America: a Beacon, not a Policeman	Consequences of World Trade Center Bombing	Americans Against World Empire  Homepage

            We deplore the loss of thousands of innocent lives, the threat we have been warning against (vainly) for years.  What happens next?  Below are links & views about consequences and future policies.   Conservatives should be particularly wary of the knee jerk demands for vengeance and mass killing by many of our columnists and editors,  most of whom know very little about the outside World.    Millions of foreigners already hate America for our Mid-East policies and killing.  Terrorists all over the world, including even Basques and Colombians, are now allied together with a common interest against Washington.   Military success is needed, but supported by skilled diplomacy, something very scarce in a Washington establishment dominated by Congress with a short term vistas, the next election.

    MOSLEM VIEW--"Mahathir, Malaysia's Prime Minister said the case of Afghanistan demonstrated the (Organization of Islamic States) OIC's "failure to stand united and speak with one voice," according to Bernama. Mahathir further cautioned, 'Today it is Afghanistan, tomorrow it may be Iraq and after that it may be us.'" Stratfor.com

10/17/01  Major Andy Messing, noted anti-terrorism expert, from a letter,

"I was a protege of the late MG Edward G.Lansdale for 8 years .....His main theme was 'Take the cause away from the Guerilla/Terrorist ' ... This by addressing some of his Socio-Political, Economic, and Security concerns.....( It is outlined in his book..IN THE MIDST OF WARS )......killing Terrorists has only limited value( which must be done on occasion )...but to miss them and kill an innocent begets hundreds more..........Ireland. Lebanon, and other places reflect the continuing conflict.... much as a result of "shortcuts".....after going to most of these places ( to include Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir in the region ).....a slower and patience approach is needed..... Bombing these Bastards for 10 days....or killing their Mothers ain't going to do the trick !.... and there are a Billion of these people that Bin Laden is trying to recruit to his side....................................a Billion !"

1/16/02  Washington has hold (block) on $5 billion of Iraqi imports, most for reconstruction of civilian infrastructure, e.g. electricity, communications, etc.

1/16/02  Americans' War Needs to Feel Good About Ourselves

Success of Air War Will Bring Major Strategic Change--Fewer fighter planes and more bombers.  One B-2 will carry up to 300 directed 250 lb bombs--be able to "take out" a middle sized country. Also the revolutionary steps in preision may already be make it easier for U.S. leaders to turn to the use of force more often and more quickly.

Left Splits--Peace Groups Unsure --Fear Split with Labor

World Tourism Disaster --Economic repercussions

"And in a larger sense, it seems reasonable to conclude
that even the more fundamentalist and anti-American Muslims will
give the U.S. a pass -- if we confine ourselves to a short-term and
highly specific military action against bin Laden and the Taliban, limit
civilian casualties as much as possible, help Afghanistan get back on
its feet again and take tangible and visible steps to address the root
causes of Islamic anger at America."  SALON

Water Resevoir Operators asking for $5 Billion from Feds to protect reservoirs from poison and terrorism --CBS News 10/10

Bin Laden is not irreplaceable.   Terrorist organization is
multi-layered, redundant --"I myself heard bin Laden say that our
main objective is now limited to one state only, the United States, and
involves waging a guerrilla war against all U.S. interests, not only in the Arab region but also throughout the world, and that this operation on the whole will ultimately force the United States and those gravitating within its sphere to review their policies toward the Islamic groups," Ahmad al-Najjar told his Egyptian captors.  WorldNetDaily.com   10/9/01

Bin Laden Statement of Purpose

Full Bin Laden Speech   . Guardian Unlimited,  Sunday October 7, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,565069,00.html
    "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his
messenger. There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its
greatest buildings were destroyed, thank God for that.

There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west
to its east. Thank God for that. What America is tasting now, is something
insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our
nation (the Islamic world) has been tasting this humiliation and this
degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is
shed, its sanctuaries are attacked, and no one hears and no one heeds.

When God blessed one of the groups of Islam, vanguards of Islam, they
destroyed America. I pray to God to elevate their status and bless them.
Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being
killed in Iraq without committing any sins and we don't hear condemnation
or a fatwa from the rulers.

In these days, Israeli tanks infest Palestine - in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah,
Beit Jalla, and other places in the land of Islam, and we don't hear
anyone raising his voice or moving a limb. When the sword comes down (on
America), after 80 years, hypocrisy rears its ugly head. They deplore and they
lament for those killers, who have abused the blood, honour, and sanctuaries of
Muslims. The least that can be said about those people, is that they are
debauched. They have followed injustice. They supported the butcher over
the victim, the oppressor over the innocent child. May God show them His wrath
and give them what they deserve.

I say that the situation is clear and obvious. After this event, after the
senior officials have spoken in America, starting with the head of
infidels worldwide, Bush, and those with him. They have come out in force with
their men and have turned even the countries that belong to Islam to this
treachery, and they want to wag their tail at God, to fight Islam, to
supress people in the name of terrorism.

When people at the ends of the earth, Japan, were killed by their hundreds
of thousands, young and old, it was not considered a war crime, it is
something that has justification. Millions of children in Iraq, is
something that has justification. But when they lose dozens of people in Nairobi and
Dar es Salaam (capitals of Kenya and Tanzania, where US embassies were
bombed in 1998), Iraq was struck and Afghanistan was struck. Hypocrisy
stood in force behind the head of infidels worldwide, behind the cowards of this
age, America and those who are with it.

These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of
believers and the side of infidels, may God keep you away from them. Every
Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious. The winds of faith
have come. The winds of change have come to eradicate oppression from the
island of Muhammad, peace be upon him.

To America, I say only a few words to it and its people. I swear by God,
who has elevated the skies without pillars, neither America nor the people who
live in it will dream of security before we live it in Palestine, and not
before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace by upon
him. God is great, may pride be with Islam. May peace and God's mercy be upon
you.

9/16   PEACE SIGNS AMONG CALLS FOR WAR    ......"many New Yorkers expressed fear that any strike would spark another wave of mayhem in New York.   "It's easy to call for blood when you live in Des Moines," said Terrance Kincaid......" NEW YORK TIMES

9/16    Bin Laden wants massive attack by U.S. His audience is Moslem world, not us.  He sees our attacks as way to trigger overthrow of moderate pro-American regimes in Arab world, by outraged masses.  Objective is to drive America out of Moslem world.  Robert Fisk, INDEPENDENT

IMAGES OF PAST WARS MAY NOT FIT PRESENT FOE          "............Bush's promise yesterday of 'victory against terrorism,' and his prediction Friday that the conflict 'will end in a way, and in an hour, of our choosing,' suggest a presumption that there can be such an end by force of arms.  Modern precedent -- from Algeria to Ireland -- promises less. It also promises higher costs than most Americans have yet imagined, according to a broad range of authorities, civilian and uniformed, who study and practice war.     Retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a strategic planner, said the United States may be embarking on "an endless war of attrition against a faceless enemy -- think of a global Viet Cong.".................

"More important, because their goals are symbolic and psychological, they are likely to respond to U.S. escalation with efforts at still more spectacular strikes. Destruction of twin skyscrapers was a gut-rending loss, but greater traumas are potentially within a terrorist's means.

"'Think of anthrax spores, Super Bowl massacres, celebrity assassinations on live TV,'  said Cmdr. Ward Carroll, who teaches at the U.S. Naval Academy. 'The eventualities are almost beyond contemplation, but the nation must contemplate them -- because only when we do are we ready to launch the first Tomahawk Land Attack Missile or Joint Direct Attack Munition in this war.'"     Washington Post 9/16

                    "Alleged participants in bin Laden-inspired plots....have included citizens from dozens of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Malaysia and the United States." Old Theology and Modern Technology in Mission Without Borders, Washington Post   9/16

                       "...............if future U.S. retaliatory strikes seem likely further to embitter the Arab populations in the region. Indeed, the severest test for the new American-led antiterrorism coalition more generally is likely to come when Washington first proposes, or undertakes, retaliatory military actions. Such actions could put a heavy stress on relations not only between Washington and Moscow, but between the United States and its European allies. And that, rather than necessarily being a threat to Moscow, could ultimately also redound to Russia's diplomatic benefit." 

14 September 2001 - Volume VII, Issue 18   THE FORTNIGHT IN REVIEW published by THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION ---A Biweekly on the Post-Soviet States

"To be poor no longer means necessarily to be weak," Thomas Friedman --NBC TV 9/16

"We must not let this become a conflict between America and the Arab World, it's not a snake, its a hydra" ...........Sandy Berger, NBC TV 9/16

        Joseph Sobran on the Attack    9/14/2001

        "Once again our trillions of dollars' worth of "defense" has failed to defend us. If
someone hates you enough, he will find a way to hurt you. The destruction of the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon didn't require computers and couldn't have
been prevented by a missile-defense system. No new high-tech gadgetry was
involved. The most stunning crime in modern memory seems to have been
accomplished with knives and box-cutters...............

