America’s WMD Doctrine: Would It Deter a Nuclear 9/11?
The Koran, the primary Islamic doctrine, inspires and legitimizes acts of terror — if jihadists themselves are to be believed. The recent discovery of the Yemeni Koran, dating back to within two centuries of the founding of Islam, has provided a possibility of decisively negating the legitimacy of the Koran as consisting of God’s “revelations.” Studies show this version of the Koran being different from the only Koran now in circulation, thus countering the claims of the believers that the Koran represents the perfect, timeless, and unchanging word of God, and instead making a case for viewing it as an evolving text developed by humans.
The current nuclear doctrine announced in 2002 with regard to WMD strikes on the United States is based upon a “strong declaratory policy” to discourage anyone from using nukes or other WMD on the U.S. It also “requires an enhanced ability to determine the source of an attack quickly and effectively.” Furthermore, the document says, “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including through resort to all of our options [that includes retaliatory nuclear strikes] — to the use of [WMD] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” While the 2002 doctrine calls for retaliation only on the state actors who may have enabled the use of WMD, the latest revision, announced in 2008, expands it a bit further and says “those states, organizations, or individuals who might enable or facilitate terrorists in obtaining or using weapons of mass destruction.”
Analyzing nuclear material left over after the blast to look for “signatures” and determining the origin of the nuclear bomb-making material have become increasingly feasible. But on the downside, this nuclear forensics is not only time-consuming but unreliable in a world in which nuclear technology has proliferated — and due to the lack of cooperation and transparency on the part of the states that sponsor terror.
Many terror-sponsoring states may have been convinced, for the right reasons, that they are unlikely to be implicated and held accountable decisively when there is seemingly lack of clear-cut evidence linking them to terrorist groups involved in the WMD attacks. In other words, the present language in the American WMD doctrine constitutes a deficiency — and gives jihadists an edge by tempting them to think that they have an escape clause from extreme punishment for the WMD attacks. Thus the doctrine in its present form puts America and its allies under a significant risk in the form of the looming threat of a nuclear 9/11.
Indeed, it is pertinent to note that similar reasons of plausible deniability have been used by Islamic states such as Pakistan to fund and sponsor terror groups, including the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and India-specific Lashkar-e-Taiba.
A way to overcome this deficiency lies in acknowledging that the root cause of the WMD attacks lies in the longstanding pattern of hateful indoctrination and funding of the communities from which WMD attacks may originate. In a 2005 speech, the U.S. Treasury secretary made this observation about the Saudi export of terrorist ideologies: “In addition to the export of terrorist funds, we are extremely concerned about the export of terrorist ideologies. These teachings are as indispensable to terrorists as money, and possibly even more dangerous.” For instance, the funding and indoctrination of Muslim communities throughout the world carried out by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran have given rise to the likes of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, and many other terror entities. The point couldn’t be overstated: without this root cause, the desire for and ability to wage jihad and, hence, the intent to acquire and use WMD are very unlikely.
In the above context, a nuanced and strong declaratory policy has to go beyond merely singling out those who may have either enabled or facilitated terrorists into obtaining or using the WMD, but also declare the intent to retaliate disproportionately and devastatingly against those states, societies, or groups that have been engaged in the hateful indoctrinating process noted in the previous paragraph. Such a response has the best potential to create “black swan”-like trend-changing events, in order to compel these communities to evolve differently in a non-confrontational and constructive direction.
The above approach is justified on the basis that a WMD-based genocidal mass attack on innocent civilians and others by terrorist entities requires far-reaching measures of accountability, both at personal and community levels.
A revamped WMD doctrine along these lines should help reinvigorate worldwide efforts to moderate violent religion-based ideologies and address their implications. In particular, it will put the onus on nations such as Saudi Arabia to play a leadership role in rolling back the jihadist passion of anger and hatred it helped to create around the world. This could involve the distribution of material that compares the differences in the Yemeni Koran with the contemporary Koran to demonstrate that the believers should not heed the contents of the Muslim holy book that either speak ill of unbelievers or call for their conquest through jihad.
The U.S. revisit of its WMD doctrine couldn’t happen soon enough.
“and determining the origin of the nuclear bomb-making material have become increasingly feasible.”
There are ways around this, of course. The one that scares me most is one of the terrorist groups using several nukes to trigger the Canary Islands fault. That would pretty much destroy the seacoasts of France, England, Spain, the east coast of America and South America as well as Africa’s Atlantic coast. Hundreds of millions dead and the ‘evidence’ buried under millions of tons of rock.
Western civilization falls back into the dark Ages for a generation or two. That would create a technological parity between Islam and the West. Only they have a numbers advantage.
Generalities are dangerous, but on the average Westerners value life more the muslims. When is the last time you heard of a Presbyterian strapping on a homicide vest and blowing up a pizza joint?
