IP: The Biological Rubicon

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 18:23:42 -0700 (PDT)
> From: frank millheim jr <millheif () yahoo com>
> Subject: The Biological Rubicon
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
>
> <http://andrewsullivan.com/text/main_articletext1.html>http://andrewsullivan.com/text/main_articletext1.html 
>
>
> The Biological Rubicon
>
> Dare We Believe The Obvious?
>
> Americans crossed a Rubicon this week. At least they thought they had. 
> First it was weapons-grade anthrax, then it wasn't, then it was, then it 
> wasn't. Then we learned that 'weapons-grade' is a poor description. 
> "Weapons Grade" is better understood as genetically-modified anthrax that 
> is immune to anti-biotics, and the powder that exposed over 30 Senate 
> staffers was the more treatable variety. At that point, believe it or not, 
> Washingtonians gave up a huge sigh of relief. It may have been a 
> biological weapon, but it wasn't a really, really deadly one. Phew. The 
> atmosphere in D.C. is jittery but not panic-stricken. In the bars on 18th 
> and 17th Street, Congressional workers were joking last week about their 
> nasal swabs and celebrating a few unexpected days off work. By Friday, the 
> most popular view was that Speaker H! astert and House minority leader 
> Gephardt had made fools of themselves by closing the House of 
> Representatives down for a few days. "WIMPS" was the headline in the New 
> York Post.
>
> And then it sunk in. What happened in America this past week is epochal. 
> Imagine the following scenario: a few weeks after Canary Wharf is 
> levelled, the corridors of the House of Commons are full of anthrax powder 
> and the BBC is shut down after a biological attack. In a matter of weeks, 
> we have gone from an unprecedented conventional massacre of American 
> citizens to the use of biological weapons - weapons that even Saddam 
> didn't use against the Western alliance in the Gulf War. Even Muammar 
> Ghaddafi condemned this attack last week as a "cowardly, evil and 
> irresponsible action putting in danger the whole of humanity." Even the 
> Guardian managed to find sympathy - temporarily - for the government of 
> the United States. We have gone in one instant to a new level of threat. 
> We know something we st! rongly suspected before, but which now cannot be 
> denied. These people will do anything. The question is not whether there 
> may be a far bigger biological or chemical attack on the West, but simply 
> whether the enemy has the means to do so. We know full well that they have 
> the will and the intent. We have been warned in the most direct and 
> arresting fashion.
>
> In the past, the doctrine has been that the United States will use nuclear 
> weapons in response to the use of germ warfare against its army - let 
> alone its citizens, let alone the citadel of its democracy. Defense 
> Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has pointedly refused to rule out such a 
> possibility. The immediate challenge, of course, is to determine what this 
> kind of anthrax is, whether its DNA can help us determine its source, 
> whether we can get good intelligence to determine who unleashed this 
> weapon of mass destruction. This may take some time and it may not be 
> completely conclusive. But it seems to me that an escalation! of the war 
> in response to this attack is now inevitable. No government can stand by 
> while its own citizens are subjected to chemical and biological warfare. I 
> write this within easy sight of the Senate. Millions of people live in the 
> vicinity of the New York and Washington attacks. The nature of the anthrax 
> - sophisticated but not the most lethal weapon available - is clearly a 
> warning that more lies ahead. No responsible government can wait until 
> such a calamity occurs. The Bush administration will therefore come under 
> increasing pressure to do something in direct response, and their initial 
> caution and scepticism about the anthrax attacks is a natural desire not 
> to have to face this hideous decision yet. But at some point, they will 
> not be able to avoid it. How do we respond to a biological attack that is 
> almost certainly sophisticated enough to prove the involvement of a 
> foreign government?
