Q. If we have the Twin Towers and anthrax now, what can we expect when we kill bin Laden or invade Iraq � nuclear bombs and smallpox in our streets and schools? How can we stop this nightmare?
A. In fact, we can, if we wish, envision all sorts of nightmares. But the anthrax was postmarked contemporaneously with the World Trade Center ruination, not after our response in Afghanistan. The enemy is going to do what it desires until it is stopped by us. Past policies of accommodation and moderation, not strong responses, have endangered our children. In every war there is always the unpredictable, but close analysis of our actions since September 11 suggests that few Americans have died and many of our enemies have and will. Kabul is a far more dangerous place than Washington, D.C., and will become even bleaker still.
Not a soul believed, in December 1941, that not a soul four years thence would claim to be a Nazi or Japanese militarist. Yet by 1945, not a soul bragged to be either � and so it will be with the Taliban and the bin Ladens, whose fate is already sealed. Such past revolutionary change in the hearts of millions was not accomplished by therapy, or by expressions of fear and guilt, but by military force, joined with humanitarian aid to the humiliated, misled, and soundly defeated. After December 1941, there was never again an attack on the homeland of the United States � but quite a lot on Germany, Italy, and Japan. By any standard of military history, our armed forces are doing a superb job under the most trying of conditions. Our edgy critics are clamoring for more movement, yet our observant enemies in the Middle East are as we speak quietly hoping that such a terrible arsenal, and the brave professionals who run it, are not turned loose against them.