| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front |
| Andrew Sullivan: What's the response to bioattack |
| 2001-10-23 |
THE UNASKABLE QUESTION: This following awful scenario keeps occurring to me. If we shortly prove that biological warfare has indeed been launched upon the United States from a foreign source, what will our response be? In the past, we have had a doctrine that a biological attack upon American citizens would open the possibility of nuclear response. But against whom? How? Where? This is the bluff that the terrorists have just successfully called. By starting the biological war piece-meal, they have been very smart. Because the casualties are as yet minuscule, and the horror diffuse, the terrorists have managed to both break a previously unthinkable barrier in warfare and yet also avoid anything like a commensurate response. I think the response used to be a counterattack with another weapon of mass destruction - and not measles. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |