New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 05:44pm Sep 18, 2001 EST (#9401 of 9408)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MEDIA ADVISORY: Media March to War http://www.fair.org/extra/ September 17, 2001

"In the wake of the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many media pundits focused on one theme: retaliation. For some, it did not matter who bears the brunt of an American attack:

" There is only one way to begin to deal with people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately directly involved in this thing." --former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger (CNN, 9/11/01)

" The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift-- kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." --Steve Dunleavy (New York Post, 9/12/01)

" America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution." --Rich Lowry, National Review editor, to Howard Kurtz (Washington Post, 9/13/01)

" TIME TO TAKE NAMES AND NUKE AFGHANISTAN." --Caption to cartoon by Gary Brookins (Richmond Times-Dispatch, 9/13/01)

" At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilites should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." --Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Thomas Woodrow, " Time to Use the Nuclear Option" (Washington Times, 9/14/01)

rshowalter - 05:45pm Sep 18, 2001 EST (#9402 of 9408)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Bill O'Reilly:

" If the Taliban government of Afghanistan does not cooperate, then we will damage that government with air power, probably. All right? We will blast them, because..."

Sam Husseini, Institute for Public Accuracy:

" Who will you kill in the process?"

O'Reilly:

" Doesn't make any difference."

--("The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News Channel, 9/13/01)

. . . . . . . . . .

" This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack.... We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." --Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter (New York Daily News, 9/12/01)

rshowalter - 05:46pm Sep 18, 2001 EST (#9403 of 9408)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Fair writes, under the heading ""Real" Retribution:

Many media commentators appeared to blame the attacks on what they saw as America's unwillingness to act aggressively in recent years.

As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, 9/12/01) wrote:

" One of the reasons there are enough terrorists out there capable and deadly enough to carry out the deadliest attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have declared war on us, we have in the past responded (with the exception of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert) by issuing subpoenas."

The Washington Post's David Broder (9/13/01), considered a moderate, issued his own call for

" new realism-- and steel-- in America's national security policy":

" For far too long, we have been queasy about responding to terrorism. Two decades ago, when those with real or imagined grievances against the United States began picking off Americans overseas on military or diplomatic assignments or on business, singly or in groups, we delivered pinprick retaliations or none at all."

(5 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense