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I just thought- would we have tolerated some Soviet proxies getting on planes and flying them into U.S. buildings back in the Cold War and killing thousands? And the Soviet Union wouldn't have tolerated any of their proxies doing it either, I would assume. So- that might have been a good strategy and might have motivated other nations to keep more control on their citizens and clamp down on wacko ideologies and religious leaders.
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MOO - institutional memory should have answered those thoughts - but dealing with a government like the former Soviet Union on some of the spectrum of war's levels (e.g., Cold War nuclear/conventional) was much different from dealing with them on some of the other levels [e.g., proxy wars (Angola, Afghanistan, Sinai, etc) and trans-national terrorism (e.g., Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhoff, PFLP, etc] - and were never wholly resolved nor often times effectively dealt with by us or the free world during decades of conflict - even when we knew their source of support.
[Note: I certainly do not want to get into a deep discussion on this aspect of our actions, but I personally think a pervasive acceptance of
moral relativism among the last couple of generations of the more modern
first-world societies have had a significant impact on this issue.]
For those of us who do remember the aircraft hijackings and dealings with the terrorist (nationalist) groups of the 60s, 70s and 80s, the 9-11 scenario of the relatively recent and growing trend of nihilistic terrorist actions has added a new dimension to this complicated process as it has evolved.
My question is - what next?
For me, some worst case answers to that question are (1) a prolonged, concerted, and insidious attack on our and the world's economic systems, developing a deep-seated and irreversable mistrust in and anger toward's the major government's and monetary systems, or (2) a blinding flash of light from an unidentifiable source over a - e.g. - San Antonio ("Remember the Alamo!") or any major city at 0845 in the morning during the daily rush to school and work. A pandemic could also be ugly, but I personally worry less about that - naively, perhaps - because such fears have seldom panned out as predicted for a myriad of reasons.
No answers - just thoughts here.
Richard's $.02
