h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bran, one would hope that somewhere within the vast American political apparatus there are people looking at the American policies that could have led the terrorists to attack the country in this way.

IMO, America changing its more controversial policies (Middle East, global warming etc) should be the focus of the way ahead.

Being a realist, I'm not holding my breath.

I think when it comes to what you said about the Air Force, you're going to find that a lot of people disagree with you. Admittedly, precision bombing can be not very precise, but I'll feel a lot better if we've got the F-117's from Hollaman (sorry if I misspelled it, it's been a while since I was in Alamagordo) flying some air cover and softening up targets. Let's just hope we don't hit the Chinese embassy again.

Bad, but not unique. No-one has an moral authority to combat terrorism.

Dresden was a terrorist attack and a war-crime, Nagasaki & Hiroshima, economic sanctions, political and military assassinations, &c., &c.

--Cooper

Okay, just in case anyone cares:

It's the 49th fighter wing from Holloman AFB in Alamagordo, New Mexico. (That's also near White Sands Missile Range, the Trinity site, and a couple buried space chimps. But enough self-promoting my state.) There's something about being able to almost get into the cockpit, going around, above, below, and seeing four take off from really close to the runway that seems to make a stealth fighter really damn cool. Wonder how many civilians have been that close to one.

In any case, I forsee F-117s being just as useful now as they have been for the past decade.

As long as they don't crash. Australia has lost heaps of pilots flying those death traps.

Really? I only know of one plane lost in combat, that over Serbia a couple years ago during Kosovo. Are we talking training accidents here? I remember the pilots did tell me that they can be tricky to fly.

Another F-117 crashed at a Maryland air show.

The Ausssies fly the F-111. Apparently, their problems had something to do with fuel tank maintenance.

I'm not really big on military hardware. What's the F-111?

An earlier version of the F-117 - I think

F-111 is a swing wing super-sonic Fighter-bomber. Originaly designed as a long range nuclear attack platform. In it's early service with the RAAF it was found to have a major problem with wings falling off.
Rocket

Stealth aircraft seem so much cooler than a supersonic fighter-bomber. There are lots of mach-capable fighter-bombers, but not many stealth aircraft. By the way, has Europe ever managed to get their plans for one off the ground?

I'm not sure that Europe as a whole has ever managed to make any progress.

Britain is reportedly making great strides in the area though. I wouldn't be surprised if the French were also making some progress.

The most dramatic and "right" thing to do would be ... to do nothing wrt revenge attacks. That way the attack on the WTC would stand for what it is - a cowardly act designed to draw a response from the US and continue the (so far) never ending cycle of terrorism and retribution.

The F-111 isn't that much to look at in pictures, but it is sexy as anything in person. We had one at EOD school, and it was neat looking plane.

I'm going to use the term civilians. I've been trying to stick with non-combatants, because civilians can become combatants or be legitimate military targets for other reasons.

Civilians will suffer and die in war. The objective of warfare is to destroy the enemy's will and ablilty to fight. You need to do that while keeping your casualties as low as possible. The tools we use for this tend to explode. Civilians are going to be caught up in that. We should needlessly tie the hands of the military. As long as civilians aren't targeted, I don't have any problem with using weapons that will caus ecollateral damage. If it can be avoided without harming the mission, that's fine, but the mission comes first.

Two Bit Trigger Pumping Moron
The third peculiarity of aerial warfare was that it was at once enormously destructive and entirely indecisive. - H G Wells

Sounds like the boys are ready to play. What a pity the rest of us have to suffer.

So you're saying the victims of Tuesdays attack are just collateral damage?

Using his logic, no, because collateral damage can only occur as a side effect from hitting military targets. The collapse of WTC 7 could be seen as collateral damage, but not the towers themselves. Similarly, the causalties at the Pentagon could maybe have been seen as collateral, as the Pentagon is a military target.

But if industrial targets are legitimate, and especially if the 'enemy' are the corporations who fund and are defended by the CIA.

Two Bit,

I suspect that you and I would disagree on just about any political question.

That said, I agree with a lot of your comments here, expecially in post 67.

A crime has taken place. The crime is murder, on a mass scale.

I'm not interested in revenge. I am interested in seeing a criminal brought to justice. This particular criminal has committed this crime in the past, has shown no remorse, and has shown that if he is not captured, he will continue to murder innocents. The fact that (and here we differ, but we still reach the same conclusion, via different routes) the government of the United States can be held guilty of the same crime through any number if it's economic, political and military actions does not mitigate this crime.

What thinking person holds the custodial staff of the twin towers responsible for the actions of the government?

I would like to see bin Laden (I didn't jump on the 'he did it' bandwagon in the beginning, but evidence is evidence) indicted in world court before we go after him, but see no signs of that happening. We still need stop him, or nobody on this planet is safe.

If the government of a country protects him, members of that government will become accomplices to murder.

I hope and pray that no Afghani innocents, who are simply trying to scratch out a life and have no idea what a twin tower is, suffer or die as a result of US efforts to bring bin Laden to justice. Being a realist, I know that they will do so if the Taliban protect him.

No good options here. Forgiveness? Only if concurrent with preventing a repeat performance, which there will certainly be if he is not captured or killed.

It is not just citizens of the United States who are at risk. It is the citizens of any country, of every country. The United States is his current primary target. Does anyone believe that he doesn't have any secondary targets? Does anyone believe that he is not willing to take action against those secondary targets? Does anyone believe that he can't come up with still more new and creative ways to kill a lot of people?

Please.

This will not be a Gulf War, it will be catastrophic. Far more inoccent people will die. Their crime has been to live in the same country as a suspect. This suspect currently has no evidence against him. Aphganistan has agreed that they will turn over the suspect if plausible evidence is provided. Consider that he is not from Aphganistan that he may infact not even be in Aphganistan any longer. T McV was not the first suspect to be held responsible for Oaklahoma. An innocent man was held for the crime based on nothing but the fact that he was of the Arabic race. Just as ownership of a hire car and a certain type of holy book are considered evidence. This war will achieve the opposite effect and increase world terrorism many fold. Pakistan will revolt from its current dictatorship and there will be a civil war. US has threatened sanctions on Pakistan inorder to bring it to heel. US will get no support from the entire region. Nobody will benefit from this least of all you or I, just as in the henious crime that started this. It is not possible to solve this problem with force. It is possible to kill the suspect and all of his family and all of his friends with excessive force, but that solves nothing. The last time I saw the images that I see on CNN, was during the Nazi invasion of Poland. Your country is great! Defend your country today ! Wave your flag! Your country is at War. Prepare your self.

Bush was wrong when he said that the people who destroyed the WTC will pay. How can you make someone pay who is already dead. Answer by killing his family in revenge. Try "American Funding for Irish Terrorism" Mmm this tastes like hypocracy.

P