Letter to the editor in The Times:
Reaction to terror From Mr John Campion
Sir, You report (May 15) on how London is to be evacuated in the event of a terror attack. Have we abandoned the idea that it is actually simpler, cheaper and better to avoid provoking others in the first place?
Perhaps the West needs to look again at the benefits of a kind of American-style isolationism, letting mutually assured destruction preserve our security as it did very effectively throughout the Cold War. Then our public places might stop looking like barricades and we could once again walk through Downing Street to St James’s Park.
Yours faithfully, JOHN CAMPION, 1 Broad Walk, N21 3DA. May 17.
My mouth just dropped open.
What part of this assured destruction is mutual? I don't see any country labeled 'Al Qaeda' anywhere and there is no 'Terrorist HQ State'. Did this guy sleep through September 11th!?
MAD only worked because we had thousands of ICBMs trained on Moscow and they had the same aimed at us. We can't target terrorists like that, nor do they very much care about the welfare of the people they're around. There is no mutuality involved, destruction would only be assured for us.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at May 19, 2004 11:29 PM