What should be the response to a *severe* terroristic strike?

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If something truly horrible happened... Something on the order of a dirty-bomb strike or a true nuclear device was used against a major US city... What do you think the response of our nation should be?

I truly believe that if the citizens or government of a country of the third world destroyed one of our cities, the response would and should be brutal. I mean like Carthage brutal.

If the attack is made by a group such as al-Qaida, whom are nebluous and span many governments, a regional regime change would be necessary and if the attacks then continued...colonial style cultural modification would be necessary.

I doubt we have the military resources to accomplish either. Is a violent response truly necessary? Unfortunately, I believe it is. This leaves the only option being WMD's.

I truly hope there is never a severe terroristic strike as the result would probably be a global catastrophe rivaling the World Wars.

 

Tough Question. That's why terrorists are so dangerous. They have no state to hold accountable. I don't know if Al Qaeda has any specific political agenda, other than killing people.

If something like that were to happen, it would be difficult to go after one country...Because they terrorists hold no real allegiance to any one nation. The sane (but rather low value in the revenge category) response would be to continuing to do what we are doing now...Finding cells and eliminating them.

The insane response would be to hold all of the Islamic nations responsible for fostering and nurturing a terroristic climate, and nuking all of them into the Stone Age. But that would cause a host of other problems like a large dip in our international approval rating, and ruining our oil supply.

After all that, the best response, unless an actual nation was found responsible, would be no response other than continuing to root out and destroy terror cells.

Let the flames begin.

 

I really dont think there is much to do in direct response to a severe terrorist strike. Say a terrorist group based in Kirachi had masterminded the strike? First, how would the US then be any better if they obliterated the city? Sure they might catch the 20 people planning this thing but they would also catch millions of people who had nothing to do with it. In the case of Karachi you would also have the added problem of a nuclear armed state being slightly annoyed with you.

Any severe retaliation is bound kill millions of people having nothing to do with the terrorist strike. The only thing it would do would be to satisfy the lust for vengeance of the American population. I dont think the best way to do that really is to stoop to the level of the terrorists.

There is really nothing you can do in response to a terrorist attack such as that but to try to find the people who did it and continue to try to root out the reasons for terrorism and terrorists.

 

As Sir Bel said, tough question. While I believe that the rationale for the Iraq “situation” was a lot of B.S. (and subsequent evidence is supporting that belief), I think that if there is enough legitimate evidence (and I have to re-emphasize the word "legitimate", and define it as meaning "supported by all the evidence existing at the time) to implicate one (or more) “targetable” nations, the response should be swift and deadly. The problem, of course (as Bel and joacqin have inferred), is determining exactly who the target should be.

 

Actually, they do...which is why our response wouldn't be any different from our current strategy.

Al-Qaeda agents hiding in East Asia? Fine, we deliver an ultimatum to the local governments and demand that a) they take care of the problem, and b) let us run loose through their country. If they consent, like Pakistan, great. If not, like Afghanistan, we flatten their government and replace it with a compliant alternative. Then the terrorists get properly squooshed. And if the local state is inadequate to the task, we arrange "military cooperation" (Philippines) or plant bases in the area (Uzbekistan).

Same with Iraq. We don't want terrorists getting WMD, so we replace governments that aren't WMD-trustworthy (Iraq) and hold hostage states that might be tempted to pass off WMD to terrorists (Iran, North Korea). Possession of WMD is a ticket to join the global nuclear suicide club, and the suicide club veterans will hold the new members responsible - one way or another.

Really, politics has not evolved much from traditional state-on-state activity. If terrorists attack, we'll whack the states that protect them, or use those states as cat's paws. That's unlikely to require a nuclear response. So a massively lethal terrorist strike would definitely invoke a military response, but not any kind of tit-for-tat Cold War-style retaliation. It just ain't called for.

 

Hide and hope it goes away.

I'm totally not kidding, either. I'm deadly kind of serious. Wait until there's war riots, and Berkeley is just a pile of ashes blowing in the early morning sea-breeze.

By that time, the current president will have been impeached and removed from office. There will have been a whole slew of agency directors that will have been relieved from their office, and also brought to the Justice Branch on all kinds of criminal negligence charges.

There will be all kinds of medical malpractice suits backlogged, due to physicans not having the actual medications and antibiotics and antivirials and antitoxins and equipment to treat the vast majority of cases.

Christ, it goes on and I almost started another paragraph, but I'll stop there.

 

Say a prayer for the dead and promise to torture any captured terrorist in the most brutal ways possible and keep them alive for as long as possible. Sure, it's not nice - but that's the point. Have to make terrorists fear being terrorists with the knowledge that if they're found out they will be severely punished.

Or you can do what GM said and possibly both.

 

When you find out a country was involved, and indeed the terrorists got some support in their actions against your country - then some military action against the harbored terrorists or the country might be adequate, eventually that is practically an act of agression by proxy. Nowadays however that becomes a rarer sight.

In the end terrorists are basically criminals who kill for a political goal - the number of dead does not necessarily justify military action, let alone a war.

In case it's a purely non-governmental "terrorist" act, the same as usual - local police, federal police, intelligence services, interpol and if necessary military special operations trying to find and get the culprits.
That's what france did when they had some algerian fundamentalists bombing througout France, killing several hundred people. They took very serious precautions - at the time foreign legion and Paras were patroling Paris (quite an intimidating sight) and they took determined action against the terrorists who were hiding inmidst of France's 4 to 5 million algerian community and beyond France's borders - by means of intelligence and police action. Within half a year the bombings stopped, and most of those responsible were caught and brought to justice.
Some 20 years after he killed a french police officer in paris (at the beginning of his career) and became a known face in terrorism french intelligence snatched Carlos the Jackal in Sudan. Fighting terrorists is a long term business.

And that is why the "War on terror" is a nullum. Fighting terrorists is first of all crimefighting, not a job for armored divisions or bombers. Al Quaeda does not receive any more governmental support anymore since the Taleban fell - there is no point in targeting countries in the fight against Al Quaeda. To repeat it: Saddam had no connection to Al Quaeda - suggesting the question: What purpose then had invading Iraq with fighting - specifically - Al Quaeda, the ones who did 9/11?

Invading or bombing countries it is there to give the people a real target - it feels better to kick some stinkin' raghead's butt rather than to go on a dedicated hunt for Al Quaeda throughout western asia for years, with a success every 4 months - over a decade or two ... even though that would be the right, effective and prudent thing to do (likely cheaper too, and less likely to backfire).

Invading Iraq was an ideological approach equalising terrorists of different colour and goals and ideologies and focusing on the promise of a vision: That reshaping the middle east will change the flora there - think of draining a swamp - so that no more terrorists can live in this climate.
That unfortunately is a hybrid delusion. While logically a terrorist is still a terrorist, and both may even be using the same methods, their goals differ, and their motivation and ideologies differs. In the end you always have a particular political problem that needs to be adressed.
No one can persuade me that a baathist nationalist and a fanatic islamist and an IRA or ETA or an ANC bomber are united in their contempt for freedom.

Maybe interesting in this context, the question of definition: Exactly what is terrorism? (it's a flash animation on 800x600)

[ January 26, 2004, 08:32: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

And what if that hypothetical bomb was set off by a non-islamic group? And if that group just happened to be operating on US soil?

 

Invade Texas or Georgia or Iowa ... ... and indeed, the US can be lucky their domestic terroists are a bunch of crazy and dangerous but not too sucessful people.

... but still there is a good deal of them: White supremacists, anti fed government militias, weirdo cults and extreme christian rights and others. All of them have comitted bombings, killings of abortion doctors, shootings, some have attempted to build toxic weapons, some have used poison - and then there is the anthrax mailer ...

There is hardly a point in asking for the reaction based on the amount of damage done alone. Thanks Sojourner for reminding me

 

I firmly believe that if a major US city was destroyed by Islamic terrorists, a complete remodeling of the Middle East (and beyond) would be necessary. I have no doubt the draft would be initiated and for a long time to come, the Muslim world would become a police state. The people of America will not allow themselves to live in such an aggressively unsafe world. What is more, we have the power to back up our will. The unfairness of killing innocent people to curtail the abilities of an aggressive few would be offset by a few million dead Americans. The next big strike will mean war and if I was in command, Saudi Arabia would be the target.

