Hypothetical situation, for everyone to answer...will you?

Question

Okay, suspend reality for a moment, and imagine this:
You're the president of the US. It doesn't matter what year it is, so don't ask.
You have just received intelligence from a covert CIA operative (or maybe NSA agents) that terrorists are planning an attack on a large U.S. city (it doesn't matter which one). If the attack is successful, it could easily kill more than a million people, at the very least. Maybe it's a nuclear attack, maybe biological. Doesn't matter.
You have just found out that said terrorists are hiding in a building in a certain foreign city. You have missiles that will reach there in a matter of minutes. Said terrorists are planning on moving, but you don't know when, and you don't know where.
You COULD fire on the building, and hope you kill them. However, this building that they're in contain more than two hundred innocent civilians, including women and children.
What would you do?
If you need me to expand on this, I can. Just ask, I'll add details.

Problem with sending soldiers or Special Forces: None are nearby. By the time they got there, the terrorists might be gone.

Good answers, from all sides!
Aren't we lucky that it's not likely any of us would ever be faced with such a decision?

Answer 1

Tough one but I just couldn't fire on all those innocent people. I guess I'd be looking for other options............

Answer 2

I would immediately contact the government of the country in which they are hiding and demand that their forces move on the building within a given time frame, otherwise I would hold them responsible (withhold aid or support or whatever). If the terrorists still managed to escape the building I would do two things: 1) work with the foreign government to track them down and/or take the necessary steps to stop them from leaving that country (even if it meant sending in our forces); 2) take the necessary steps, given our CIA intelligence, to foil their plans to attack our city and to prepare our people in case of disaster.

I would not bomb the building for two reasons: 1) Imagine if the building were in America and some other country bombed it due to their intelligence. That could be construed as an act of war and lead to big trouble. 2) What if the CIA intelligence was not accurate. Yikes!

Answer 3

If I were president, first I would confirm that these CIA/NSA operatives aren't lying, with an independent assessment of top foreign intelligence specialists. That might take 10 minutes. If it is found to be true, I would call in my most humanitarian general.
Then, I would order him to assemble his best specialists to safely gas all of the people in the building to sleep. Immediately, our forces would take the innocent civilians to the hospital to care for them after they wake up, gather up all the "terrorists'" weapons while they are asleep, then take the 'suspected terrorists' to be questioned. First thing I am asking them is "Where did you get the weapons?" "Who sold them to you?" "Who supplied them?" and keep going up the chain until I found out who profited.
Then I would get to the bottom of all this PNAC Military Industrial Complex Northwoods Plan false-flag operations mode to go to war, put all the people who planned it in prison, fire and make illegal the private armies who slaughter children for profit, shut down all weapons programs in all countries with the aid of the United Nations, and stop arms dealing and genocide forever.


http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Answer 4

Hi Cricket. First of all I would fast and pray as the commander and chief of the nation. I would not destroy the building because of civilians in the building and perhaps the surrounding area.

I would strategize a plan to capture them on the move away from civilians.

Answer 5

You weigh the options. one million lives, or 200. I really feel for the two hundred, but no way would I sacrifice 1 million to save 200. No other option? Call Bill Dance and tell him to put together a fishing tournement, because in 5 minutes there will be a lake in the middle of OsamaBinladenville.
BTW, I wanta be KING, not President.



exit dondi, stage left, "I'm a yankee doodle dandy"

Answer 6

Your intelligence is faulty as has been most of what this administration was informed about terrorists. We do know that they have the president and his cronies scared shitlss. That's what terrorists do best. They simply have to let you THINK they are going to blow you up and then just watch you blow a building with innocent people for no good reason. The best terrorism is creating an illusion of fear that makes you do crazy and stupid things like blowing up your own building and killing your own people.

Answer 7

No, I don't fire.

It appears that you mean to make it fairly impossible to check with anyone in that foreign country (meaning I would not have the time to do so). This of course means that if I attack, America will look like an aggressor in the conflict and could serve to turn many nations against us. They may even join up to attack America and that could mean a long, protracted war (maybe even World War III), with America severely outnumbered. Losing all of America to save one city (that will probably be destroyed in the war anyway) seems like a bad trade.

But it should be pointed out that the terrorists do not have a launch system capable of outrunning my interception missiles. Meaning that whatever agent they have must be hand-delivered to make sure it reaches their target city. I know they don't have a fast enough missile delivery system, because none of the countries that support them have a system like that. More importantly, they would never allow their systems to be found on terrorists like that. We all know Iran and Syria and others have their hand in funding terrorists, but it is all under the table so that they can convincingly say they aren't helping them. But if their technology is found on the terrorists, nearly all nations would turn on them.

So I know that this agent will be hand-delivered. Since we know practically all of their plans anyway, we should be able to keep tabs on them long enough to find out which plane they are on. In conjunction with other nations (like Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.), we should be able to catch those terrorists before they ever reach the target city. Then we still maintain our alliances and the peace, but we still stopped the terrorist attack.

Answer 8

If the President didn't take them out now, they would kill more people in the long run and still get away. The best thing is to take them and the building out now. Hard decision but that is sometimes the difficult thing about being President. You can't make everybody happy and just have to do what you feel is best.

Answer 9

It matters as to which country this building is located. If it were in Germany, for instance, you could count on German authorities to take care of the matter.
If the building was in Iran, then you may have to just expose the plot with your proof to the entire world ASAP. World opinion would bear down on Iran and the exposed plot would be foiled. Once you know the target and the means of the attacked, it can easily be stopped.

Answer 10

If you don't know that you got them all then killing 200 innocent children just became a propoganda tool for the terrorists so that for me is not option one. And even if you knew you'd get them all, 10 bad guys dead at the cost of 200 innocent dead makes me the terrorist.

If I have intellegence that these people are in a building then I also have some resources to draw on in that area. Bingo forces to the area to track their movements and take them out before they can disperse into the woodwork again. Even if it's one guy taking down license plate numbers and another taking pictures as they leave, that will be the lead I'll need to track them down.

Answer 11

I would meet as quickly as possible with my advisers and the congress to make sure we all had the same information, get unanimous support form all. Then take out the building.

Then, I would brace myself for all the armchair quarterbacks to label me a liar, and idiot, a warmonger, war profiteer and an international war criminal because I took out the building.