Surprising, definitely surprising

From A Tiny Revolution comes the revelation that Douglas Feith, now pulling down a fat stipend for sharing his lunatic ideas with Georgetown students (the press release calls him a "Distinguished Practitioner in National Security Policy"—wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes), had a novel idea for "our" post-911 "response":

Until today I'd never heard of this special Douglas Feith plan after September 11th:

Days after 9/11, a senior Pentagon official lamented the lack of good targets in Afghanistan and proposed instead U.S. military attacks in South America or Southeast Asia as "a surprise to the terrorists," according to a footnote in the recent 9/11 Commission Report. The unsigned top-secret memo, which the panel's report said appears to have been written by Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, is one of several Pentagon documents uncovered by the commission which advance unorthodox ideas for the war on terror. The memo suggested "hitting targets outside the Middle East in the initial offensive"...

Specifically, Feith wanted to bomb the “triple border region” where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet. I think one thing's for sure: that would have been "a surprise." And, not just for Osama bin Laden.

Moreover, if the criteria was just that our response be violent and "a surprise to the terrorists," attacking South America is thinking kind of small. Here's what I would have suggested:

• assassinate the Dalai Lama
• blow up the moon
• have the entire Bush cabinet dress up as Carmen Miranda and then, on national television, commit hara-kari

I hope you might have some ideas of your own.

Check the "comments" section. There are some good ones....

Honestly, bombing Afghanistan to smithereens made only marginally more sense but mainstream opinion hardly blinked at the idea. I think of Jon Stewart sucking up to Colin Powell on his show—"Because right after 9/11, the Afghanistan war — man did I dig that. I’d like to go again....."