[spectre] Incredible

[Michael Benson]

Tim Druckrey writes:

>Jingoism is starting to proliferate though the pundits, experts, and
officials calling for massive retaliation.

There's a parade of top ex-secretaries of state and similar honchos (Schulz,
Baker, Kissinger, Holbrooke, etc) on CNN, all in deep consensus not just
that the perpetrators must be punished but also that the countries
protecting and supplying them have to be treated in exactly the same way.
Expect a serious US incursion into Afghanistan to root out Bin Ladin if it
turns out he's deemed responsible.

Bush is so pathetically incapable of originality in thought or deed that he
even dusted off his father's "this will not stand" rhetoric, originally used
prior to the Gulf War. In view of that precedent, plus the consensus of the
above heavies -- not to mention the complete impossibility of imagining that
after such attacks the US wouldn't find a way to make rubble bounce
somewhere -- and the prospects are clear.

Interestingly, all this is proof that a key argument against Bush's
multi-billion dollar anti-missile defense initiative is true: i.e., why
spend money on such an incredibly expensive and technically unworkable
system when the way to strike at US targets isn't through ICBM's but in
exactly the way we're seeing today? (The answer, of course, is that the
point is not to build a defenisve system, the point is to funnel those
billions to that short-list of US defense contractors who in turn gave Bush
hundreds of millions of dollars to run his campaign.) You can count on Bush
using these attacks, however, to justify his pet program.

Now CNN reports that Bin Ladin is already being officially fingered. I'd say
that the US will give the Taliban an ultimatum to hand him over in 24 hours
and then go in if they don't do so. Whew.

MB