally opposed to Sunni Islamists of Osama bin Laden's stripe. This did not prevent them from making a game try, though. The group Ansar al-Islam had established a toehold along the Iraq-Iran frontier prior to the US invasions. In the chaos attendant upon the US invasion one of Ansar al-Islam's leaders, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has become the head of what is undeniably the most dangerous and influential Sunni Islamist forces in the Arab world. How could such a development fail to delight Al Qaeda's leadership?
If the center right blogosphere is raging about Tancredo's remarks they should be proud. They give the lie to the notion of the "liberal media," as I've seen barely a peep of outrage from such "liberal rags" as the New York Times.
"Now, as for our response to a nuclear attack, would you advocate any domestic measures in response? Denial of immigration from terror-sponsoring countries? Deportation of non-citizen immigrants from terror-sponsoring countries? Close monitoring of schools that preach hatred, violence, anti-Semitism? Anything?"
All of these responses you consider seem rather sad and pointless. Denial of immigration from terror-sponsor countries? Iran? North Korea? How many immigrants are coming in from these places? Close monitoring of schools? So in the wake of tragedy we should make our lives more miserable by abridging the Constitution? The sad fact is that any "response" to a nuclear attack would be too little too late. Even if we were to take all the measures that you mention right now, the infinitesmal increase in security they would yield would be far outweighed by the cost in global political stature and domestic civil liberties. In the final analysis it is much, much more difficult to prevent someone from bringing a bomb in to the US than it is to prevent them from acquiring and assembling the materials for a nuclear weapon in the first place. The best measures we can take are aggressive pursuit of Al Qaeda's leadership in the places they still hide, aggressive investment in the human skills necessary to gather intelligence on Al Qaeda operatives (language training, knowledge of Islamic religion and culture), and a broad political and economic initiative to undercut Al Qaeda's credibility in the Muslim community. The best defense of all would be a reduction in US consumption of Middle Eastern oil, as that would starve Al Qaeda of the funds it needs to purchase nuclear weaponry.
Madman,
So the study of eugenics is to Josef Mengele as the study of deterrence is to Tom Tancredo? Isn't that a violation of some corrollary of Godwin's law or something? And this is just an aside, but I wasn't aware that the study of eugenics had *any* legitimacy whatever. I get it that you're offended that Lindberg appears to take anything Tacredo said seriously. I think you're overreacting, but you're welcome to your opinion.
The whole question of Iraq and Al Qaeda's "delight" at the Iraq invasion, etc., is tangential to this post, but what the heck . . . isn't the assumption that we did Al Qaeda's work for them in Iraq predicated on the notion that whatever kind of state emerges from our action there will be less antithetical to Al Qaeda's ideology? If we're doing their work for them, why are they fighting us? Or are they not as delighted at the prospect of the ultimate success of our project as you seem to assume? And since their work is done in Iraq, I assume they'll be moving on to Syria next. In other words, the presence of the Baathist regimes in Iraq and Syria served Al Qaeda's purposes (in terms of recruitment, propaganda, etc.) just as well as the presence of the American military, doesn't it? They may hate Iraq's and Syria's secular regimes, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily be in any hurry to remove them, or else one would think they'd have been trying harder. I think the emergence of a reasonably stable democratic state in Iraq *is* threatening to Al Qaeda, so that their "delight" at Saddam's removal may be somewhat tempered by their fear about what will replace him.
In any event, I'm perfectly willing to accept that most Islamist fanatics hated Saddam, but their joy over his defeat isn't, in and of itself, a reason not to remove him.
"If the center right blogosphere is raging about Tancredo's remarks they should be proud. They give the lie to the notion of the 'liberal media,' as I've seen barely a peep of outrage from such 'liberal rags' as the New York Times."
-- I think we're in agreement here, Madman. That's precisely what makes the New York Times so pathetic; they can't even be counted on to be a reliably consistent "liberal rag."
