The SabeR-Rattling Begins
That many Americans would be screaming for vengeance in the wake of Tuesday’s events is not surprising. What may be is that so many calls for blood are emanating from quarters where some pretense is made to considered reflection. For instance, Senator Zell Miller of Georgia offered the helpful, “I say bomb the hell out of them,” without explaining who “them” was. "If there's collateral damage, so be it. They certainly found our civilians to be expendable." This is a United States senator, advocating the murder of civilians. How is Miller’s perspective different from Osama Bin Laden’s? Both see their enemy and want to destroy it; neither cares how many innocents are killed in the process.
Among conservative pundits, the response has been even more disturbing. The New York Post’s Steve Dunleavy wrote, "The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift – kill the bastards…A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to…As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." Rich Lowry of the National Review said, “If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution." Charles Krauthammer called for the US to “rain destruction” on, well, whoever.
Ann Coulter – a commentator whom I greatly appreciate, because she is so vicious and repugnant that she aids the liberal cause every time she appears on television – wrote this little gem: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.”
And providing yet more evidence that religion is the source of all morality, two prominent devout Christians responded to an act of barbarism committed by devout Muslims by blaming – you guessed it – the godless. Appearing on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, Jerry Falwell said the American Civil Liberties Union has "got to take a lot of blame for this," to which Robertson responded, "Well, yes."
Falwell went on to say that "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
To return to the question of vengeance, I was reminded of an appearance President Bush made on David Letterman’s show late in the 2000 campaign. Letterman questioned Bush more pointedly than had any journalist; among the questions he asked was what Bush would do about the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. “If I find out who it was, they’d pay a serious price,” Bush said. “I mean a serious price.”
“Now, what does that mean?” Letterman asked.
“That means they’re not going to like what happened to them,” Bush said, to great applause from the crowd.
“Now are you talking about retaliation or due process of law?” Letterman asked.
“Heh-heh,” Bush said. “I’m talking about gettin’ the facts and lettin’ them know we don’t appreciate it and there’s a serious consequence.”
Many of the saber-rattlers are now calling for a similar response – make the terrorists pay the price! But of course, the problem is that they don’t care. They’re quite willing, in fact eager, to pay the price. Fear of our response is not going to change any potential terrorist’s behavior.
Imagine if you would the United States action that would be most likely to bring new adherents to Bin Laden’s cause, that would create more terrorists, encourage more desperate young men to commit suicide in order to fight the Great Satan. What would that action be? Bombing civilians is a pretty good guess.
While we have watched extraordinary acts of heroism and generosity in New York, reports are also coming in from around the country of Arab-Americans being threatened and assaulted. If they did nothing else, the terrorists succeeded in bringing out the worst in some of us. The question now is whether the thirst for blood will guide our actions, or whether we’ll have the imagination to arrive at a plan that goes beyond killing as many people as we can. But it looks like this is the direction in which we’re moving. The inevitable result will be more acts of terrorism against Americans.
- September 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001 by The Waldman Political Report. All rights reserved.