        "This was beyond terrorism, or random violence designed to intimidate a civilian
population. It was an unprecedented feat of guerrilla warfare, striking at two of the
strategic nerve-centers of the American empire.......

        "Ah yes, we and the Israelis are hated for our good qualities. Our governments have
done nothing to provoke hostility. US and Israeli bombings of civilians don't count
as "terrorism," of course; nor should Iraqis resent sanctions that cause them and
their children to die of disease and malnutrition; nor should reasonable
Palestinians mind being shot and tyrannized with American-supplied weapons.

        "Just how could the radical Muslims achieve "world domination" and "annihilate
Western culture"? Is there a radical Muslim naval fleet lurking about our coasts?
Do radical Muslims inundate us with popular art and propaganda promoting their
values? Obviously the real threats, menaces, and aggression are in the other
direction. The US government feels entitled to exercise hegemony in the Middle
East. The Muslims are defenseless in conventional warfare; which is why they have
turned to ingenious guerrilla and terrorist tactics..............

        "Would most Americans have tolerated their government's foreign policy if they had
foreseen that it would eventuate in this week's horrors? Of course not. Yet those
horrors were foreseeable; ever since the 1991 Gulf War I myself have been expecting
something like this, if not worse. And, with the development of biological and
compact nuclear weapons, worse may still lie ahead. If our military experts could
be outsmarted this way, they can be outsmarted in other ways. The smoldering
Pentagon is a natural result – and a perfect symbol – of their hubris.

        "Before you get into a fight, it's wise to ask yourself if you really need it. You may be
justified abstractly, but you may also wind up paying a price you couldn't have
imagined at the beginning, especially if your adversary holds an edge in
imagination. And though our enemies may be weaker than we are, they have now
proved themselves far more imaginative.

        "We are hearing the phrase "national security" bandied about, but security is a
relative thing. It can never be absolute. And as soon as you make an enemy – that
is, someone who wants to hurt you – you become to some extent insecure. Safety
can be best attained by staying close to your base and making no more enemies
than necessary, which hardly describes US foreign policy.

        "We shall pay any price, bear any burden; and the price and the burden will include new restrictions on our
freedoms. In order to "protect" us, our government will crack down on us.   We have just paid a terrible price for a solipsistic foreign policy. How much more    will we insist on paying?

More Sobran

FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT
September 18, 2001

by Joe Sobran

Subscribe to the Sobran column. See
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml or
http://www.griffnews.com for details and samples
or call 800-513-5053 or write fran@griffnews.com.
Copyright (c) 2001 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate,
www.griffnews.com. All rights reserved.]


        Assuming that Osama bin Laden directed the 9/11
attack, how does he feel today?

    Is he sitting in a cave biting his nails and
moaning: "Oh dear! What have I done? Now the Americans
are really angry, and they are only too likely to strike
back! Why didn't I think of that possibility?"

    Or is he saying: "Just as we hoped. Bush is
following the script we wrote. Of course we knew the
Americans would take the bait! That was our whole design!
Soon there will be open war between the infidels and
Islam"?

    If this is war, it makes World War II look as quaint
as an eighteenth-century pistol duel at 20 paces. Our
enemy is not a state with a central nervous system we can
strike at, but a vexingly decentralized organization.
It's a perverse twist on the principles of the free
market and federalism, and President Bush, threatening to
"eradicate" terrorism, is rather like a socialist central
planner threatening to eradicate a black market.

    Meanwhile, the United States is taking frantic
precautions, at enormous cost, to prevent the recurrence
of a unique event. Whatever the enemy has up its sleeve,
it won't do the same thing next time. Knowing we are now
on guard against quadruple hijackings, it will find
another way to surprise us.

    We are dealing with men who are willing to die in
order to hurt us. Tough talk may console the American
public, but it's entirely beside the point. What is the
use of threatening fanatics with violence? What is it
about the word "suicide" we don't understand?

    Moreover, the 9/11 attack may mark a dreadful
threshold. The whole world has now seen that the sole
remaining superpower is by no means invulnerable. This
can only encourage other potential enemies to try their
hand. It's rather like the four-minute mile: as soon as
one man broke it, everyone did. It no longer seemed the
outer limit of human achievement. From now on we must
watch our backs everywhere on earth.

