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How About a Nice Game of Global Thermonuclear War?
Loconut1389 writes "According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon has a revised doctrine to be signed in the next few weeks would give the president the authority for a preemptive nuclear strike. I would hope that this is a move designed to say we mean business and then never use it, but the means is there for mutual assured destruction."
"Mutual"? Who has the means anymore, besides the U.S.?
Yes, because pre-emptive strikes have worked so well in this country before. Oh, wait a minute...
Once upon a time the US Army developed an atomic artillery shell that could be fired from your standard 155mm Howitzer. I have heard rumors that authority to use atomic shells was (to be) vested in field commanders, possibly as low as the regiment level.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Furthermore, if North Korea had any legitimate reason to be concerned about America's intentions before (well, Iraq probably didn't help), they're certainly going to be paranoid out of their tiny little minds now. The further we go down this path, the less North Korea is going to believe it has to lose by launching a pre-emptive strike of their own, to pre-empt the American pre-emptive strike.
If you assume Iran actually meant what it said about their own nuclear technology being for peaceful purposes, you can be absolutely rest-assured they'll have no intention of sticking to that now. The only hope Iran has of NOT being nuked is to be in a position of nuking the USA.
All in all, this is a bad day for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but one hell of a siesta for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
For those who are dumb enough to think that this is such a good idea, first read the article Apocalypse Soon, written by the man who was the person came closest to presssing that button in US history, R obert McNamara AKA Kennedy Administration's Secretary of Defense during the Cuban missile crisis.
Actually...
Have you read anything by Michio Kaku?
He's a genius.. one of his theories is that all planets with intelligent beings on them can be categorized into a few distinct categories..
Category 0 = primitive, burn fossil fuels
Category 1 = Planetary, get energy from planet, can control the weather, usually formed a world government by then
Category 2 = Move on to using our local star as our source of energy.
Category 3 = Galactic civilization. Huge, impossible to kill off with 'natural' causes, highly advanced most likely.
He states that he believes most category 0 civilizations (Which we are) never make it to category 1 because of the rise of U235 and the inevitable invention of the nuclear weapon.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Oh, and if that interests you at all, I'd HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading some of Dr. Kaku.
His is a genius, as I said. And he puts things in a very eloquent... non-physicist sort of way.
His Homepage
And here's an article about the things I just talked about.
I'd also recommend his book Hyperspace.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
The generic question is whether your survival depends more upon a rapid reaction free of committee-bog, or upon the carefully crafted wisdom of a consensus.
(Well, of course you'd rather have both. Who wouldn't?...)
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
"Nuclear proliferation will never be tolerated. If you sell those bombs on the black market, expect your nuclear reprocessing plants to be obliterated. And if you're lucky, we will spare your regime too."
Yeehaw! Way to tell 'em, buddy!
...Pakistan really dodged the bullet on that one, huh? Not only did we tolerate their proliferation and sale of nuclear systems and technical knowledge, but we spared their regime too.
BTW, what the fuck is a "nuclear reprocessing plant"? Can we please be minimally literate in the subject matter?
WARNING: DO NOT LET DR. MARIO TOUCH YOUR GENITALS. HE IS NOT A REAL DOCTOR.
What many people who giggle at the idea of the 'giant being killed by a thousand mosquito bites' forget is that asymmetric warfare works both ways.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Fact. The US is the only nation that has actualy deployed a nuke against any other party. We have flexed our muscles, and have clearly showed our willingness to risk nuclear destruction during the cuban missle crisis.
Fact: Nuclear proliferation is tolerated. We have tolerated Israel for many years, with unknown capability, even though none of the neighboring countries has any capability. We offically do not know what these arms can do, though perhaps they could destroy the US.
Fact: Fissionable material is not enough. The enemy must have transportation and enough arms to do significant damage prior to destruction. This is why the US and the former USSR had so many missles. Suitecase nuclear bombs are not practicle.
In fact, the biggest part of this new proposal is the ability use nukes to preemptively strike against suspected biological arms. So, the US Government can now make up threats, as they did the WMDs in Iraq, and use such fabrications to deploy non-conventional arms.