As for domestic measures to help protect us against potential terrorist attacks, are Iran and North Korea the only terror-sponsoring nations? How about Syria, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.? And the cost of limitations on our civil liberties wouldn't seem as great once an American city had suffered a nuclear attack, however "infinitesmal" the increase in our security. Actually, the greater the abridgement of our civil liberties, the less "infinitesmal" its effect on our security, and I would suggest that, in the wake of such a tradedy, Americans will be *less* inclined to be made "miserable" by such limitations. If that sounds callous, it's no more callous than suggesting that monitoring Islamic schools somehow compounds the tragedy of a nuclear attack on American soil. [And I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I'm not sure which our of constitutional rights is being abridged by the monitoring of schools.]
Dear Kate Marie,
If eugenics has no legitimacy then all those doctors studying gene therapy and all those genetics counselors working in the maternity ward of hospitals had better be sent the memo. Lindberg offends me not so much because he takes Tancredo seriously but because he doesn't take him seriously enough- he flippantly treats Tancredo's violation of office as the point of departure for some substanceless musings, and that strikes me as irresponsible. Forgive me for being outlandish, but I have this notion that someone whose salary is paid out of my taxes has an obligation to think before he speaks, maybe even open up a book and read a bit, especially when his words have the potential to endanger our citizens and our soldiers fighting overseas.
"isn't the assumption that we did Al Qaeda's work for them in Iraq predicated on the notion that whatever kind of state emerges from our action there will be less antithetical to Al Qaeda's ideology? If we're doing their work for them, why are they fighting us? Or are they not as delighted at the prospect of the ultimate success of our project as you seem to assume? And since their work is done in Iraq, I assume they'll be moving on to Syria next....In other words, the presence of the Baathist regimes in Iraq and Syria served Al Qaeda's purposes (in terms of recruitment, propaganda, etc.) just as well as the presence of the American military, doesn't it? They may hate Iraq's and Syria's secular regimes, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily be in any hurry to remove them, or else one would think they'd have been trying harder."
You need to develop a bit of a deeper historical perspective, Kate Marie. A very powerful Sunni Islamist resistance movement once existed in Ba'athist Syria. Then President Hafez Assad put an end to it by levelling Hama, Syria's fourth largest city. Compare those tactics to the Coalition response to the mutilation of American contract workers in Falluja and you might understand some of Al Qaeda's delight at the current situation. The Coalition has brought Al Qaeda closer to creating a Sunni Islamist regime in the Arab world than they or their confederates have ever come or ever would come. The notion that they fear the creation of a democratic state in Iraq depends on their having very little faith in their own program and basic principles. One has to swallow a lot of hokum to set one's foot on Al Qaeda's path to begin with, so the conclusion that such people would feel rational distress at the prospect of democracy in Iraq is built on starry-eyed optimistic reasoning.
As for all of the defensive measures you continue to consider- do you think the irony of refusing Saudis visas as we continued to import their oil might not come back to bite us? I'm no constitutional scholar either, but it seems clear that monitoring of schools would at the very least violate the 10th amendment guaranteeing state's rights. As for your judging the suggestion that monitoring Islamic schools compounds the tragedy of a nuclear attack on American soil being callous, I guess that signifies a difference between our perspectives on what animates America as a nation and a community. I wonder if you would feel differently if the policy were extended to monitoring Catholic schools and yeshivas. I suppose much of what you describe might actually happen in the wake of a cataclysmic attack on America, but as I said it would be of very little avail. Your notion that tightening the noose on civil liberties would somehow up the security dividends is wildly optimistic. We are an enormous, sparsely populated nation with thousands of miles of open coastline and borders. The noose would have to become very, very tight before the chances of smuggling a simple nuclear device into the nation were appreciably decreased. To your list of tactics would have to be added compulsory ID cards and residency permits, perhaps backed up by universal DNA sampling and databasing. You may be right that all of this and more would come to pass if an attack happened, but I'll once again callously suggest that it would be regrettable. It might also have consequences you don't anticipate- even the modest expansion of Federal powers you contemplate might smoke those of Timothy McVeigh's ilk out of the woodwork and start a new round of home-grown anti-government terrorism.
You are undoubtedly right that the political will to expand Federal powers and restrict civil liberties would exist in the wake of a cataclysmic attack, but you radically underestimate the delicate equilibrium in which our society persists given the current structure of liberal safeguards. People might accede to the kinds of measures you and I described, but their lives would quickly be made more miserable than they had imagined possible at the outset.
"If eugenics has no legitimacy then all those doctors studying gene therapy and all those genetics counselors working in the maternity ward of hospitals had better be sent the memo."
-- I think perhaps this is an endearing absent minded professor moment. Do you mean eugenics or genetics? There's a big difference.
I haven't read the rest of your comment yet, but I will later. Wonderdog and Scotty are having a baby today.
"Forgive me for being outlandish, but I have this notion that someone whose salary is paid out of my taxes has an obligation to think before he speaks, maybe even open up a book and read a bit, especially when his words have the potential to endanger our citizens and our soldiers fighting overseas."
-- I assume you were equally outraged and righteously indignant, then, by Dick "Gitmo is a gulag" Durbin.
I'm well aware of what happened at Hama, Madman. Thanks for the history lesson. So, since Al Qaeda would be delighted at the prospect of a democracy and the ouster of the Baathists in Syria, should I be opposed to such a change? And do you suggest that the actions of the Baathists in Hama actually worked as some sort of deterrent to the Islamists?
"One has to swallow a lot of hokum to set one's foot on Al Qaeda's path to begin with, so the conclusion that such people would feel rational distress at the prospect of democracy in Iraq is built on starry-eyed optimistic reasoning."
-- You seem to pay attention to Al Qaeda's propaganda when it suits you, but to ignore it otherwise. Zarqawi himself indicated his hostility to the notion of democracy in Iraq. But again, even granting your argument that Al Qaeda feels nothing but joy at the prospect of democracy in the region, is that, in and of itself, a good reason to oppose it?
"I wonder if you would feel differently if the policy were extended to monitoring Catholic schools and yeshivas."
-- Not if a group of radical Catholics or Jews had just carried out a nuclear attack on an American city.
Kate Marie,
This is becoming very tangential, but-
"-- I think perhaps this is an endearing absent minded professor moment. Do you mean eugenics or genetics? There's a big difference."
You are restricting "eugenics" to a very narrow usage of the word. It can apply to any science devoted to improving health through genetic control. When the Madwoman and I submitted to a series of tests for recessive genes common among Eastern European Jews we were engaged in a eugenic enterprise, as are all the farmers out there who breed to create disease-resistant strains of wheat, etc. etc.
Kate Marie,
This argument didn't begin over whether or not removing Saddam was a good idea, and I'm not going down that road again. The issue was whether or not Al Qaeda can feel pleased at his ouster, and now that you've conceeded they may be I'm satisfied (hah!).
"I'm well aware of what happened at Hama, Madman. Thanks for the history lesson. So, since Al Qaeda would be delighted at the prospect of a democracy and the ouster of the Baathists in Syria, should I be opposed to such a change? And do you suggest that the actions of the Baathists in Hama actually worked as some sort of deterrent to the Islamists?"
If you were aware of what happened at Hama then why did you doubt that Islamists had been "trying hard" to remove secularist regimes in Iraq and Syria? Some of the brutality of those regimes can arguably be cited as one index of just how hard Islamist rebels had been trying to overthrow them. Hama did not deter the Islamist, it obliterated them, and arguably deterred others from joining them. Given that such tactics are the only ones that have proven effective in stemming (though even so not completely repressing) Islamist rebellion the prospects for securing democracy in Iraq using less ruthless violence is at the very least a cause for concern.
"-- You seem to pay attention to Al Qaeda's propaganda when it suits you, but to ignore it otherwise. Zarqawi himself indicated his hostility to the notion of democracy in Iraq."
I pay much closer attention to Al Qaeda's propaganda than you give me credit for. "Hostility" to democracy and "rational distress" at its prospect are very different things. Al Qaeda professes that democracy is not in accord with God's will, and as they insist that nothing in opposition to God's will may endure they may well feel hostility sans distress when confronted with a democratic movement.
On the tangential issue. All the definitions of eugenics that I've been able to find look something like this: "Controlled human breeding based on notions of desirable and undesirable genotypes." I guess we're all aware of the connotation of the term. Is the term actually used more broadly these days to describe the kind of genetic testing you and Madwoman engaged in?
Kate Marie,
Type "eugenics" into Google and see what comes up. The term is controversial, to be sure, but is not devoid of *all* legitimacy, as you suggested. Proponents of eugenics (among whom are Noble laureates) would insist that yes, submitting to genetic testing prior to giving birth is a eugenic protocol, whether its called that or not.
Madman,
Here's one of the first articles I came to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
I'm tired, and I'm unwilling to take this side issue much further (though I suppose it's laughable how far I've taken it already). If you want to include the very broadest definition of the term eugenics and subtract all the more-than-troubling connotations (which I found hard to do, especially in conjunction with the invocation of Mengele), I'll concede that eugenics is not absolutely and completely devoid of legitimacy. See how reasonable I am?
Maybe I just found your use of the term puzzling, when I thought you could easily have used "genetics" instead (though I'm the last person interested in enforcing some P.C. speech code on this blog). Since the corelative of eugenics in the analogy was the concept of deterrence, did you mean to suggest that the question of deterrence had as questionable legitimacy as eugenics?
And you still haven't answered my assertion that your invocation of Mengele was a violation of some corollary of Godwin's law.
Madman,
One of the issues of my original post was whether or not any kind of deterrence would work on Al Qaeda. Now that you've conceded that some measure of deterrence may work against them (leaving aside the question of the advisability/morality of a "Hama option"), I'm satisfied. (Hah!)
Kate Marie,
My invocation of Mengele did not violate any corollary of Godwin's law (I confess I had to look that up), as launching a nuclear attack against Mecca or exercising a "Hama option" in opposition to Al Qaeda are surely comparable evils. My point was that Tancredo's approach to the problem of deterring Al Qaeda was as ludicrously extreme, morally perverse, and practically ineffectual as Josef Mengele's to the problem of *genetics*. As for your "Hama option," it doesn't exist. Assad's razing of Hama effectively destroyed Islamism's base of political power within Syrian society, but it hasn't deterred Islamist terrorists. Syria remains a target of Islamist terrorism- the only reason their are fewer bombings and assassinations in Syria than in Iraq is because the Ba'athist state has surveillance and interdiction capacities that the Iraqi state lacks. The only way to mimic Syria's "deterrence" capability is to transform our society into the same type of draconian police state.
Moreover, how would one formulate a "Hama option" in response to Al Qaeda? Lay waste all of southern Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan? By now Al Qaeda's operatives are stretched across South, Central, and Southeast Asia. The "Hama option" does not exist for Al Qaeda because on a global scale Al Qaeda has no Hama- there is no one location that is indispensible to their operational effectiveness. You may argue that we may put our faith in the power of intimidation, to which I would say, look how far that got Hitler (and Godwin's law be damned).
"You may argue that we may put our faith in the power of intimidation, to which I would say, look how far that got Hitler (and Godwin's law be damned)."
-- I might respond that it got Hitler very far indeed -- much farther, perhaps, than it would have gotten him if the rest of the West had been willing (or able) to "get Hitler on Hitler's ass" a lot sooner than it did.
In any event, you'll note that my original post actually asked a question about whether deterrence was possible. And despite your great certainty on the issue, I'm not yet satisfied that it *isn't* possible.
Kate Marie,
All right, I'll bite. How would you propose one might deter Al Qaeda?
P.S. The world never "got Hitler on Hitler's ass." The Nuremberg Trials were a very different affair from the way Hitler treated his defeated enemies. But, if you want the US to have a future lifespan of Hitler's "thousand year Reich" maybe we should start working from his playbook.
"But, if you want the US to have a future lifespan of Hitler's "thousand year Reich" maybe we should start working from his playbook."