So in the event that north korea manages to sneak a bomb into new york and detonate it, and the source can’t be identified, the US feels justified in nuking iran, pakistan, saudi arabia, syria, possibly even the philippines, indonesia and malaysia (depending on recent events in the news)
And you even reckon this response should be disproportionate and devastating.
You’re not going to win many friends with that vinegar.
I remember the general panic (especially among liberals and expressed by Hollyweird’s releases of nuclear holocast flicks) of the early 80′s when Regean got into an arms race with the USSR. I was never concerned. I knew the Soviets were rational enough not to start a nuclear war – they understood what they would lose. I also believed Reagan would not start one – he understood what was at stake. I find it interesting that recently released interviews with high ranking soviet military reveals just that.
On the other hand, petty two-bit third world dictators had nothing to lose. Again, the released soviet military interviews talk of having to get Castro to chill – seems he kept bugging mother russia to bomb the US. Only when the soviets convinced him that HE would have nuclear fallout to deal with did he shut up.
Now we have religious fanatics who believe they are the only “true” religion and anyone who doens’t convert and subject themselves to their rule will be destroyed in this life. by the religious fanatics. with whatever weapon is available. These may be petty two-bit third world tyrants, but they are extremely dangerous. Rationality is not in their lexicon. If we (or russia or china) were to drop a nuclear bomb on them to get them to chill, they’d celebrate all the martyrs and lob as many bombs, missles, or whatever else they had in their arsnel just as fast as they could.
Remember, i’manutjob thinks Iran developing (and probably using) a nuclear weapon will usher in the mahdi. As long as he has one or more to throw back, he won’t care if one is dropped on his country. After all, jihadi’s do use women and children as shields.
TO: Moorthy Muthuswamy, et al.
RE: [OT-slightly] WMDs, Redefined
Apparently someone in the federal government has decided to redefine Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).
Used to be such devices were nuclear, biological or chemical, i.e., poison gas, in their nature.
NOW, based on recent reports in the news, any explosive device is an WMD.
Whoever has done this has now declared that every kitchen in America has the components for the construction of a WMD. For example:
• ‘Enriched’ flour can be a part of a fuel-air explosive device.
• Bacon fat and styrofoam cups can be components of a Foo Gas flame weapon.
This makes every cook or homemaker in America a potential threat to national security. On a par with Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Thank you Obama….
….for making US all felons….for having bomb-making materials in our very homes.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The whole nation must be a prison.]
The United States is at worst 3 weeks away from almost unthinkable nuclear choices that the conservatives to progressives have their heads buried deep in the sand because they want to make believe it’s not there. You’re a bunch of dummies. Cause it is there.
Israel has no choice as things stand now but to strike Iran and try to seriously damage their wmd capability.
Russia is playing out its scerarioic choices in the Kremlin night and day.
Iran leaders are unstable mentally, and are foaming at the mouth to wipe out Israel.
And we’ve got a President without the inclination or the backbone to order full retaliatory response (the kennedy doctrine.
People, if Russia took out an Israel that had just blasted Iran to smithereens, what would Barack do? I say nothing.
If Russia took out New Yrok and Chicago, Barack would call it a great tragedy and an example of miscommunication.
The Barack you elected is a liar not a fighter.
You people better get off the sidelines and start talking about this. Your kids’ lives are at stake.
“America’s WMD Doctrine: Would It Deter a Nuclear 9/11?”
probably depends on how desperate we get.
if the “war on terror” continues to fail, we’ll probably have to stage another 9/11 to get back on track.
neocons have been preparing us for another false flag with their yammering about a iran/north korea nuke weapons connection…
how convenient would that be…? …little nukes going off in a couple of your favorite american cities …or maybe even israeli cities, blamed on iran and north korea, which would just happen to terminally incriminate the two remaining members of the “axis of evil”.
it’s almost too good to pass up, isnt it? …especially if the scientists at dimona have managed to fabricate bombs that duplicate north korea’s nuclear explosion signature.
you got to admit that this “truther” thing is getting out of hand… so ideally, we have to make sure the next 9/11 is bad enough to justify a declaration of martial law.
then we can crack down on the internet and lock up the truthers. or shoot them.
*shrug*
what i mean, is… when you start getting two and a half million google hits on PNAC “new pearl harbor“, you gotta wonder, dont you?
The United States, under its current leadership, is as willing to take this approach as a morbidly obese person lined up at an all-you-can-eat restaurant is willing to go on a diet.
More nations rather than those who have signed onto the Borjomi Declaration need to adopt it as its foreign policy, and then they can speak with one voice and be taken much more seriously than a collection of smaller voices. The Baltic countries all the way south to Cyprus, as far west as Italy or the Czech Republic, and including the Balkans, plus Georgia and Armenia, combined would have enough clout to cause countries around the world to make this proposal real, and not to be messed around with.
