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In the continuing series looking at Michael Gebert's points of how the U.S. should be acting in light of 9/11, I take two of his bullets today.
• A bipartisan congressional investigation into intelligence failures This is the reason that I took two bullets today. With the exception of the loony left fringe who believe that Congress was part of the conspiracy to give Bush an excuse to oppress the Afghans, and of the freakazoid right fringe who have bought into the "criticism==treason" propaganda that the Administration should be ashamed of, I think that the consensus for straightening out just what happened in the months prior to 9/11, and why, is so broad as to make this item unremarkable. The only reasonable objection to it could be that it might break down in partisan bickering; this objecton, I think, could be reasonably dealt with (there will also be unreasonable objections, but the proper way of handling those is to stare at the objector in cold contempt) by setting a few ground rules (e.g., no "leaks", no interviews on "deep background") and then letting the chips fall where they may.
•The termination of SDI, our Maginot Line in space, since it is now obvious that the bomb that comes our way will not be carried on an ICBM launched from a recognizable state Here is where I take major exception to Gebert's view. SDI cannot, of course, protect the U.S. from a terrorist nuclear weapon or (more likely IMO) a "dirty" bomb (chemical explosives used to spread radionuclides) brought on to U.S. territory by, say, ocean freighter. Neither can improved intelligence, or even improved "black ops" teams, defend us against an H-tipped ICBM. To terminate either would be to publish the strike route that our enemies should take. The next nuclear bomb that comes our way may very well not be carried on an ICBM launched from a recognizable state (and, of course, any nation implicated in that strike will not remain a recognizable state for more than about 20 minutes). But the bomb after that one? Gebert seems (I may well be misinterpreting him, of course) to be calling for a permanent regime of identifying WMD assets and launching, at a minimum, pre-emptive strikes to destroy them (we might suppose this to be restricted to those assets targeted at the U.S., but the problems of determining targeting and retargeting seem to me to be so great that the effort involved would surely be wasteful; much more efficient to determine merely that they exist and then destroy them). This differs, in my view, only a hair's-breadth from an outright call for Empire. The transition from the status quo to Empire is, IMO, a "natural" one. Of course, I do not accept the watermelon propaganda here (or elsewhere) that equates "natural" with "good". Rather, I hold that the inertial flow, as it were, of civilization, is towards Empire; it will take intentional effort to turn that flow. Actions that reinforce that flow, I think, ought not to be contemplated if we are serious about preferring Republic to Empire. Of course, neither do many people think about what Republic would look like; leftist apparently envision an American Republic as the anti-Empire, with its military and economic resources at the disposal of any NGO that gets the approval of the EU and UC-Berkeley; libertarians and rightists seem to hope that the clock can simply be turned back to 9/11/2001, after which they can get on with the serious business of abolishing the income tax. (UPDATE: What was I thinking when I formatted this originally? Absolutely nothing, apparently.) John "Akatsukami" Braue Wednesday, June 05, 2002 |
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