Vietnam was called a "police action" wasn't it? Those who aren't "Do Nothings" recommend a police action to apprehend Osama. (The FBI's pre-911 warnings that Al Qaeda would probably retaliate for Clinton's wag the dog launching of cruise missiles at Afghanistan in '98 are more evidence that they did it.) Would the ensuing loss of civilian life in this hypothetical police action weigh on your consciences?
I just don't buy the analogy between what the US, Brits, etc., are doing in Afghanistan and what was done in Vietnam or what's happening in the Israeli occupied territories.
After what occurred on September 11th, the warning coming from the White House that an attack may come "tomorrow, next week, or next year" is certainly plausible.
Hence Yoshie's lecture on the politics of fear: "The politics of fear, if pursued to its logical conclusion, will individualize, rather than collectivize. If your primary motivation is concern for your personal safety, or more specifically concern for your personal safety from terrorism by Al Qaeda in the thread titled "second-wave attacks," it doesn't make sense to be patriotic and care for safety of all other Americans, much less all other US residents...."
This might be more convincing or brave if she lived in either DC or New York City. I feel for those who do, just as I feel for those who live in Pakistan and India during this tense time. Israelis, meanwhile, should get their government out of the occupied territories as the brave refuseniks are trying to do. And I do think the US and its allies should try to deal with the Saudi and Pakistani intelligence agencies who are funding the Islamic fascists.
Americans aren't totally giving into the politics of fear according to polling data: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/politics/20CIVI.html "Robert J. Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health said at one session that research over more than 50 years showed that "during periods of crisis, when security against serious foreign or domestic threats becomes more important, the public will support substantial limits on civil liberties."
"This includes limits on freedom of speech, the press, right to a fair trial and individual privacy, even as they affect average citizens," Dr. Blendon said. But support for such curbs is "cyclical" and declines after the threat recedes, he added.
In that context, he said, public support for the use of military tribunals or for eavesdropping on lawyers' conversations with clients was consistent with curbs on liberties the public supported in World War II and at the height of the cold war.
But the country had changed dramatically since then in terms of its attitude toward minorities, he said, and the support for putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps found no parallel in attitudes toward Muslims today."
Peter