>
> The reason why escalation is probable is not the rashness of the Bush 
> admi! nistration which remains almost surreally calm and measured. It 
> isn't even that no government could tolerate such an attack without 
> unleashing all its might on the enemy. The reason is the mood of the 
> American people. Shock has turned to grief has turned to numbness has 
> turned to anger. This anger is real and it is growing. So far the Bush 
> administration has deftly ridden this wave of rage. But if Bush is passive 
> in the face of a mortal threat to American citizens, he will need all the 
> rhetorical skills of a Lincoln to restrain popular will for a 
> proportionate counter-attack. Yes, there are exceptions - the nutcases in 
> Berkeley, the crazed anti-Semites of the far left and right, the 
> post-modern academics who have sinecures in anti-American humanities 
> departments. But what has been amazing so far is how united this country 
> still is, and how this mood, if anything, is strengthening. A Time 
> magazine poll at the end of September found that 64 percent of the country 
> was supportiv! e of ground troops in Afghanistan. By last week, that 
> percentage had grown to 71 percent. Support for the war has been 
> increasing week after week, with now a full 89 percent of Americans behind 
> it. A majority supports ground troops even if there are over 1,000 
> American casualties. Backing for Bush, a president who lost the popular 
> vote less than a year ago, is at historically unprecedented levels. When a 
> Zogby poll asked Americans last week whether they would rather have 
> Clinton than Bush as president in this crisis, 72 percent backed Bush, 
> compared to 20 percent who backed Clinton. This is a sea-change.
>
> There are other signs. Each week, I get around a thousand emails to my 
> website. But recently a new type has emerged: the left-liberal who has 
> seen the light. "I am one of those Postmodern Lefties who has been going 
> through a major reassessment of my ideas about a lot of things," wrote 
> one. "This attack was quite a jolt to my consciousness, and I have to 
> admit I feel p! retty stupid for some of the ideas I felt so strongly 
> about in the past. They are crumbling like a house of cards. I am becoming 
> so conservative, so fast, I think I am getting the bends. Last week I 
> baked brownies for the folks at our local Marine recruiting office." "The 
> Vietnam war made me lean towards pacifism," another writes. "But the 
> stronger pull for me, the stronger image, is the one that comes from so 
> many books I've read in the last 25 years, and from many movies: That we 
> in the West stood by while millions went to death camps. The same people 
> who wept at "Schindler's List" and "Life is Beautiful" now want to split 
> hairs over whether we are being judgmental when we call these people 
> fascists. I'm beginning to lose friends over this. I tell them, "No. We 
> can't agree to disagree. This is evil and we have to oppose it."" I don't 
> believe that these people are isolated examples. You'd think by now that 
> the flags everywhere would be dwindling in number, if only as a way ! to 
> restore some sense of normality. But if anything, they seem to be growing 
> in number across the country. Any walk down a suburban street is now a 
> blur of golden leaves and red, white and blue.
>
> Much of the left is now on board, from the increasingly hawkish American 
> Prospect even to the irredentist left-wing organ, the Nation. The policy 
> of that magazine has been changed from what was essentially pacifism to 
> calibrating what a "just war" means. Even Susan Sontag has back-tracked, 
> after arguing in the wake of the massacre that the murderers were morally 
> superior to NATO pilots policing Northern Iraq. Interviewed by Salon 
> magazine last week, she reiterated some of the inanities of her first 
> response but felt obliged to add, "I want to make one thing very clear, 
> because I've been accused of this by some critics. I do not feel that the 
> Sept. 11 attacks were the pursuit of legitimate grievances by illegitimate 
> means. I think that's the position of some people, but not me.! " She went 
> on: "I think it truly is a jihad, I think there is such a thing. There are 
> many levels to Islamic rage. But what we're dealing with here is a view of 
> the U.S. as a secular, sinful society that must be humbled, and this has 
> nothing to do with any particular aspect of American policy. In my view, 
> there can be no compromise with such a vision. And, no, I don't think we 
> have brought this upon ourselves, which is of course a view that has been 
> attributed to me." Sontag's welcome comments remind me of Churchill's 
> remark that Americans always do the right thing ... eventually. If the 
> accelerating mood in America right now is any indication, that 
> "eventually" may come a lot sooner than we think.
>
>
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