[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
Where should these nukes be targeted to have the right outcome, that is, stopping all terrorist activity? [/quote]
Western Europe.
I’m just fantasizing again.
[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
Where should these nukes be targeted to have the right outcome, that is, stopping all terrorist activity? [/quote]
Nowhere, because you can’t deter non-state forces with nuclear weapons. I thought that was kind of obvious.
Iran is a whole different story, which is why no one should be terrified by the idea of them getting nukes. Unhappy, sure. Terrified, no.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
“not be in favor”, how nice.
Couldn’t you say: “it’s totally out of the question”. Your formulation sounds like you still think of it as a possible future action.[/quote]
Well, since we have them, the possibility, no matter how remote, is still always there.
And it doesn’t really matter how much someone says they’ll never use them; a series of successful attacks could change that stance in an instant.
So at best, you can say “it’s totally out of the question for now”
I don’t think it’s possible to honestly rule out any future action, unless you dismantle your arsenal. Even then, you could rebuild it if necessary.
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Nowhere, because you can’t deter non-state forces with nuclear weapons. I thought that was kind of obvious.[/quote]
It’s apparently not obvious enough since the US is fighting non-state forces by invading states…
If the goal is really to oppose and destroy those non-state forces, wouldn’t it make more sense to go after them directly? That was pretty much the stated intention for the Afghanistan invasion, no? Go in, find Bin Laden, kill him, his guys, destroy the training camps, come home, watch some American Idol. Repeat as new terror hot-spots became known.
Didn’t sound like too bad of a plan at that point.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
kaaleppi wrote:
Where should these nukes be targeted to have the right outcome, that is, stopping all terrorist activity?
Western Europe.
I’m just fantasizing again. [/quote]
Skip France, or they`ll fantasize back.
[quote]orion wrote:
rainjack wrote:
kaaleppi wrote:
Where should these nukes be targeted to have the right outcome, that is, stopping all terrorist activity?
Western Europe.
I’m just fantasizing again.
Skip France, or they`ll fantasize back.[/quote]
I didn’t know you could fantasize AND surrender at the same time.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I didn’t know you could fantasize AND surrender at the same time. [/quote]
Umm, well, grab a pair of handcuffs, give them to a man and a women, send them to the bedroom, and see if one surrenders to the other…
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
I thought that was kind of obvious. [/quote]
Yeah, you’d think…
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I didn’t know you could fantasize AND surrender at the same time. [/quote]
Isn’t that what submissives do?
[quote]pookie wrote:
rainjack wrote:
I didn’t know you could fantasize AND surrender at the same time.
Isn’t that what submissives do?
[/quote]
touche’
But would submissives be fantasizing about taking control? I’d think they would be fantasizing about more surrender.
Which, if I am not mistaken, pretty much defines the French.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Schwarzfahrer wrote:
“not be in favor”, how nice.
Couldn’t you say: “it’s totally out of the question”. Your formulation sounds like you still think of it as a possible future action.
Well, since we have them, the possibility, no matter how remote, is still always there.
And it doesn’t really matter how much someone says they’ll never use them; a series of successful attacks could change that stance in an instant.
So at best, you can say “it’s totally out of the question for now”
I don’t think it’s possible to honestly rule out any future action, unless you dismantle your arsenal. Even then, you could rebuild it if necessary.
[/quote]
I agree with you. But tis more a philosophical twist to insist on nukes only because it’s logical. You don’t tell your sweetheart whenever she asks you if you love her: Of course we might separate. I love you but it’s always an option, honey.
The US and A have a lot more potential options int their “war”, just talking about nukes isn’t gonna do the trick. Nuking is the absolute last option given you’re facing or were experiencing severe punishment.
I don’t think 3000 dead guys suffice for that by a long shot. Hell I hardly think that 30 000 would suffice. If terrorists, with the financial and logistical backing of Iran wipe out New York with a genuine atomic bomb we can talk about using nukes against Teheran.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
But would submissives be fantasizing about taking control? I’d think they would be fantasizing about more surrender.
Which, if I am not mistaken, pretty much defines the French. [/quote]
You’re giving them too much credit. They’re not that courageous. They mostly fantasize about asking permission to surrender.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I agree with you. But tis more a philosophical twist to insist on nukes only because it’s logical. You don’t tell your sweetheart whenever she asks you if you love her: Of course we might separate. I love you but it’s always an option, honey.[/quote]
That’s the good thing about being an atheist: Whenever you say “forever” you think “sixty more years at the most…”
I’m not sure I understand the strategy behind taking options off the table during negotiations. If you’re in a disagreement with another party, why would you start off by telling them everything you won’t do to try and convince them?
What if they’re used to dig out buried installations, instead of directly on population centers? Iran is said to be building its nuclear reactors deep underground, where getting at them is a difficult proposition at best.
[quote]pookie wrote:
What if they’re used to dig out buried installations, instead of directly on population centers? Iran is said to be building its nuclear reactors deep underground, where getting at them is a difficult proposition at best.
[/quote]
“deep underground nuclear hight tech facilities”
Hmmm. We all did hear of Iraq’s mobile laboratories, though…
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sifu wrote:
The Iraq invasion didn’t cause AQ to attack us on 9/11.
You figured out all by yourself that time goes in only one direction? Astonishing revelation that is.
You should publish a paper and call it “Cause and effect. How the future don’t affect the past”. I’m sure it’ll be a hit.
All the American soldiers that I know take a very grim view of little girl rapers. So much so in fact that any American soldier who engaged in such activity would be in mortal danger from his fellow soldiers. What you are accusing the American military of is such a taboo here that you really show your ignorance of Americans by maleing such a predjudicial statement.
You know full well what I meant, don’t try to twist it into something it’s not.
There is no doubt that the American people didn’t condone such actions, but they are consequences of the war. The war wasn’t inevitable. In fact, it was based on lies. I wouldn’t be raising the horrors of those incidents, if the war was in self-defense or defense or a weaker country than Iraq. But it wasn’t. It was a war of aggression and the ensuing abuse must be stressed out. If nothing else, they might serve as a reminder the next time you feel like waging an unnecessary war.
I believe in the inherent good of human nature. But I also know that putting a 17 years old in a position of authority with an automatic weapon is a recipe for disaster. You only do it if you absolutely MUST. The Iraq war wasn’t such a circumstance.[/quote]
I did figure you were exaggerating for the purpose of dramatization. I have friends who are serving in Iraq right now, so I did feel a need to defend thier honor. Since you were making it sound like they were behaving like the Serbian army in Kosovo. I’m just trying to keep it real.
You do make it sound like the US is just sending in B52’s and carpet bombing entire villages of people and indiscrminately killiing lots of people.
I don’t see how you can say that war wasn’t inevitable. Lets think about this logically for a moment. Saddam was looking at an American army that he couldn’t defeat the first time he fought it. The president who was telling him you better give it up because we mean business, was the son of a man he had tried to murder. So he should have known president Bush wasn’t bullshitting.
Saddam had a very reasonable offer to leave quietly with his family. He could have retired to a palace and spent the rest of his days in comfort, but he refused. Your assertion that he could have been peacefully encouraged to quit is not supported by the facts.
You also ignore the fact that the army we had in Saudi Arabia to contain Saddam was a major point of contention in the Islamic world. Plus the impact of the sanctions on the Irqaqi’s was another sore point. People were starving to death while Saddam used the income from Iraq’s oil to build palaces and other monuments to his reign.
Before the invasion Saddam used chemical weapons to wipe out entire villages, little girls and boys were getting raped and torn apart with electric drills. Saddam actually did the things that you accused the American military of and worse.
Saddam had used chemical weapons in the past. Lets also not forget the Hans Blix was given the task of looking for WMD’s but Saddam refused to give him unfettered access. Saddam made no effort to disuade people from believing he had WMD. Also the Iraq study group reported that Saddams own people were telling Saddam that he had WMD’s.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
I did figure you were exaggerating for the purpose of dramatization. I have friends who are serving in Iraq right now, so I did feel a need to defend thier honor. Since you were making it sound like they were behaving like the Serbian army in Kosovo. I’m just trying to keep it real. [/quote]
Don’t worry about that. I have nothing but respect for the American soldiers going there with the intent of fixing things up and “making the world safer”. I just think they’re profoundly disillusioned and were duped by the leadership.
If you read my post closely, you’ll see that I didn’t exaggerate. I just reported what happened. And those horrors happened. You can’t undo them by giving out apologies. If I was a relative of little Abir, I wouldn’t forgive what happened in a million years, and I might hold the whole military responsible for what happened.
To give you an illustration, think of the 2005 unrest in Paris or the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Now, imagine if Rodney King was beaten up but was raped. Then, in place of a crackhead like Rodney King put an innocent 14 year old girl.
On top of that, imagine that the cops weren’t American but Chinese or Russians. Wonder why they’re shooting at your pals and planting explosives? That was just to show you that what you’d probably refer to as “incidents” aren’t perceived as such there.
I am most certainly not the only one to defend that position. In fact, if you go out of the USA, you’ll have a real hard time finding anyone who thinks the war was inevitable.
Matter of fact, you have notable figures in the USA such as Brent Scowcroft, Anthony Zinni, or Richard Clarke who have been very vocal about the topic.
I’ll give you a hint. Had Saddam thought for a second that you’ll come after him when he invades Kuwait, he would never have considered it. You make it seem like any country on earth has anything more than a snowflake’s chance in hell of defeating the US militarily.
Since 1993 a great deal of info have come to light (Duelfer Report, retracted confessions…) to challenge the idea that Saddam had tried to assassinate Bush senior.
I didn’t say that. Saddam had to go alright. But doing it by fucking up the whole country and putting the world at risk was evidently not the way to go.
Everybody would have supported you giving weapons to the opposition. You had more than enough chances to do so. Heck, you didn’t even allow them to keep the weapons paid for by Iraqi money in GWI. There was also the possibility of assassinating him.
But all of this is irrelevant. The main argument put forth for invading Iraq was the alleged threat of WMDs. So whether Saddam quit or not didn’t matter one tiny bit.
Whaaaat?
So, you had a army not doing any killing in Saudi Arabia that was a “major point of contention in the Islamic world”, and you thought that by sending it on a killing rampage the point of contention would disappear?
As opposed to the blossoming Iraq that we see today. Those daily explosions in markets must be festive, right?
Even under Saddam and the sanctions, people still lead a better life. Don’t believe me, ask them.
I never heard of the little girls and boys getting raped and torn apart with electric drills bit (care to give me some material?), but the rest is very true.
Now we’re talking. The WMDs was the main argument presented by the US. Speeches of how you’re “liberating the Iraqis” came much later. Anyway, the reason I say that it wasn’t inevitable is because, had you taken the time to corroborate whatever intelligence you had, you’d have realized that he had squat, and the massacre would have been avoided.
Saddam’s Iraq was barely surviving as it was. He was most certainly not in shape to do any harm to anyone. The millions of people in the streets around the world were shouting that very thing. You dismissed them, and the cost for the whole world was very high as we can all witness.
In short, before you blow up a country and turn it back centuries in time, you make sure the reasons you have are good. You failed to do that (voluntarily IMHO but that’s another story).
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Again, we have mismanaged all of this, and the only way to efficiently fight terrorists is the same way that the US fought the Mafia, the Irish mob, and every other great criminal entity- infiltration and destruction. These people, loons though they may be, can be brought down.
[/quote]
Amen. If anyone can do it I’m sure the CIA can do it. Though of course, there will be unsavory actions taken by those infiltrating…
I don’t see the large clash of civilizations. Well, I see the possibility of course, but not the necessity. The common people on both sides don’t want to die off, and it isn’t really as if any group of Middle Eastern countries can stand up to the US military might.
I see the media talking about the danger posed by various countries, when in reality, other than state sponsored terrorism, those countries don’t really pose much of a danger at all.
Any serious strike against the continental US and the offending country is gone.
Any government found to be sponsoring or harboring terrorists can expect itself to be removed from power.
There is a lot more dialogue happening these days, in circles we probably don’t see, that will allow more appropriate relations to develop over time, if both sides can find the wisdom to let that happen.
I think the age of Americans being blissfully unaware of the outside world may come to an end. It would help.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
One more time for the hearing impaiered- I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT NUKING IRAQ. I disagreed with the invasion in the first place, and so us nuking them would be the cap on one of the worst wars this country has ever fought in a country where we shouldn’t be in the first place. Got it?
I am talking about the wider cultural divide, and what may occur sometime in the future should there ever be a great war between these fascistic Islamic countries and the Western world.[/quote]
Ok, let me ask you a question and think a bit before answering. Do you think that heavily bombarding Afghanistan with a few hundred nukes would have dissuaded the guys who hit London or Madrid?
Deterrence doesn’t work with those MFs. They piss on all of us and aren’t afraid of anything we can do to them in reprisal. Dying is one of their purpose.
An example for who? Terrorists don’t need state support. All you need is a few cell phones and explosive devices. Cell phones are a dime a dozen, and chemists come even cheaper.
It seems you have already answered to the question I asked in the beginning of this post.
You don’t seem to understand my point.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you can’t bring them down. You can’t change their minds by torturing them, bribing them or any other way. All you can do is kill 'em, and if you do, you’d have just made their day.
Terrorist attacks might come from your next door neighbor, cafeteria chef, or dentist.
Turning the world into an Orwellian place (which is already happening at a steady pace) is not a solution either.
Clash of civilizations? I highly doubt it.
Let’s be very realistic. Which is this Islamic country that’s on the verge of becoming so powerful that it may threaten USA land? Not gonna happen in a million years. The best they can ever do is shrink your sphere of influence which, currently, extends to whole world minus Chinese and Russian territory (I excluded France because of their decision to drastically cut back on military personnel).
The current “insane fascist threat” as you put it, is not coming from Islam nor is it from any Islamic state (or any state for that matter).
Lixy you assume that we could have taken our time in dealing with Saddam. Saddam wasn’t going to fall. The presidents of Turkey and Egypt told Bush the first that Saddam was done for and couldn’t hang onto power. That was why he ended the gulf war at the hundred hour mark. They were wrong and so are you.
I base my information on intereviews with Iraqi’s who were tortured by Saddam. The use of electric drills has been widely reported. I also have several freinds who are Caldean.
Just because a bunch of people were protesting doesn’t mean they were right. Saddam killed well over a million people. How can you say that someone with that much blood on his hands is not dangerous? Perhaps you agree with Stalin’s “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is merely a statistic”.
[quote]Lixy wrote:
Ok, let me ask you a question and think a bit before answering. Do you think that heavily bombarding Afghanistan with a few hundred nukes would have dissuaded the guys who hit London or Madrid?
FightinIrish wrote:
No, it would have killed them. And I don’t know how hard it is to carry out an elaborate plot of terrorism after you’re dead, but I’d imagine it’s pretty fucking tough.[/quote]
I hadn’t realized that the London and Madrid bombers had been based in Afghanistan prior to their mission.
I’ll be happy to join that partnership.
A pro-gun Democratic environmentalist. I can live with that.
No argument there.
Hmmm. I don’t know about that, but we’ll let it go.[quote]
Now, we are faced with a threat so grave that I wonder if any of my… “extreme” left counterparts even think about it. We are faced not only with a fascist threat, but one led by a religion that has proven itself excessively brutal in repressing the very things that this country, and all western countries henceforth, have been built on. [/quote]
In my mind’s eye I see a fundamentalist Muslim somewhere saying "Now, we are faced with a threat so grave that I wonder if any of my… “extreme” moderate counterparts even think about it. We are faced not only with an infidel threat, but one led by an administration that has proven itself excessively brutal in repressing the very things that this country, and all Islamic countries henceforth, have been built on.[quote]
Relativism just don’t work here. These people are not the same us, they don’t believe in the same things, the same principles, and the same way of life. [/quote]
Actually, I’ve heard that Dubai is a lot like New York City, without the crime and pollution.[quote]
It has taken alot of searching for me, but I’ve come down to what I stand for. As much as I hate to say it, I’m a capitlist, pure and simple. I work for money. I’m a writer, one who often pokes fun at religious dogmas of all types. I’m also half an anarchist, who wants the government out of my fucking life as much as possible. [/quote]
Hell, brother, I arrived at that same conclusion about myself with no searching at all.
I guess this is the wrong venue to bring up the president’s ban on stem cell research, or Loony Tom Tancredo’s devout denial of the theory of natural selection.
When was the last time a cocksucker tried to force Islamic radicalism down your throat, Irish? Inquiring minds want to know. 
I don’t think so. But you may be a jackass. You’d have to check with JeffR.
[quote]but I dig this country the way it is,
[/quote][i]Really/i]? The way it is now?
Tell me, Irish: do you really believe that the US government, once it exterminates every last Islamic terrorist on the planet, and removes all threat of terrorism through invasion, bombing and occupation of foreign countries, intensive domestic surveillance, extrajudicial extradition and incarceration and public execution, will then get busy building a pro-working welfare, pro-social security, Pro-rights, environmentalist, pro-free speech, pro-civil rights social democracy?