firstly, ObL Inc., ain't just gonna give up. They're going to go out fighting. IOW -- a bunch of dead MFs no matter how you slice it. Talking about bringing them to justice is absurd. these weren't criminals; these were people committing an act of war with all the ferver and commitment that engaging in warfare generally takes.
secondly, had we managed to get some of them to a legal proceeding, this would have been another insane move as we would have had hostage situations all over the world for the entire year--at least--that it would take to prosecute such a case. put 'em on death row...and wait while he exhausts his legal efforts. yeah sure right. never mind nonsense about how we need an 'objective' jurisdiction. feh. you guys...nonsense talk.
thirdly, this was an act of war, anyway. i don't understand why anyone thinks you need a nation state to commit an act of war. the nation state is an historical formation and it is crumbling all around us. this was one more nail in the coffin--perhaps. these people struck typical military targets and it's exactly what we do: http://reserveweb.fitcpac.navy.mil/isrtm/target.htm
attacking a financial center and the pentagon was an act of war. you're operating under the notion that there are such things as rules to war. hogwash. there aren't any and there never really were.
it's a different game now. what the hijackers did was show every other group in the world with the desire and the wherewithal that they can do the same if they want. it's frickin easy and a lot cheaper than the cost of running a war our way. so, how to we send a clear message that we won't put up with that sort of nonsense? well, i'd go with what Ian suggested, but use our forces, special ops.
i worked in ways to protest the scope of our government's action and i will continue to do so because i oppose a war against the afghan PEOPLE, not because i want to bolster and incipient left movement--as did most of everyone else i know. but we didn't oppose military actions--special forces--against the perpetrators, just as i wouldn't have opposed such actions against tim mcveigh had they been necessary to drag the guy out of some militia hide out in Idaho or somesuch.
this isn't going to be viet nam unless we end up staying there and keep expanding the scope of the war. but, i think, they are just talking tough right now. there will be some body bags coming home, but they will be the body bags of people who enlisted, of people in special forces. and that's simply not going to elicit much of an outcry, even if this goes on for awhile.
At 08:30 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>Could there have been a non-violent alternative to the war? Theoretically,
>yes, but practically, no, as the U.S. government's aim was not to put the
>perpetrators (the most responsible of whom died in the bombings anyhow) on
>trial but to reassert its military might (restoring confidence in its
>competence which was shaken by the Pentagon bombing), reaffirm its
>political leadership, expand its sphere of influence (e.g., more US
>military bases in the Middle East & Central Asia), and install a more
>useful regime than the present one in Afghanistan.
>
>Yoshie