Fools say that Israel won’t do anything about Iran because they can’t. What will actually happen is that Israel will use any means necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon- including a preemptive nuclear strike.
Matthew:
I suggest that you read the article carefully, before making your comments.
You are completely misreading the thrust of this article.
I did write that “communities from which WMD attacks may originate.”
Muslim communities have to be identified as the source of the WMD/nuke attack(s) in order to move forward to deal with Islamic states who may have been engaged in their prolonged and hateful indoctrination.
@6, 7 & 8 wadosy:
PLEASE get help! You need someone to guide you back to reality, dude, ’cause you’re ONE SICK PUPPY!
I gather from your blather that you actually believe the US government would nuke a couple of US cities for an excuse to nuke NK & Iran. Reality is a wonderful thing; you should try it!
I suppose you think the US government either allowed or created 9/11 too? What a goober!!!
Your swipe at Israel says a lot about you as well.
By the way, what kind of name is Wadosy??? Are you one of those painfully ignorant, uneducated, indoctrinated, brainwashed, sand-rat Muslims?????!
Declare your colors when you blog!
india seems to have signed on to the neocon project.
so india thinks that israeli america is committed to defending india from the nuclear muslim hordes in pakistan.
too bad israeli america is more concerned with china, and the solution to the china problem is this: cause enough problems in afghanstan and pakistan that pipelines cant be built to china.
too bad that preventing pipelines to china also prevents pipelines to india.
but you made your bed, you can lie in it.
Chances are higher than they’ve ever been that there will be a nuclear exchange within a month and the New York Times continues to sleep on the story like a well fed dog who’s just had a big meal. Maybe its last.
operation enduring turmoil
overview PNAC/AEI/exxon/israeli plan
it’s gonna be interesting to see if the indians catch on to how badly they’re being used… after all, it’s an ancient culture, and it should have accumulated some wisdom.
you, on the other hand, abandoned your country and are now serving the israeli american empire.
it’s not surprising you’re so determined to incriminate pakistani muslims for crimes they’ve not committed, as opposed to israelis and israeli americans attempting to incriminated iran and north korea for crimes they’ve not committed.
I think Wadsey used to be Vitro. He got tired of getting scrolled and changed his handle.
Meanwhile, any good sized Democracy can take a few nukes without being destroyed. A wound but not a fatal one. Tyrants cannot, since once the tyrant is dead, that’s it.
Israel nukes Tehran and the game is over. Mad Dog Mullahs become radioactive particles floating over China. Iran falls into a decades long civil war.
Russia won’t do anything, since they have the same problem. Nuke Moscow and Russia becomes a large group of warring kingdoms. Israel CAN nuke Moscow. They built their ICBM’s with just enough range. Berlin too.
Israel is as much of an Idea as a place.
America replaces it’s leadership at regularly scheduled intervals, so an unscheduled change would be just a bump in the road.
As a Red Stater living in fly-over America, I think New York and D.C. getting nuked would be the best thing that happened to the USA since the Louisiana Purchase.
I find it amusing that the very people that allowed Iran to build nukes are the ones that will be seeing them first hand. Justice served.
BTW, nothing illegal about Israel having nukes OR using them. Israel NEVER signed the NPT. Preemptive strikes have been legal under international law since the mid 19th century and the Clementine affair.
For the poorly educated the Clementine was a US ship that US terrorists were using to transfer arms to Canada in an attempt to start a civil war there and then take over. The Royal Navy sailed into Harbor ( Boston,I think but I’m not real sure about that) and captured the ship at anchor.
UChiago Law School decides the preemptive attacks on Nuclear weapons sites violate the UN Charter;
http://cjil.uchicago.edu/redesign/past-issues/v4n1/slossabstract.htm
Plenty of room for disagreement there. The UN charter allows the right of self defense to states.
http://www.cdi.org/news/law/preemptive-war.cfm
2 arguments here. First, since the UN charter doesn’t expressly forbid a nations right to self defense, as a preexisting legal condition, it still exists unless it is directly and specifically removed.
The other argument is that since the UN charter has been violated more times then it has been adhered to, the Charter is null and void.
israel nukes everybody.
problems solved.
good enough.
once you’ve abandoned your morals, legality has nothing to do with anything.
the only law is: “might makes right”, and morals are for fuddy duddies.
there’s only one law:
sounds good to me.
America will take that Nuclear 9/11 and respond with everything BUT nuclear weapons.
Good Lord the environuts would go apeshit!
The only folks now able to use nukes are the Islamofascist, Russia or China.
America would have to be bombarded with a rain of nukes before somebody in the chain of command would even request nuclear release.
it’s not as if morals were a survival strategy.
nope.
that’s why so many religions were invented: morals are so goofy that we had to invent religions to protect them.
there’s only one law: might makes right.
there remains the possibility that most of the world outside israeli america still retains some faith in moral behavior.
it remains a possibility that morals still play a part in daily life, despite the obvious fact that morals are obsolete.
anyone who behaves morally is a threat to the new world order, and they will have to be isolated or killed.
most people probably have experiences every day where morals interfere with their basic belief in might makes right.
for instance, if i go into the supermarket during a rush, i should be entitled to machinegun everyone ahead of me in the checkout line.
it’s only common sense.
