Re: View from the UK

> I don't know if this is paranoia or what, but depending on how big this
>  group really is, are others concerned that this might become World War 3?
>  Many countries grouping together for a common cause, to deal with the
groups
>  and/or countries that financed this fiasco. I think we should be careful
>  here, if we it is a country or several countries that did this, this could
>  lead up to a bunch of trouble.

Make no mistake, the USA is at war, thanks to what happened on Sep 11, just
like what happened at Pearl Harbor.  The casuality figures will be different,
the damage is to different aspect of America.  The USA will identify the
perpetrators & strike back.

The perpetrators are still trying to go for additional damage to the USA, as
evidenced by the people arrested in New York who were disguised as Delta
Airline crew, whatever caused North West Airlines to conclude an imminent
risk mandated a shut down of all their flights right after commercial air was
resumed, and the two people arrested off of Amtrak.

Sept 11 was real serious to Infrastructure of National Economy &
Transportation, but will recover, because it was not a crippling blow.

Pearl was catastrophic to the Military.
Before Pearl, the USA went through a period of disarmament & isolationism.
Today, as a percentage of our Gross National Product, the USA is spending
less on Military than at the time of Pearl Harbor, and less on Military &
Intelligence than any other nation in the world.  The quality of USA Military
& Intelligence is a testiment to the quality of USA Capitalism.  A great
economy does not need to spend as much of a proportion to have a good
national defence, as a weak economy.

I watched Congressional Hearings on the Military & Intelligence Budget before
Sep 11.
We are spending 3 percent of our wealth there.
We need to re-evaluate if that is enough to do the job that needs to be done.

But the USA won WW II because the Japanese plans were insufficient.  Had they
exploited their advantage & continued on to the Panama Canal & US West Coast
the outcome might have been quite different.

World War is when the war is fought all over the world and nations all over
involved, although there may be pockets of neutrality & I am not sure how
many continents the Great War was fought on.  We may need some new
terminology.

The Gulf War in the 90's against Iraq in Kuwait,
The Korean War in the 50's, also Vietnam,
had many nations from all over the world partiipating in a USA led effort but
none of these officially were considered WW 3 even though heavy casualities &
some people who were traumatized by these wars did not see the difference.
Super Powers involvement in Korean conflict could have taken it global, so
could the Cuban Missile crisis had things gone differently.  At the end of
the Cold War, we found out that the Soviet Commanders in Cuba had local
control of their nuclear weapons.

CIA has reported to Congress several times on the high risk of a war between
India & Pakistan.  It will probably include weapons of mass destruction.  It
will probably suck in nations that are allied to India & Pakistan.  Will this
go global, or will it stay regional?  Let's hope it never happens.  Let's
hope that after this Bin Laden situation is resolved, that there is a
normalization of relations between USA & Pakistan and that in addition to USA
trying to help with Middle East Peace, USA or UN or someone outside of India
Pakistan tries to help with peace there also.

Terrorism has been a global problem for decades.  It is an outgrowth of the
tensions of the Cold War, just as troubles in the Balkans are an outgrowth of
European Spheres of Influence Power politics of over a century ago.  There
are messes that need to be cleaned up, and have needed to be resolved, as
terroist attacks have grown more daring & life threatening, with USA now
added to the list of nations whose domestic soil has suffered terribly.

A lot of it has not been dealt with effectively because most every terrorist
"cause" in the past has had people in other states who sympathize with the
terrorists cause, although perhaps not with their methods.

That does not seem to be the case with the Attack on America.  The only
people who have spoken out in support of the terrorist actions have been
Saddam of Iraq, and several Palestinians.  Everyone else is universal in
their condemnation, and wholehearted offer of whatever support the USA might
need.

We seem to be at a pivot point in history, where the nations of the world
have the will and the solidarity to end this global problem of terrorism,
collectively they have the military intelligence to find the terrorists,
politically they want to get this done, the news media does not need to be
explicitly  telling us what is about to happen where because we don't want
the terrorists to see this info & escape what's coming.

I hope the UN Security Council is meeting somewhere in secret, away from the
UN HQ Building, getting an intelligence briefing similar to that which
Congress has received, leading to UN authorization for US retailiation,
comparable to what happened after Iraw invaded Kuwait.  The USA does not need
UN approval, just as Israel does not need anyone approval to strike back at
their enemies, but I think UN approval will make it easier for the USA to
navigate through Afganistan border nations such as Iran & Pakistan, assuming
the Taliban refuses to give up the Bin Laden organization, and I think that
in addition to UN approval, the USA needs moderate Muslim nation leaders to
speak out in support also.

I also believe that the majority of the people of democracies have sufficient
absense of racism, and dedication to traditional human rights values, that we
will also address the problems that led to the rise of these terrorists in
the first place, so that the ending of the current terrorists will not leave
a breeding ground for hatred that will have later generations of them.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)