The real danger of this is false security. We almost attacked Cuba during the missle crisis, and it lucky we didn't because we did not know there were a few dozen fully armed nuked ready to retaliate. To defend ourselves against the former USSR we spent massive amounts of money on arms, which we now know was unnecesary because the USSR was not nearly as strong as the CIA thought, and has resulted in the US becoming deeply indebted to the Saudis and the Chines. From the 9/11 attack we entered Afganastan, which was not totally unjusitified, but the mission was so ill planned we still do not have Saudi Osama. We use those resources instead to invade Iraq, on the basis of, again, bad intellegence, and now want to launch nukes against Iran on the basis on some of the same intellegence.
I know that few peope care. As long as we can live in our big houses in the suburbs, and drive our big cars, and watch out big tvs, who gives a shit about how many dark people have to die. And, after all, if we use those missles, then the arms and drug dealers will have to hire more people, so the economy will improve! Yea! Drop out bubba will have a job.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Be careful with that word "never". It may not mean what you think it means.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
OPLAN's and CONPLANS exist by the hundreds, you are just hyperventilating over the idea that given the unthinkable, we might actually act unthinkably, given a huge amount of extremely unlikely circumstances, not the least of which is an extremely reactionary President, and cabinet, and Senior Military Leaders who most often would advise against it.
We have lived with the Nuclear Genie out of the bottle in this country for 60+ years now. I would think that we are pretty safe from Dr. Stranglove.
Despite the idea that there are truthfully folks (read many third world countries by todays standards) who try to bury secrets, several hundred feet underground, with many entrances and exits, and multiply redundant power and communications, and nearby nuclear, or chemical plants who produce precursors for VX, or biological agennts (think: genetic engineering facilities). These facilities are completely impervious to even our smart bombs. They cannot be explained, nor do the boogie men who build, and run them for their little crews of mad scientists have any intent of explaining them. Now without giving away any secrets, suffice it to say that there are many ways to learn tidbits about these little bunkers. What would you advocate we do about this knowledge???? Let's examine this little chess puzzle?
1) We could ignore it (the facility and all that goes on).
2) We could demand the UN invoke sanctions unless the boogie men quit whatever we know they are doing, but that we cannot fess up to knowing about.
3) We could try and form a coalition of other boogie men who are making billions selling technology to the boogie men in the first place. Optionally we could enhance this scenario by demanding a UN Security Council Resolution (of course again knowing that all the folks who are making money from the illegal sales of technology (and dual use stuff) are voting members of the UN Sec Council). By this time we know full well that half the economy of boogieville is wrapped up in "defense", and particularly in Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical technologies which would in the hands of most sane individuals rid the entire world of bugs (SuperVX), or kill every primate on the planet (Howbout SuperAIDS), or possibly even throw a little Nuclear FOBS into orbit on short notice and then detonate the thing over a major metropolitan area leaving an EMP'ed Stonhenge. All this coupled with the problem that the pitifully poor third world country hates our guts because the government, or religious zealots have been pumped full of lies and half truths by our own press.
4) Or after quiet diplomacy, some arm twisting, let a very delicately worde plan leak to the press that if some psychotic would decide to try the scenario above... let him know in no uncertain terms, that a small NUDET (a few KT or less) will be more than enough to destructively penetrate to his 700 foot deep little hideaway, rendering it useless as a hidden laboratory, launch facility, etc. All the time ensuring that the proper literature is available to ensure that there is less risk of this underground NUDET becoming any more danger to the pitiful residents of ashcanistan than smoking one of the heroin laced cigarettes they have smoked for their whole lives. And that since the penetrator ensured that it was several hundred feet deep before it detonated, no appreciable fallout, no appreciable collateral damage (beyond a couple hundred yards), etc...
5) Or we could put a multi-megaton, multistaged, MARV warhead one each on all of the stupid countries who sold them the technology? Or if we were feeling particularly kind, just several air bursts, about 1-5 miles up. It would change hundreds of miles into an electronic wasteland. Read up on EMP sometime.