 

That would be very catastrophic. In this case, I couldn't see anyway to bypass Pakistan again. This would lead to a major war.

 

I'm prety sure the US foreign policy consequences would severe. But I'd like to come back to Sojourner's point:
What if some white supremacists would blow up LA South-Central with a nuke or a dirty bomb? Or when sectists spray poisonous substances in a train station killing thousands during rush-hour?

Thousands of dead - and? No other country to invade. What then? Peoiple would be scared ****less, and rightfully so. So they would seek protection:

In any case, whoever attacks, they would liklely find security, as hinted on by General Tommy Franks, in trading freedom for security. It would mean the "freezing" of the US constitution, the loss of civil rights and a military autocracy - dub it Patriot Act II - IX. Better safe than sorry.

The only difference outlandish murderers would make is that then you'd have a war overseas to autoritarian rule at home.

 

They have as much success as, if not more than, international terrorists. The second worst terrorist attack in the US, Oklahoma City, was domestic.

 

How many dead does it take to necessitate the involvement of justice? 100 million?

Wrong. These terrorists are not US citizens, so your comparison to France does not work. They are foreign bred and raised. How are we supposed to fight crime in another country?

True, but considering all the domestic terrorism that goes on, it's nowhere near as deadly as what the foreign terrorists do.

If the hypothetical bomb goes off, we should just tell Israel to do "Whatever they want with their military." They'd take out the entire Middle East in a matter of weeks.

The other alternative would be to resort to the terrorist's method and release the smallpox store on them...

 

Rastor,

You miss my point - it's not so much about numbers - what in case an American "mad scientist" type biologist would wreak such havoc? Or when one lone foreign national, a single individuum, has committed such an act, acting on his own, without any state supporting him?

In the end the number of dead is irrelevant to how you solve the case. It's just that for 10 dead you would't leave a stone unturned, that needs some more 'impact'. I recognise the urge to react according to the felt violation. 911 was a grave act of terror, of immense dimensions.
But to conclude from the size of the incident that you need a similary sized reaction is IMO misleading. After 911 that could have meant dropping MOABs on arab cities - if you mean that you seek vengance. But that is not the point in hunting down terrorists.

Use of large military formations or overwhelming firepower is a blunt instrument - when searching for individuals hiding in a specific city, or in a rural area a stealth bomber, tank or artillery batallion is next to useless - if you don't know where to shoot at.
You need investigators who know the place, know the locals, know the culture, know the menthality, know the customs, who speak the language, even the right dialect, who are able to blend into the population and able to infiltrate the enemy. It's an intelligence and crimefighting job.

By cooperation with local authorities, multilaterally. By sending the FBI and CIA to Pakistan and by *sharing* (as opposed to just taking) intel with allies. Using Interpol (as is done already). If that doesn't work, with covert ops - even though the US there is very clearly disadvantaged. The french *snatched* Carlos out of Sudan, that is, they found him there, observed him and then abducted him. The people needed for such a job are the 'investigator' types I sketched above.

And as I hinted on, there were no links between Saddam and 911, the invasion of Iraq, unlike invading Afghanistan (a place where there were people with *real* links to Bin Laden), didn't really contribute to fighting the men behind 911 culprits (fighting the culprits in this case would be sort of pointless), a view also shared by the US Army War College, so I'm not completely alone when I say so.

 

Did this happen in the US after the Oklahoma City bombing? Or in Japan after the cultic chemical catastrophe on its subway? Civil rights are suspended only in societies with a significant "fifth column" (real or perceived). Israel cracks down on the Palestinians and Turkey cracks down on the Kurds because they are large segments of the population that (supposedly) sympathize with the terrorists. They offer a Maoist ocean for the terrorist fish. But America has no vast white-supremacist population for domestic terrorists to melt into. Not even clinic-bombers have support in the evangelical pro-life churches - the latest clinic-bomber had to flee abroad, remember.

Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing, some scaremongers predicted that heavily-armed militias would continue to wreak havoc in American society. But what happened? In the years afterward, militia membership fell by some 80%. Eighty percent! The reason was that Americans didn't want to be associated with the aura of domestic terrorism. The only way we'd get the equivalent "fifth column" here in America would be if, say, the Hispanic illegal immigrant population started bombing INS offices - and, surprise surprise, Bush has been moving to assimilate illegal immigrants into the American mainstream.

Also, Ragusa:

Exactly. But it's the local state that has those investigators, the locals, the culture, the mentality, the customs, the language, etc. And states are quite vulnerable to the "use of large military formations or overwhelming firepower". First you ask nicely, then you draw your sabers, then you rattle those sabers, and then you swing 'em and install a client state (as a last resort). Seems to have worked in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria.

As I recall, the French DGSE paid off the Sudanese goverment with military materiel in exchange for Carlos' location and tacit permission to extricate him. Again - if you want to target the terrorists, you have to target the state first.

 

And if those local authorities don't wish to cooperate because they view the acts of terror against the US as a good thing?

 

I pointed that out in my first post already, as you might have noted had you bothered to read it: That could be seen as agression by proxy, and a reason for military action.

But in case of Iraq, as I seemingly am not allowed to tire repeating, that was *not* so.

EDIT: I just now notice Grey Magistrate had replied too ...

... well, I presume you agree that the impact of 911 was of a quite different quality - it was 'live on tv', it has whipped the US from "koma to amok" - Oklahoma City was a completely different class - comparable the embassy bombings in africa, Khobar Towers, and the attack on the USMC HQ in Beirut - basically nothing new except for being in the US. Unlike Oklahoma City 911 was an event suitable to whip a whole country in a braindead "either with us or against us" war frenzy, that is quite something - and at the same time there was the anthrax-mailer - there was a by far greater degree of fear in the US then, by no means comparable with Oklahoma City.
Patriot Act I is much less the work of over-zealous Ashcroft rather than a reflection of that fear - how much protests was there when it was decided?

And as for your reference that

You'll have increasingly to deal with non-state actors. So when you have "rovers" without geographic focus and a global cause - who will you bomb and invade or threaten? Al Quaeda, while having sympathies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, is still a non state actor. Germany unwittingly "harbored" the 911 crew - firebomb Hamburg to feel good again? States not necessarily need to know about "harboring" terrorists - the US "harbored" them too. And despite the Pakistanis and Saudis "harboring" them, that doesn't mean they get state support even though there might be elements sympathetic to them in or around the gvt. You can pressure the regimes to crack down on them, yes, and even regime-change them. That's the easy part.

You don't adress the deeper problem at the root, more likely you make it worse - when the US regime-changed Iran in 1953 to the repressive pro-US regime of the shah they laid the foundations for the later rise to power of the Ayatollahs and their anti-americanism - that brilliant plan clearly fired back. What seemed like a splendid idea then looks like an abysmal failure once it unfolded in it's complete ugliness - it destabilised the whole region: Without that no mullahs, without the mullahs no support for Saddam as a counterwight and so on. One should be careful messing around in societies you don't understand.
But have this lessons been learned? Not in a country where 1953 counts as ancient history and whose inhabitants have moved on already. What do these iranians make such a big fuss about? Mossa-who?!

There are problems for which there is no external quick-fix solution, like Aspirin. Bombing feels good, but it is unproductive.

And as for Syria and Iran, both have been very cooperative since immediately after 911 - that means the US didn't need to invade Iraq to achieve their cooperation - they practically cued to help - it's just that the neocons didn't want the cooperation and undermined it wherever they could - because they couldn't get over their bias that both regimes are evil and ... uh ... have to go.
And Libya has been working on reconciliation for approx 5 years, since it started negotiating for the Lockerbie compensations, that is since very very well before 911 - so it hardly is so that the invasion of Iraq scared him to cave in - even when the idea feels ... like ... Boo-Yah!

[ January 27, 2004, 00:02: Message edited by: Ragusa ]