----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2001 11:57 AM
Subject: Re: NATO (Was: RE: Tragedy in Israel)



>
> I feel like the chief difference is that in this case, it was the US
> that was injured.  There isn't any difference between Lockerbie
> (spelling?) or this (excepting final death toll) other than location.
>

The airline that was blown up over Lockerbie was a US airline.  The flight
was from the UK to the US.  There were many Americans on board. Are you
suggesting that the US would have had a different response, if the bomb's
time delay was off and the explosion was over, say, New England?

One of the problems that was faced by the US is that there is little than
can be done between diplomatic pressure and a full scale attack.  The
differences in magnitude between the WTC attack and the bombing of the Pan
Am flight seem overwhelmingly clear to me.  A line was crossed with the WTC.

The United States tends to have lines drawn in the sand.  Indeed, the lines
are not always clear to the rest of the world or even to the folks in the
US.  But, when they are crossed, a binary switch changes position. Pan Am
was not enough to trigger the switch.  I cannot imagine why having it
explode later in the flight would be enough to have triggered the switch.
Destroying an icon of the American ecconomy was.

Dan M.

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