    Since the real enemy is elusive, the natural
response of a wounded state is to seek a tangible target
-- another state -- to strike at. So our government is
holding the Afghan government responsible for harboring
bin Laden and is threatening military reprisals unless he
is captured and given up to the United States.

    This assumes that the rulers of Afghanistan know
exactly where bin Laden is and can easily arrest him, if
only they want to. Should we make war on such a dubious
assumption? If we do, we may find ourselves fighting the
entire Muslim world, roughly a billion people, with
incalculable consequences, and with Osama bin Laden and
his cohorts fading into the background of a third world
war. Our primary mission will become subduing countless
people who have nothing to do with him, but who will be
united in their hatred of us. The original cause may be
almost forgotten, as we pay a vastly greater price for
the war than we paid last week.

    World War II began with the invasion of Poland;
fifty million deaths later, it ended with Poland in the
firm possession of one of the aggressors. The irony was
lost on the exhausted Western "victors."

    "That men set off a course of events they can
neither calculate nor control," wrote the great
Shakespeare commentator A.C. Bradley, "is a tragic fact."
Nearly every war turns out to be far more than we
bargained for. The Gulf War seemed like an easy victory,
at the time; we won in a few weeks, and for ten years we
thought we were living happily ever after. Now it appears
to have made us implacable and cunning enemies.

    Of course the enemy doesn't know how events will
play out either, but it is too reckless to care. It
represents the nemesis of the modern state, too weak to
conquer but satisfied with the stupendous disruption it
can achieve. And because that enemy is not a state, there
is probably no coin in which it can be repaid.

    The enemy has done the unexpected. Our own
government has done only the expected. There is no doubt
who is winning, or who holds the upper hand.

Is American Infrastructure at Risk?  9/14/01

STRATFOR.COM     Summary

        "The financial and air transportation industries will feel the
aftershocks of the Sept. 11 attacks for years. If terrorists did
not fully anticipate this while planning the attacks, they are
certainly aware of it now. This raises the possibility that the
perpetrators may shift future target sets away from pure terror
targets toward vital infrastructure, including oil refineries and
bridges.

        "Stock markets in the United States reopened Sept. 17 for the
first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Washington,
D.C., and New York, and air traffic began to return to normal.
The Dow Jones average and NASDAQ, however, both fell by more than
5 percent, with airline stocks taking particularly strong hits.

        "The effects of Sept. 11 will be apparent for some time in the
American financial and transportation sectors and around the
globe. The question now is whether these far-reaching
ramifications were intended by or incidental to the attackers'
plans. The answer may shed light on whether more attacks may
follow and what the targets might be. A campaign against
important American infrastructure -- such as communications and
power installations -- could be in the works.

        "Unlike the Sept. 11 suicide strikes, which shut the United States
down for a week, a sustained campaign against vital
infrastructure could have effects unseen in the United States
since the Civil War.........................."

A Hatred Rooted In Failings

By Caryle Murphy

THE WASHINGTON POST Sunday, September 16, 2001

        "From Algeria to Egypt to Yemen, from Iraq to Pakistan, military or authoritarian governments --
many of them U.S. allies -- deny their citizens basic freedoms. Even in the freest of these nations
-- Egypt -- Hosni Mubarak has been president for 20 years, reelected by referendums with
dubious results, usually in the 90 percent range.................Those who go too far in defying these authoritarian states face dire consequences, ranging fromtorture to years in prison with no trial. As a result, many young people have given up trying to
change their governments.....................

        "Against this unsettled backdrop, the 50-year-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians
rages on. Seen through Muslim eyes, it is a conflict prolonged by America's bias toward Israel.
Muslims do not comprehend, for example, how the United States, which gives Israel more than $3
billion annually, could not have stopped Israel from allowing more than 200,000 Jewish settlers
-- half of them since the 1993 Oslo peace agreement -- to move into occupied territory
Palestinians had envisioned as their homeland. To many Americans, these issues may seem irrelevant in the face of the evil of last week -- evil that can never be excused. And those who lost loved ones do not want to hear explanations.

         "The terrorists were well-organized, but they were no match for New York. Our most sophisticated city, which thinks it knows it all and has a name for brusqueness, demonstrated a depth of humanity that tells terrorists that they are wasting their time blasting our cities. We are a great nation ready to join the world against evil."  Mary McGrory, THE WASHINGTON POST,  Sunday, September 16, 2001