By Jody Wheeler (JodyWheeler.com)
May 22, 2002
Stories like this about a possible biological or dirty
nuclear attack on the U.S. really give me pause. I actually live right next to
was-and-will-be-again target so, unless the Fates are kind, any
major hit and I'm either a diseased zombie or a pile of radioactive ash.
But that isn't the scary bit.
One of my best friends is moving to New York later this
summer, and another friend of mine is crewing on a Woody Allen movie there for
the next few months. As I doubt NY is out of the woods just yet -- it is still
a tempting target -- I'm certain someone is going to try something nasty again.
Leveling Manhattan with a nuke or rendering it uninhabitable with a biological
agent is extremely likely. So is taking some of my friends along with it.
But that isn't the scary thing.
I'm fairly certain that any nukes let loose on the US, any
biological weapons triggered over our cities, or any devices detonated so as to
unleash hazardous amounts of radioactive contamination amongst the
unsuspecting, will be met, on our end, with a fairly devastating response -- on
the order of sand-fusing-to-glass.
Persia would become a giant mirror, a monument of rage for
future generations to both reflect on and to fear. We are the only nation to
have used nuclear devices in combat. We currently have a standing policy of
nuclear response to any first use against us. Tactical nukes remain at the
ready for battlefield commanders. Stealth and B-2's can reach any point on the
globe in less time than most of us spend awake on a typical workday. Our
national sense of outrage and anger over any such attack would make 9/11 look
like the anger over an overdrawn checking account by comparison.
The damndest thing is the use of nukes isn't really what
scares me (much.)
What scares me is that, on the pure, self-reflective,
navel-gazing-because-I-can level, it wouldn't bother me one bit to illuminate
the terrorists and their home states wit the light of x-rays, gamma rays and
the release of nuclear fusion.
I've said before that military response to terrorism
should be measured and appropriate, that widening the war to cover just anyone who disagrees with us is dumb (if
not criminal), and that International Law must be respected because law and
ideals are pretty much the only things that separate us from both animals and
the jungle.
But thinking about it, thinking about the kind of
appropriate response to any person or group that uses sheer terror on such a
vast and final scale to cower, subjugate and dominate, the only kind of
response that makes any sense is of a kind that is even more savage, more vicious
and of such finality that nothing is left to be questioned.
There is some hypocrisy in that last bit, at least on the
face of it. After all, by unleashing such destruction on an even more innocent
number of people, aren't you, in effect becoming the very thing you are
fighting against? By vaporizing any non-combatants who have the misfortune of
being near, hasn't fear then become your tool for getting others to acquiesce
to your particular will?
Here's the thing Ð and the scary thought of the day -- if
we loose, if the West and its institutions of democracy, free speech and open
debate are destroyed or rendered irrelevant to a noxious and wicked brand of
dark-age thought whose applications of justice mock the term, then the argument
over whether such a response is right is moot.
Under the system of government proposed by those who
destroyed the towers, dissent dies, debate ceases and freedom devolves to mean
the choice between which prayer to an angry sky god one reads from a greatly
schizophrenic tome that day. All that makes our lives meaningful -- all the
nobility of dissent, the questioning of establishment, the pomposity of talk
radio and the beauty of cute lifeguards -- is ended completely. For without the
ability to debate these questions freely and across all fields and venues the
mind is wont to go -- which is what would happen if such a totalitarian system
were to gain hold -- then all the advancement, liberty and social justice of
the last 500 years has been for not.
I am a liberal (or more exactly a progressive) so I often
have a good deal of disagreement with those across the aisle on many matters
both fiscal and social. (Which is okay, because I have a great many
disagreements with those sitting next to me too.) I know that talking,
sanctions, diplomacy, debate, censure, and even the judicious use of force all
have the ability to get positive results, to ensure freedom, and to make life a
bit better for all of those involved. Circumspect restraint and thoughtful
contemplation are the hallmarks of civilization and justice.
However, when all of the tools of civilization, all the
generally agreed on norms of discourse and diplomacy that just about everyone,
an any aisle, gap or divide agrees on to be useful and necessary, are ignored,
demeaned and rejected, there really isn't much else to do. All bets are off, civilization becomes a
quaint idea and the disquieting sounds of the jungle -- and the monster tearing
out of the jungle and towards your jugular -- are all that exist. At that
point, it's survival of the fittest.
And I have little desire to be rendered unfit.