[geeks] My take

[Mike Dombrowski]

>>                                    Invade the country. Do NOT do 
simple 
>> surgical bombings. Invade and occupy their cities and land. Possible 
do 
>> this with Russia. I might even support the use of things like nukes. 
>> Bring back the B-52s and carpet bomb, Use ICBMs with nuclear or 
>> conventional weapons.
>
>I am appalled at that.  Actually no I'm not, I'm disgusted.  Do you *
really*
>think that it is acceptable to kill innocents in retaliation?  It 
doesn't
>matter what nationality those innocents are, or who their government 
is,
>anyone who plans or carries out those attacks would be committing a
>despicably evil crime.

Having thought about it more I'd still have to say yes. When we say to 
Afghanistan "Hand over bin Laden or be bombed" they have to realize 
that we are serious and to start evacuating cities if they don't want 
to hand him over. As sad as it is I think these terrorists will only 
understand terror and that killing their countrymen might be the only 
choice. When it comes down to "loose more Americans from terrorist 
attacks" or "Kill their civilians" I would chose the first one in a 
heartbeat. This same choice has been made before - the A-Bombings of 
Japan are an example and I support those decisions. In every war except 
for the Persian Gulf civilians have been a valid target. It's messy, 
it's ugly but it's war. Attacks on this magnitude demand a different 
response than past response which were attacks on valid(terrorist) 
targets. In my mind there is no other way, previous attempts at 
surgical strikes have been completely unsucessful and would be in this 
case I think because bin Laden would hole up in some cave and survive. 
So that means either bombing cities, sending in troops or both. I fear 
that sending in troops might be a Vietnam 2.0 and simply be a waste of 
American lives. Once again the choice is American or Afghani lives. I 
would obviously support only going after non-civilian targets first - 
military locations, Taliban government buildings, etc. If that worked 
then great, we don't have to kill innocents.

Now if the terrorists had "merely" attacked the Pentagon with a car 
bomb or missle then I would not support any kind of action against 
civilians. In my mind the Pentagon and other military things are 
"valid" for attacks. But when people use civilian aircraft to attack 
military and civilian targets we need to play hardball. Everything I've 
said assumes that bin Laden did the attack which most news reports are 
starting to say and that Afghanistan will not hand him over, which I 
also think is possible. If "Bob" from Iran did it I would support the 
same thing.

Do you *really* think that letting more Americans die in the future 
because of a failure of the US to take drastic enough action is not an 
evil crime? Coming from Britian you may think differently from us but 
your country did the same thing last time they suffered an attack of 
this magnitude. (WW2)

Mike