The author of Imperial Hubris (Potomac, 2004), CIA officer Michael Scheuer of "Anonymous" fame, appeared on Sixty Minutes on November 14, 2004. He spoke of Sheik Nasir bin Hamid al Fahd, who bin Laden depends on, along with his two Salafi Jihadi colleagues, Ali al-Khudayr and Ahmad al-Khaladi, to provide religious support for his strategies and tactics.
In his 25-page fatwah, "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction against Infidels," al Fahd said that if "the basic [Islamic] rule in killing is to do it in a good manner. . . one kills in a good manner only when one can."
In other words, if women, children, and even fellow Muslims are the collateral, he can live with them clattering down around him if it's in the pursuit of jihad.
Meanwhile, some jihadi statistician took time off from trying to figure out how many infidels fit through the eye of a needle to calculate that ten million Muslims had been killed by American weapons. Thus, al Fahd concluded, taking an equal number of lives in an attack on America is only fair play.
He does, however, qualify this last pronouncement. "We might need other arguments," al Fahd said, "if we wanted to annihilate more than this number of them."
Thank goodness for small favors.
The "Have They Thought It Out" Question Redux -- Big-Time
Has bin Laden considered the consequences of a nuclear strike, or has he just placed it in Allah's hands?
That's as much a question for not only Islam but the West -- and an opportunity for Thomas Friedman to actually earn his pay. Regarding the London bombings, he wrote in a New York Times column that ". . . unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against."
"The Al Qaeda threat," he continued, "has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells."
By dispersing itself in a cruel mockery of the diaspora, Al Qaeda renders massive retaliation no more effective than trying to nail a fly with a sledgehammer. But according to Wretchard of the renowned right-wing blog, the Belmont Club, its protean structure may also be its downfall.
First he reminds us that all that stands between Al Qaeda and a nuclear attack is lack of capability. "This is an inversion of the Cold War situation," he writes, "when the capability of the Soviet Union to destroy America was a given but their intent to do so, in the face of certain retaliation, was doubtful."
Wretchard asks us to consider a case where Islamic terrorists obliterate a city, causing five times the deaths at Hiroshima. At this point, it behooves us to pause and remind ourselves just what it is we're turning over in our minds.
In a piece in the Guardian, titled "Children of Hiroshima," David Smith records the description of a witness: ". . . intestines. . . brains hanging out. . . Eyes had popped out. . . the blood vessels still pulsing. . . Adults put their heads into the river and never came back up."
How horrific, the advocate of realpolitik thinks. But somebody's got to make the tough decisions.
"With an American limited response in a war between nations," Wretchard continues, "the conflict might stop at this point. But in the absence of someone with whom to negotiate a peace as well as the inclination to stop [Editor's emphasis], the Islamic terrorists will continue to the extent of their capability.
Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.
"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth." -- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
I would like to add that actual war and especially destruction by a powerful weapon has a temptative streak which lures in the immature minds. Those minds are very immature now both among the US power elite and ( I presume) among the power elite in some Nuclear Virgin countries. It is true that men are more prone to it because men ( I do not want to be sexist here) are much more prone to deliberate madness than women; men are, in fact less mature as humans for a long time. It is also true that the symbol means more to people than the actual effect and that many people still follow the Mao's mantra 'Rifle brings power.'. At the same time we, the US by our own immaturity and malice towards others had created a backlash of the same kind, when mature forces are silenced by madness ( as they are here now).The Afghanistan destruciton by us was exactly that and why would Bin Ladin ( even if he is guilty of 9/11) care? We just proved to those people that we deserved destruction because we are as immature as a low-level terrorist.
I am extremely concerned that idiotic, childish and immature attitude towards war, the chromium- blood projections are so popular now especially among the power elite that we would not even notice how ' we will all fry together when we fry' as Tom Lehrer sang in 1960s.
by
Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3462 comments)
on Friday, September 1, 2006 at 8:56:55 AM
Mark, I'm reading James Carroll's new tour de force, House of War. The first part of the book chronicles how the US followed England's lead in moving from target bombing in WWII to area bombing, thus paving the way for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As with all history, as you well know, all these decisions were driven by the personal complexes and character quirks and flaws of the protagonists.
Yes, I agree that inherent in the desire to use an atom bomb is men's death wish. There's no orgasm as explosive as one's own death by explosion. And, as we age, many of us (Cheney) seek to bring the whole world down with us. On that cheerful note, I'll wish you, Mark, and all OpEdNews readers a good day!
by
Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments)
on Friday, September 1, 2006 at 9:13:17 AM
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