...is here, courtesy of my former colleague Tom Smith, a distinguished corporate law scholar at San Diego. First, he quotes neocon columnist Krauthammer observing that,
"This is the first time in history that the knowledge of how to make society-destroying weapons has been democratized. Today small radical groups allied with small radical states can do the kind of damage to the world that in the past only a great, strategically located and industrialized power such as Germany or Japan could do."
Put aside the fact that the rest of the piece is another unhinged polemic against Hans Blix, Krauthammer's point in this one paragraph is straightforward, and the question is what are we doing to prevent these horrific weapons from being used by "small radical groups" here or elsewhere.
Let's not exaggerate what's at issue here, though: it's not like you can go on E-Bay and get your suitcase nuclear bomb (let alone 12 of them, as Krauthammer fantasizes); in fact, lots of countries that would like to have nuclear bombs can't manage to get them together. But, in principle , it can be done, and so steps should be taken to prevent it. They might include: (1) increased scrutiny of ports and borders, (2) increased control and safeguarding of existing nuclear stockpiles and materials, and (3) ending or severely reducing the production of fissible materials.
None of these points, however, are in evidence in Tom Smith's reaction to the Krauthammer piece. He writes (I quote all of it, verbatim):
"It is puzzling that people credulous enough to believe or at least entertain the idea that Bush lied about WMDs in order to, what, make profits for oil companies or get advance bases for American empire, or whatever, find utterly unbelievable the idea that terrorists could get or have gotten their hands on WMDs either from Iraq or another terrorist sponsor state. Or, for that matter, in the deep black market. I think some on the left really want an American city to go up in flames, and to see the resulting fury of the American people, which could very well include martial law, mass deportations, and the like, because it would confirm their paranoid fantasies about American society. These people will disappear as fast as the pro-fascists did after Pearl Harbor if this happens, but by then the damage will have been done.
"The idiots on the left have no idea what they are playing at. There is no Soviet Union to restrain the US anymore. In WWII, the US firebombed cities in Japan and Europe, nuked two cities in Japan, and mobilized itself to a degree unprecedented in world history. Now, the US is far more powerful than it was then, and in many ways far more democratic and responsive to popular whim. A catastrophic attack on US soil would create the will and the means to wreak havoc on our enemies and near-enemies on a scale never seen before. It might give US leftists some weird feeling of justification to see us wipe North Korea and Iran off the map (suppose the nuke that destroys Houston was manufactured in North Korea and passed through Iran -- we can find out these things), but there are a lot of Koreans and Iranians who deserve better. But those arguments will fall on deaf ears in the aftermath of a big enough attack."
What?
If anyone has any idea what Tom is talking about, please let me and him know.
I hereby call on Tom to immediately return to mocking the Yale Law School and the Supreme Court!
UPDATE: Tom Smith speaks.
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