Posted on 04/13/2008 9:47:53 AM PDT by MaestroLC
I disagree with the idea that it would not be a good thing if Islam were eradicated.
I think it would be a splendid thing!
I also don’t think it would be possible. There are too many of them. The best we can hope for is containment.
I would hope that we might deal with the world in a manner that doesn’t require nuking a quarter of it, but that is too subtle and nuanced for you.
NUKE ‘EM NOW BABY!!
I hope you have nothing more powerful in your house than a rubber band. You have a very dangerous mindset.
“You have a very dangerous mindset.”
Thank you. It’s better than being nuanced and subtled to death by talk from the passive aggressive but prolix and mindlessly garrulous.
Action usually trumps pseudo and chimerical dialogue.
“You mean the stuff the Iranians are working on?”
Exactly.
Iran WILL produce a weapon.
Iran WILL give it to Al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida WILL use it.
It’s a progression that is evident to anyone paying attention.
The world better wake up and understand that a preemptive strike on Iran is in everyones best interest.
ping
If there's a serious question here, it would be: in the case of a terrorist nuke attack on the US, what doctrine should replace the old Cold War nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction?
Remember, under M.A.D.'ness, the policy was: if you nuke us, we will wipe you out. Specifically, we would target anything and everything that could produce weapons of war. "Bomb them back to the stone-age," we said.
Well, guess what? Our terrorists already live in the "stone age," so to speak. They like it there. They don't care what or who we bomb. They want to die martyrs' deaths. So they say.
So what do you do? Well, there really are not a lot of options. One of them is just what President Bush is already doing in Iraq & elsewhere.
But another is to ask, is there something they really do value, which could seriously motivate them to get their lunatics under control? I'm not saying that's the right answer. But note again the French president has already put Iran on notice -- don't mess with France.
Think about that! The French are talking tougher than we are!
Nobody is perfect.
Groovy...Just wanted to be sure...
As it rightfully should be, that’s a really scary picture.
Style, charm and sarcasm...A good combo!
You have a great mix of all of that to your prose...
If anything you crack me up!
The attack will be carried out by OTMs slipping small dirty bombs across the southern border ORRRRRR... if you're thinking about an even bigger boom, a container ship entering a Pacific port to get the biggest bang for your radiation fallout buck.
Rational maybe.
If any country nuked us, we would respond. It’s a little more problematic if the nuke doesn’t arrive on the end of a missile where you can track its origin right away.
A nuke is detonated in Boston. No missile. It somehow got into the country, or was acquired within the country, or something. You don’t know.
The response is not to blow up 1/4 of the planet. Fighting terrorism is hard and the answers not easy.
The response is not to blow up 1/4 of the planet. Fighting terrorism is hard and the answers not easy."
Nor would I suggest such a thing. But you remember, bin Laden made no secret of having sponsored 9/11/01. So it's just as likely some terrorist group would claim responsibility, and that group would have state sponsors.
Also, you remember, after 9/11 (and other attacks as well), there were riots in Muslim cities, supporting bin Laden's victory over the Great Satan, and chanting "death to America."
The 9/11 attacks cost about 3,000 American lives. Suppose the next attack takes 300,000 or 3,000,000 lives. And suppose that many of those are your friends and relations.
Do you suggest the appropriate response then would be to send off a few more thousand marines to some other far-away mountains, to spend more years and years chasing chimeras?
A nuclear detonation in the US would require a response. That response is not to flatten every Islamic country, but it would require something more than a strong letter that Obama would send.
I don’t know what I would do. I think it would depend on who claimed responsibility, or whether you could tie it to a country of origin.
Let’s say you have strong indications of an Iranian influence. Do you nuke Tehran? There are a lot of innocent pro-western civilians there who oppose their own government, not to mention the embassies of numerous allies.
I hope it’s a decision we’ll never be forced to make.
Exactly.
Let us remember that the War on Terror is sometimes called "World War Four," and that like World War Two, it began for America with an attack that killed about 3,000 people.
But there the similarity ends. W.W.II involved ten times more Americans in uniform, a hundred times more Americans killed, and that was from a population about 1/3 the size of today's.
Nor in W.W.II, did we concern ourselves with the number of enemy civilians killed. And do you remember what our peace terms were? That's right: Unconditional Surrender.
And what was the result? The longest period of relative peace and prosperity in Europe and the Far East, that the world has seen since, oh, maybe the Roman Empire days?
Of course, no one wants to repeat W.W.II. Everyone says, if the allies had been smarter and firmer, W.W.II might never even have happened.
So now, with "World War Four," we're trying to figure out just what "smarter and firmer" might mean.
I think President Bush's plan has a good chance of long-term success.
But I also worry that it may be based on a key fundamentally false assumption: that terrorism comes from only a few radicals who have somehow "hijacked a great religion." So, it is assumed: if Muslim moderates can control their radicals, then the problem is solved.
If that assumption proves itself false, long term, then we may well have to rethink everything...
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