Logically, it’s impossible to deter someone who does not fear the consequences of his actions or your response to them. Statements by Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and others suggest that the jihadis would find great damage to dar al-Islam acceptable, if that were the price of wreaking great damage on us of dar al-Harb. So we can’t count on the threat of “partial” retaliation for deterrence. This forces us to ask: What could the United States do, whether in response to a nuclear attack or anything else, that the jihadis would fear?
The point of jihad is to establish Islam as supreme over all Mankind, such that afterward, Islam would be the only acceptable religion on Earth. By implication, an Earth devoid of humanity would be acceptable to the jihadis. However, an Earth where Mankind still exists, but where Islam does not, would be the ultimate defeat of their campaign.
It would seem that, to deter the jihadis, the U.S. would have to establish as an irrevocable and unalterable policy that a nuclear terrorist attack would be answered by the complete elimination of Islam from the world: the death of every living Muslim, and the eradication of all of Islam’s scriptures.
Somehow, I don’t think we have the necessary ruthlessness for that…and I think the jihadis know it.
The first and foremost priority of the United States is to avoid a nuclear first strike. For that it has to have a WMD doctrine that must act as a strong deterrent.
The present one is not. This is the focus of this analysis.
The other point is that, not all Muslims in power-making positions are willing to use nukes on the West at the possibility of a complete annihilation of their kind in retaliation. There are going to be many in the collective decision-making scenarios who may balk at using nukes on the West.
We need to get the word about the Yemeni Koran.
Here is a Koran that is different from the only Koran Muslims have read. This shows compellingly that the Koran couldn’t be the Word of God. If we can do that effectively, which we should, increasingly, fewer Muslims would be willing to be duped by believing and following a predominantly, as statistics have shown, a hateful book, that offers little in the way of providing a future for Muslim children and adults.
#10. I put my money on the scenerio you described.
Is Drudge Hinting Another 9/11 Is Imminent?
“Imminent” can mean all sorts of things, like in the next few minutes, the next hour, the next day, next week but it always means pretty damned soon.
With this president’s abject and repetitive demonstrations of weakness, servitude, and remorse for America’s history, could another, or far worse, 9/11 be in the relatively immediate offing?
No one would dare attack a confident, powerful, and united nation.
Knowing that retribution would be timid or non-existent, even the most cowardly, most inept, and weakest of enemies would be encouraged to assault a country in disarray, confusion, and under domestic assault.
Such chaos furnishes an added dollop of motivation to extra-national terrorists, especially jihadists inspired by Allah.
Before terrorism in America devolved into an insignificant issue under the Obama administration, we used to hear about color-coded warning levels and “chatter,” i.e., heightened activity among potential Islamic enemies detected by elements of our national security agencies.
No more.
Instead today we hear not chatter but of overt activity, not through government channels but rather from independent news agencies such as DrudgeReport.com.
Consider just one day’s worth of headlines on Drudge: . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)
I have read (somewhere on the web) that the bombs are already in the US, brought across the Tex/Mex border last year. small planes will take off from farm fields (Flying Farmers’ fields) before the end of this year and detonate small “suitcase” nukes over five cities (Las Vegas, Miami, LA, DC, NY). It will take several months to recover communications from this strike. We took money out of the bank for six months, have food, gasoline, deisel, ammunition, whiskey, gin laid by for six months. Let her rip. I won’t miss the big cities(I just hope all the lefty politicians are in DC when it hits as we could do with a conservative crowd there). I am ready for the 19th century. bring it on.
Actually truthers are a very useful people.
Whatever happens, they always blame the neocons, that is, the Zionists, that is, the Jews. Always.
They’re not actually worried about America’s safety. Their hatred of Jews trumps all, and they’d joyfully sacrifice their country if, by doing this, they could in any way harm at least some Jews.
People use to think that Hitler was a radical German nationalist. He wasn’t. He was first and foremost a Jew hater and, if it took for him the destruction of Germany to exterminate the Jews, so be it. He was willing to sacrice his whole people in order to exterminate the Jews. In the end, he came to hate the Germans because they had proved unequal to this “glorious” task.
I’m not saying truthers = nazis (though most neonazis are truthers). But, if they had to choose between a safe US together and allied to a safe and strong Israel on one hand, and, on the other, the nuclear destruction of a dozen American cities coupled with that of Haifa or Tel Aviv, they’s obviously choose the most destructive (and for them, pleasant) option.
By the way, it is the truthers anti-semitism that gives their game away: they do know that Muslim Arab fanatics perpetrated 9/11, but they’d rather use the opportunity to harm the Jews than to punish their country’s real enemies.
Funny people.
suzy, ditto.
A lot of people have done the same… laugh if you will, but don’t come knocking on my door for a piece of bread.
Maybe we won’t need to vote out the incumbents in 2010.
Obama is not about “victory”.
Francis W. Porretto (24):
…
Read Tom Kratman’s Caliphate some time. He doesn’t mince any words whatsoever in his opinions on what is going on.
My fear is – as Mr. Kratman suggests – that precisely that happens: some Muslim extremest group pisses us off so much that we do take out the entire Islamic population, or at least try to.
I commend the work of a fellow author at PJM, Richard Fernandez, AKA Wretchard at BELMONT CLUB, to your attention. After 9/11 he published his “Three Conjectures” which bears on this specific matter. The math is irrefutable.
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html
In short form, there is no deterrence possible. Eventually, the losses in the West, especially in the US will compel a massive retaliation that will destroy the Ummah utterly. There is question as to how many cities we will lose before retaliating. It could be as few as one. Under Obama, I rather expect that he will refuse to act until after 2-3 American cities are gone if not more if he can hold office that long. Eventually, by whatever means, the National Command Authority will fall into the hands of someone who will act.
If you read it, you will find that as soon as we lost the will to try to win this war by conventional means, we were doomed to a nuclear exchange.
#2 Matthew
If I may comment, at that point it will not be a matter of trying to win hearts and minds. Honey or vinegar will mean nothing. The only thing that will count is stopping the destruction of more American cities. And since North Korea has played a very crucial part of the Islamic nuclear weapons program; I am pretty sure that they are on the list. There are some things that cannot be answered with the turning of the other cheek.
Subotai Bahadur
Moorthy Muthuswamy
“You are completely misreading the thrust of this article”
I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t believe I am. All I’ve done is point out one logical conclusion that follows from what you proposed. Here’s what you wrote (some emphasis from me):
“a nuanced and strong declaratory policy has to _go beyond_ merely singling out those who may have either enabled or facilitated terrorists into obtaining or using the WMD, but also declare the intent to retaliate _disproportionately and devastatingly_ against those states, societies, or groups _that have been engaged in the hateful indoctrinating process_ noted in the previous paragraph”
Does that not mean that in the event of an attack, you think the US would be justified in retaliating against the sources of hateful indoctrination? And why? Precisely because of the difficulty of proving either the source of a particular bomb, or proving a direct link to any specific actor (otherwise a more targeted response would be possible and preferable). So in the event of an attack that could not be traced, your proposed doctrine _requires_ (otherwise it’s not a real deterrent) retaliation against a (potentially) very broad group of countries that host/support terrorist groups. At least, that’s the worst possible interpretation. If that’s not what you meant, you might want to clarify your position in the text.
The stuff about the yemeni koran is interesting, but a bit irrelevant – if you’re interested in some good polemical stuff about the accuracy of the koran, check out jay smith on youtube. It’s an interesting subject.
In the event of a nuclear 9/11 (which probably is a matter of time – time being very large), it won’t be necessary for anyone to use nukes to retaliate (lets put aside the idea that the US has to be the target – that’s not a given, and it just reflects an american egotistical world view). Terrorists are not an existential threat (unlike the cold war was), so an guaranteed, devastating second strike doctrine isn’t useful. We all know that in the real event, the major players will have the time to conduct a serious investigation – and it will BE a global investigation, because a rogue nuclear attack serves no major power’s interests (remember the global response after 9/11? a nuclear terrorist attack would be several orders of magnitude beyond that). We will have plenty of time to find out who was responsible – then I expect that a gulf-war-1 alliance of some sort will bring down the state(s) behind it. That’s what _will_ happen. There’s no point in making stupid “infinite justice” threats that ignore common sense, alienate allies, tie the hands of united states and feed straight into the hands of the hate mongers.
It’ll be much more effective to convince rogue states that the US (and others) _will_ be committed to effectively retaliating against the government(s) responsible, and in the meantime to take every opportunity to tell rogue states we know what they’re up to.
Subotai Bahadur:
“If I may comment, at that point it will not be a matter of trying to win hearts and minds”
Agreed. But the declaration of a doctrine happens BEFORE “that point”. After an attack things are different, yes. But in the meantime, the US still needs cooperation to counter all manner of other risks. Convincing the world’s bad guys that sooner or later they’re going to be devastatingly attacked for someone else’s actions will only give them an iron-clad reason to pay what it takes to show that THEY can retaliate, whether it be against the US or someone closer to home. You’d make it worth their while. You’re proposing a doctrine that will actually encourage nuclear proliferation.