-- Maybe we should. If I'm going to be subjected to the Hitler comparison, I might as well embrace it.
Kate Marie,
Now, now. Who compared you to Hitler? Not I, surely. Would you deny that the "Hama option" or a plan to "nuke Mecca" is identical to tactics employed by Hitler? Or we could imititate the "deterrent" tactics Hitler applied to resistance movements throughout Europe- round up randomly chosen "hostages" among communities where terror attacks originate and summarily execute them. My assertion is that were we to do so 1)those tactics would be as ineffectual for us as they were for Hitler; 2)those tactics would rebound to our detriment as cataclysmically as they did for Germany.
P.S. You still haven't given an example of a tactic you feel WOULD effectively deter Al Qaeda.
"P.S. You still haven't given an example of a tactic you feel WOULD effectively deter Al Qaeda."
-- That's because -- as I made clear in the original post -- I don't have an answer here. I'm asking questions. What deterred Hitler and Japan? Perhaps the same kind of deterrent wouldn't work on Al Qaeda. Can groups like Al Qaeda, despite their status as non-state actors, continue to operate effectively without some kind of state sponsorship and support. People like Michael Ledeen don't think so. I think it's rather hasty to choose a particular view as the annointed one and not bother any more about it.
Kate Marie,
"What deterred Hitler and Japan?"
Nothing deterred Hitler and Japan. Hitler's armies (elements of them, at least) fought on until Germany was totally overrun. Japan surrendered when, past an already inevitable defeat, they were faced with nuclear annihilation, but calling that "deterrence" is ridiculous. Al Qaeda has much, much less to lose than either of these powers and is just as pathological in its motives and methods- so you do the math.
"Can groups like Al Qaeda, despite their status as non-state actors, continue to operate effectively without some kind of state sponsorship and support."
You suffer from the same misapprehensions that blinker Wolfowitz, Perle, and crew. The amount of "support" that Al Qaeda requires to remain operational is miniscule. Trying to pinpoint their "state sponsors" is like trying to catch smoke in your hands. They can subsist on small donations and favors from petty bureaucrats, low-level military and intelligence officers, private funds set up and disguised as charities seeded throughout the banking system of the world. In other words, Al Qaeda need only depend on the minimal level of corruption and under-the-table dealing that goes on in any average Motor Vehicles Bureau or Teamster's Union. How do you propose we "deter" that? Threatening Saudi Arabia or Pakistan with a nuclear attack unless it can smoke out the third-tier procurement officer who, under threat, is paying embezzled protection money to some account in the Cayman islands is like hitting oneself in the foot with a sledgehammer to kill a fly.
This "I'm only asking questions" posture is something of a cop-out, though. Setting aside the question of whether it would work, just what type or extent of "deterrence" do you feel the U.S. is justified to unleash, and under what conditions?
"Setting aside the question of whether it would work, just what type or extent of "deterrence" do you feel the U.S. is justified to unleash, and under what conditions?"
-- Since I'm not yet sure how I'd answer this question -- though I certainly think the U.S. would be justified in a large-scale attack in response to a nuclear attack on American soil -- I guess I have to accept your answers, is that how it works?
Kate Marie,
You're getting warm. Actually, it would be best if you accepted my answers even if and when you do have your own...just kidding...sort of....well, for the most part.
I realize that this is becoming a circular argument but I can't help ask, whey you say, "the U.S. would be justified in a large-scale attack in response to a nuclear attack on American soil," Attack who? Attack what? I agree, the US would certainly be justified in launching a "large scale attack"- the problem is that Al Qaeda is not a "large scale enemy." They are a (in relative terms) very tiny group of pathological fanatics who have persuaded themselves that they have nothing to lose. What proxy target could we chose that would a)achieve an retributional effect; b)further the cause of defeating Al Qaeda; c)be morally justifiable? If you think it through I think you'll see that there is no such target- our only hope is to preclude such an attack, as there is no effective deterrent or response.
What is the last word worth to you, Madman?
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