Hamburg Delenda Est

by John Galvin

It’s time for the Lew Rockwell website and it’s traitorous commentators to get with the program.

Let me explain to you the most fundamental principle of American foreign policy: Any country where the people have unpronounceable names can be bombed by the US with impunity. For you Rockwell readers who are a little slow on the uptake, "impunity" means they aren’t allowed to bomb us back. "We called no tag-backs." It hardly qualifies as impunity when they blow up our biggest buildings, now does it? They aren’t playing by the rules.

There’s only one appropriate response to the destruction of the World Trade Centers: massive bombing of someone, anyone. Let’s not quibble about whom; it’s more important that the bombing commence, and the sooner the better. Ann Coulter represents the feelings of the American people when she says:

"This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. … 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."

Ms. Coulter has concisely summed up the situation: our bombing needs to be massive, indiscriminate and unrelenting. Forget limp-wristed namby-pamby concepts like "targeted strikes"; no, we want "carpet bombing." Only one motto can adequately describe our policy towards the Arab world: "Kill them all, and let Allah sort out his own." If murdering innocent civilians in order to dramatize internal rage was a good enough policy for the hijackers of the four airliners, then it’s good enough for the USA.

This country cannot afford to tolerate nay-sayers who doubt the effectiveness of indiscriminate bombing inflicted on countries located on the other side of the world. Didn’t it work in Vietnam and Iraq? But we needn’t go back that far in history. Look how well Russia is handling a Muslim insurgency (led by ex-Mujihadeen) in Chechnya. True, they have the advantage of fighting these rebels in their own country, so it’s no wonder they’re succeeding. But the fact that Afghanistan is a mountainous, land-locked country 10,000 miles from the US and virtually surrounded by fellow Muslim nations should not deter us from our resolve to exercise our righteous indignation.

President Bush, however, has pointed out a potential drawback to this policy, "When I take action I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive." As President Bush implies, Afghanistan doesn’t even have any targets worth demolishing. After twenty years of unremitting warfare and devastation, today there’s hardly one stone left standing upon another in the entire country. Afghanis are preoccupied with concerns such as locating their next meal. That’s why they’re living in "$10 tents."

Fortunately, Ms. Coulter’s article suggests a more appropriate target for carpet-bombing: Germany. As she says, "We did it before, why not do it again?" As far as "harboring terrorists," the credentials of the Germans are much better than the Taleban. Where did this terrorist cell originate before it came to the US to do its evil work? Hamburg! If we’re going to start carpet-bombing countries that harbor terrorists, here is our obvious first target. To make things easier on us, most of the Germans even have funny names like "Gunter" and "Helmut," practically as strange as "Osama." And while we’re sending in the heavy bombers, we can wipe out Dresden again, just for old times sakes.

Once we’ve "bombed back to the stone age" those harborers of terrorism in Germany, let us not forget the stirring words of Sen. Lieberman: "In this struggle, vengeance is not victory. Retaliation for yesterday's atrocities is only the end of the beginning of what should be our response, not the beginning of the end of that response." Vengeance upon Germany should be only a start, but where should we strike next? The answer is obvious: Egypt and Saudi Arabia!

None of the 19 terrorists were Afghanis; they weren’t even Iraqis, Iranians or Palestinians. But the FBI is indicating that most, if not all, are connected to either Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Will we withhold from these countries the "hammer of Thor" merely because they are our most reliable allies in the Middle East? No! Let us never again make the mistake of distinguishing between terrorists and those who harbor them. These countries must be wiped off the map. Let the bombing of Cairo commence. And while we’re at it, we can buy a few one-way tickets to Canada for any yellow-bellied pacifists who complain about unavoidable "collateral damage" to civilians.

Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t drop a few bombs here and there on some other targets. After all, back in July our Department of Defense proclaimed, "The United States reserves the right to strike targets at a time and a place and a manner of our choosing." In other words, we can bomb anyone, anywhere, anyway we damn well please. In February President Bush ordered attacks on five locations around Baghdad "to get Saddam Hussein’s attention." That policy obviously succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. No reason we shouldn’t try it again. Nor will I be the kind of party-pooper who complains whenever the military has a little harmless fun rattling Moammar Qadhafi’s cage. Libya would be insulted if they were left out of the "network of terror." But doesn’t it make more sense to go after the bigger – and more obviously guilty – parties first? Only when Hamburg’s soil has been sown with salt will true-blue red-blooded Americans be able to sleep soundly at night.

September 20, 2001

John Galvin is a businessman living in Cincinnati. His most recent publication is "Humanae Vitae: A Critical Re-evaluation."

© 2001 LewRockwell.com