Guys, after 60 years of the US trying to tell the world how it’s gonna be, I would have thought that by now you’d have figured out that it’s counterproductive. The US is 5% of the world’s population, that’s all. The worst fears of americans aren’t the only thing that matters to the world as a whole, and the US needs cooperation to pursue its objectives. Within 20-30 years it’s not going to have the economic clout to dictate terms any more, and in another 30-40 it’s not going to be the world’s most powerful military. That’s probably in our lifetime. I suggest you use time available in a more productive way.
There are some good reads to be found online about the development of nuclear deterrence strategy. The important thing to notice is that it’s critical to think about how the other guy will react in an attack, and how he’ll react to your preparations. If you don’t, it’s not effective. That’s the usual problem with simplistic conservative thinking – it doesn’t seriously ask “what next?”
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=585
http://www.rand.org/publications/classics/wohlstetter/P1472/P1472.html
I’ll post a couple more later (I’m not near my bookshelf at the moment)
I didn’t know Obama actually had any type of doctrine aimed at “helping” America deal with anything.
We feel he is floundering and we will pay a dear price for his views and actions. Frankly, we don’t know what to do. All I can do for my famly is prepare the best we can. This may seem simplistic but there are few options for a public that no one listens to. It’s great to talk about what he should or should not do…that does not change what he will do or how he will react, and I say react not act…
Matthew:
Any military doctrine, be it in the form of a deterrent or in retaliation to a violent attack has to be measured in relation to the nature of the threat.
The fundamental mistake you have made is in misreading the nature of the threat. This is what makes your arguments particularly unimpressive or irrelevant.
The ideology behind terror, which is Islam, is an existential threat. You have, regretfully, not understood this point.
Obviously, if you only focus on Islam in action
in the West, you get only the half picture. You have to analyze Islam in action in the regions adjacent to Islamic nations, such as South Asia, especially in relation to nations that are weaker than Islamic civilization. My book provides an unprecedented view of jihad in South Asia.
I don’t think you have understood that the end result of the war on terror (based upon your post) has to be geared toward making certain nations and societies to realize that jihad geared toward conquest (of which terrorism is one important entity) is a futile effort and that it must be stopped. A retaliatory nuclear strike, in combination with discrediting the theological foundation of Islam, will do much to really send the message decisively this time (if these nations or their proxies nuke us first).
Nations such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran etc who fund and encourage jihad are not doing it to bring groceries to your family. They know exactly what they want — annihilation of our way of live or us altogether through a relentless war by all means. I gave examples of that in the article and you can read more in my book.
From what you are proposing, I can only conclude that you are a kind of a guy who wants to engage in an endless war with a genocidal enemy without fundamentally changing him at the expense of destroying the western civilization and America.
31: Paul of Alexandria:
I’ve read it, and yes, it is terrifying — terrifyingly plausible.
Colonel Kratman is a clear-sighted man, and no more pleased by the prospect he foresees than you or I. But as someone else whose name I’ve forgotten once said, at least we’d have peace for a while…until the remorse set in.
# 33. Matthew
I am not “describing a doctrine” with my cite, I am offering reality as I see it. Our doctrine, such as it is now, is not fitted to the reality of the situation. The threat of the actual detonations being carried out by non-state actors, who got the weapons from a limited possible set of hostile state actors [Pakistan,Iran, North Korea most likely at this point], with sponsorship, support, and protection from nuclear capable state powers [Russia & China], and economic, technological, and political support from supposed allies [France, Germany, Belgium, and others possibly including Britain]; is not covered by our doctrine. This is a gap noticed by our enemies.
From your phraseology “you’d have figured out”, I am making the assumption that you are not American. From your tone and command of the language, I will make the first order, but rebutable, assumption that you are British.
Let us say that New York City or Washington, D.C. disappears in a nuclear explosion. Assume casualties of 1,000,000. As you said, we are only 5% of the world’s population. And 1,000,000 is only 1/3 of 1% of our population. Even granting that the bulk of the casualties if those cities are hit will be supporters of the regime that left us deliberately vulnerable to such an attack; the rest will be Americans who had no involvement in the situation. I grant that we will be busy succoring the survivors and reconstituting our political and economic infrastructure. But we will also have the task of protecting the remaining Americans from the next attack and retaliating.
So what would be appropriate? If it is a terrorist group with Ummah-wide support? If it is a group that is tied to a specific country? If it is a group with unknown ties? What if all we know is that the bomb came from one of the three state actors supporting Muslim nuclear programs? If it is any of the three, it means the Russia, China, and most of the EU were involved also. Where do you hit to prevent a recurrence?
I realize that for NATO/EU countries, along with Russia and China, their national interests will be tied up in keeping us from doing anything. Too many applecarts to upset for NATO/EU, and they will not want a confrontation that might draw them in. No one, seriously, expects any NATO/EU power to range itself at our side if we are under nuclear attack. That specifically includes Britain and France. Aside from their mutual interests in terrorist supporting states, there is the matter that France is intrinsically hostile to the US, and Britain [quite rightly in view of their treatment by this regime] does not consider there to be the special relationship between our countries that used to exist. Britain is largely ruled from Brussels and may soon formally be so. It would not bother Europe in the slightest if we lost a city, refrained from retaliating, and then lost another. It would be a victory for European diplomacy, one they would happily repeat as many times as possible. You will be following your self interest as you define it, and it will be at our cost. We reserve the right as a sovereign nation to return the favor.
In the event of a nuclear 9/11 (which probably is a matter of time – time being very large), it won’t be necessary for anyone to use nukes to retaliate (lets put aside the idea that the US has to be the target – that’s not a given, and it just reflects an american egotistical world view).
The state of affairs described by Wretchard, which I cited, is in fact that specific case. That is the case that we as Americans have to be concerned with. If London or Paris is hit, it is very literally not our problem except to the degree we decide to be involved, and the degree that the affected country decides to allow us. And indeed, I suspect that if it is London you would not approach it with the same equinamity. Our duty is to protect our own. Yours is to protect your own.
We all know that in the real event, the major players will have the time to conduct a serious investigation – and it will BE a global investigation, because a rogue nuclear attack serves no major power’s interests (remember the global response after 9/11? a nuclear terrorist attack would be several orders of magnitude beyond that). We will have plenty of time to find out who was responsible – then I expect that a gulf-war-1 alliance of some sort will bring down the state(s) behind it.
The investigation is going to be biased to inaction, specifically because nuclear powers are involved. There is no way that Britain would recommend any action if it was suspected that there was Russian or Chinese involvement. Or if we could point fingers at Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea.
As for a “global response after 9/11″ type rallying; we saw that fade away as soon as we started doing something beyond sitting back and being victims. Over the last 8 years, we learned something about the worth of those who claimed to be our friends on 9/11. Right now, the United States really only has a couple of dependable friends in the world, and they are not in Europe. I grant that the last 8 months have taught Eastern Europe that we have abandoned them [to the former captive nations, I and many of my countrymen are deeply sorry and ashamed of our government]. And Britain has been spit on by our president, and retaliated by releasing the Lockerbie bomber in return for commercial ties with Libya. Now each side stands alone.
Europe has made it quite clear that they dislike and distrust us. Fair enough, we tend to feel the same about you. We are going to be rather busy trying to hold together a Constitutional republic in these perilous times. Believe me, under this president, we will not be interfering with Europe by rendering any assistance in any way.
When the inevitable nuclear 9/11 does take place [and your estimation of "time being very large" is not backed by any parameters that would support your contention]; we are all going to be improvising. It is not going to be pretty, and may well be fatal to modern civilization. This is not something I welcome. But it is something I am willing to face head on.
Subotai Bahadur
Moorthy, you mention a Yemeni koran. I have my doubts about it flying. On Thursday, up here in Canada, Michael Coren had two guests on his show. One is a British Parliamentarian, and the other is Coptic Orthodox Priest Zakaria Botros, who has an audience of 100 million, via satellite. I have more confidence in Father Botros’s explanation dividing the Koran into a Mecca Koran, and a Medina Koran, rather than your division between an Arabian Koran and a Yemeni Koran. For, ultimately, what both of you want is to wean people away from a double standard. The standard where one sees the property rights of the Dar al Islam protected and/or respected part of the time, whereas the property rights of the Dar al Harb are not protected and/or respect at all.
But, I thank you for your work that you have put in thus far to make the world we live in a better
place.
Lincoln:
Thanks for the thanks.
Hi, the bottom line is that Islam, propelled by oil-based unearned wealth, has become an existential threat. We are in this together whether we realize it or not.
However, I am optimistic about winning this war. I think we now know how the enemy operates and how to neutralize it. This is what motivated me to write the book.
The Yemeni Koran serves a very different purpose. It actually discredits the notion that the Koran (Meccan + Medina) as revelations from God. The reasoning, as I had explained in my article, is rather straight forward. I think pitting Meccan vs. the Medina Korans is rather convoluted, in my opinion.
Subotai Bahadur + Moorthy Muthuswamy
I’m going to take a while to answer this time – I’m heading out for the rest of the day, and I’m already running late. I suspect we’ll probably be at this for a while anyway.
Two comments, though. First – I’m australian, not british. Second – I would be very surprised if the US didn’t see its interests threatened by a mushroom cloud over paris. If terrorism is a global problem, nuclear terrorism most definitely threatens everyone. I wouldn’t expect the US to retaliate with nuclear weapons (nor france, for that matter), but I’d be astonished if the US didn’t want to see its source dealt with militarily. Likewise, if the roles were reversed. It’s got nothing to do with what each country might think of the other – it’s a matter of each protecting its own interests.
More later.
Chuck Pelto:
“Thank you Obama…. ….for making US all felons….for having bomb-making materials in our very homes.”
