The Real Nuclear Option

Sensing sometimes writes, frightingly, about the stakes of the War against Islamic Terrorism. The basic premise is that we need to quash this rash of Islamic Terrorism, or else we face a much less desirable option, an enraged US population who takes the war to the entire Islamic World. This would be catastrophic, but not unthinkable, given that Americans will not live in fear of suicide attacks and if attacks grew worse, Americans would blame the larger Islamic world for harboring and allowing such attacks to occur.

It is only responsible to think of these problems, as opposed, to fantasizing that they are an impossibility. I can only assume that our military has a pre-set response devised for certain types of highly possible attacks...a nuke on NYC or LA, for instance.

The only insight I would add is that I think it vital to inform whomever would be effected by our response, what our response would be. That is to say, if Islamic Fundamentalists nuked New York and our response was to nuke Mecca, we ought to let the Saudi's, Al Queda, and people living in Mecca our response prior to the New York nuke. That way, there is predictable behaviour on our part, and everyone with prior knowledge of our undesirable response would seek to prevent the initial New York nuke. It is the deterrent theory.

Of coure, the problem is that those delivering the nuke might be encouraged by our response because it would prove that America, is indeed at war with all Muslims...but does Al Queda really want that war? Do they really want America to make their death wish for their entire culture to become true?