You goose. That law was passed by congress at the beginning of 2008.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2332a.html
Maybe you only just heard about it, but most skeptical people have been chuckling about the endlessly-shifting definition of WMD for some time now.
Anyhow – why was the TLA ‘WMD’ taken from bureaucratic obscurity to front-and-center in the case for invading iraq? Why do you suppose that was? I’ll tell you – because the whitehouse figured out that they couldn’t make the “nuclear” claim fly (they wanted to, but hans blix wouldn’t let them), so they brushed off an expression they could beef up to mean something scarier than “camelpox” so that they could avoid directly using the word “nuclear” (or even “nucular”). The whole point of framing the case in terms of ‘WMD’ was to blur the line between bio/chemical and nuclear weapons. They could have chosen to simply be accurate and use the phrase “biochemical weapons”, which has been used for decades to describe what hussein was supposed to have. But that wasn’t scary enough. Biochemical weapons weren’t a direct threat to the US, nuclear was. So WMD became the talk of the town.
So it’s no surprise that it’s now being watered down again to include match-bombs and cap-guns. Why let a usefully vague, but scary-sounding expression go to waste?
Moorthy, I challenge your view that the pitting of Meccan vs. Medina Korans is convoluted. The Mecca Koran was written when Mohammed was militarily weak, therefore all the talk about peace. But, when the Medina Koran was written, Mohammed was militarily strong, therefore all the talk about war.
Given that Father Zakaria Botros has a price on his head of roughly $60 million dollars, funded by Saudi Arabia and Iran, I would not second guess any part of what he says. Why? Because all of what he says has to be taken
into consideration as to why he is as successful as he is in effecting inner
perestroika within so many of his audience. Well, I should say, how what does not change flows through him to effect inner perestroika.
I find this article to be very interesting speculation. But the bottom line is this. Riyadh needed to be turned into nuclear glass on 12 Septmeber 2001, or shortly thereafter, so that everybody would figure out – you do NOT mess with the United States.
GEORGE BUSH did not have the guts to pee on his father’s boss’s shoes. So we can’t blame Obama, who was then a senator in Illinois, for Bush’s moral cowardice.
Bush managed to spend America into bankruptcy, introduce fascism into America in 2008, and Obama is just continuing on the drunken spending spree and deepening the fascist rule Bush introduced. A nuclear attack – or some other kind of attack – would enable Obama to ditch the democracy he abhors and become the dictator he desires to be – openly. That is, if he survives this attack.
I don’t think eliminating America’s Arab or Moslem enemies is on Obama’s mental radar. I don’t think that going to war is on his mental radar either – unless it’s to destroy Israel. And frankly that is the precise policy – crazy as it sounds – that he would want to follow if there were an attack on the United States.
He’d want to go after Israel, blaming its existence for the nuclearization of Moslem countries; he’d call it the root cause, the root issue. Get rid of the Jewish entity and you get rid of Moslem hostility to the west. Correct the mistake of 1947, the creation of a Zionist entity, he’d argue, and America would live in peace and security.
Ruvy:
Well, at least you’re original.
Lincoln (#43):
I do not disagree with your distinction of the Meccan vs. the Medina Koran.
But what is all I am saying is that the Yemeni Koran, which I understand has both Yemeni Meccan Koran and Yemeni Medina Koran components, discounts both the Meccan and Medina Koran in use right now.
The key point is that the presence of the Yemeni Koran gives strong and probably conclusive evidence that the Koran was “developed” by Humans. If the Koran is developed by humans, it couldn’t be claimed to contain the accurate revelations of God!
Man….WMD’s again.
I really dont like discussing that very term anymore. The wars are still on and our country has already paid such a price, militarily, morally and financially…..because of them (or lack thereof).
As long as the next time,,,…the next time we are really really really really sure they exist, … illegally and in the wrong hands then we should use all means necessary to correct the situation.
#45, now that is a kettle of very different fish.
It will only work if you put all the Axis countries on it, NoKo, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela, plus the countries funding jihad, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as those countries that supply the ideology and foot soliders of jihad, Yemen and Pakistan. Thats alot of bastards to nuke.
#2: War isn’t about winning friends.
#45: Take a breath Ruvy, you are getting confused, low on oxygen probably.
If the saudis were convinced that they would cease to exist on the day anyone dropped a nuke on us it would probably reduce all the muslim rhetoric to a dull roar.
I suspect that if n korea had the urge, it would be noticed, if not, shucks lets just end their problems for them.
If anyone wants to do conventional war while we are being nuked, go for it, but please do it some where else. It would not be pretty.
The real question is credibility, if they know we will find them(if in doubt, do the lot) and attack them with out question, then it works, if we do the zero approach, then of course we will be laughed off the planet.
If one wants to stand around and ponder, well, maybe you will be able to figure out where the rest of the nukes are coming from.