6) Maybe the leader of the World could come up with some options I have not listed. Maybe we could bribe boogie man? How bout assasination (hey Pat Roberts got fried for suggesting that assasination could be a tool of statesmanship)? Hey I'd love to hear somebody even
I don't know if you've ever studied the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it came about because we elected John F. Kennedy. Now, I'm not saying that Kennedy was incompetent. Hardly, just the opposite. The problem was that Kennedy was percieved as being a spoiled rich boy by Nikita Khrushchev, someone the Soviet Premiere thought he could easily push around. Well, thankfully, Khrushchev was wrong, Kennedy was willing to go to war, and the Soviet sphere didn't gain a permanent nuclear strike base just off our coast. The key to international security is to show that you are willing to fight those who threaten you, otherwise your weakness is going to be exploited for all it's worth until it's too late for you to do anything but go to war.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~guptaa0/barry.mov
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
sounds like a great idea not to fuck with them then.
maybe they only chant stuff like that because the US tried to inject puppets into their nation.
maybe stop inviting the CIA to overthrow their regime.
or running stories about how their nuclear power plant is a cover for a WMD station. a nation who lied about WMDs in iraq, forged the niger yellow cake "evidence" and can say with a straight face that iraq was connected with 9-11, even after saying otherwise, doesn't deserve to believed about anything.
a nation who has 50 thousand nuclear warheads telling another nation they cannot have weapons, is about as absurd and hypocritical as it gets, especially since it's also the only country that has used 2 nuclear bombs on civilian targets. an act of terrorism by any definition of the word.
and clearly, any country that doesn't have wmd, like iraq, gets invaded. it's about time every nation on earth starts stockpiling wmd.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
I honestly believe the world has learned from it's mistakes of two World Wars: The economic fallout is just too cataclysmic now. This is not to say that we might not march on a path of mutual extinction one day, but that I don't think we'll ever really have millions of troops converge at one point. It's just not necessary (or safe) anymore.
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
Since when does Nuclear Weapon == Tonka Truck? We're not talking about a little kid (presumably the US) taking toys from anyone. We're talking about the toddler's leverage against the bully with the brass nuckles. I agree that we're not handling things the way we should be, but I think that no matter who is president, there are always things that no one will like and things that half of the people will hate. What I'm deathly afraid of, and what seems to be becoming a reality day by day, is another civil war. It seems that the democrats and the republicans are getting further and further apart and at the same time increasing the hatred and the generalizations. I live in a very democrat heavy town (and in Iowa no less) and the bumper stickers, posters, newspaper articles, everything all seem to have degenerated into an us versus them thing where everyones backed into thinking the President is a schmuck with no regard for humanity nor a single shred of intelligence, or thinking that he's doing everything 100% right. The dissent is growing, the economy is going down the tubes, gas prices are going through the roof, a fair chunk of the country is now a 3rd world disaster area, and I don't see things getting better anytime soon. We're spending Billions on disaster recovery every year, if it isn't Katrina, it's Ivan or Andrew, or tornados in the midwest, earthquakes in the west, blizzards in the east. I am starting to believe that if OPEC squeezes their fist just a little tighter, the overall stress level in the country will go up just enough to bring us to the brink of some kind of internal war- perhaps not with guns however. I think that if you add up the stress of gas, race relations, democrats versus republicans, terrorism, and the job market, we're being torn apart at the seams and the terrorists are winning. I keep getting visions of $6-8+ gallons of gas, inflation, and chaos. Maybe this is all a bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly seems like things are heading for certain disaster. Anyway, for the good of all of us, please stop, research and let go of your pre-conceptions before you join into the us versus them choir.
Sept. 11, 2005
It would have been almost impossible to imagine, during the days and weeks that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that we might someday look back on that depressing time with a tinge of nostalgia. For Americans, and especially for those of us who live in New York City, those autumn memories are filled with rage and horror, fire and smoke, loss and death; but they are also filled with a spirit of courage, community and real patriotism. United we stood, even behind a government of dubious legitimacy, because we knew that there was no other way to defend what we valued.
In a strange way, Sept. 11 -- despite all the instantaneous proclamations that things would never be the same -- represented a final moment of innocence.
Now catastrophe has befallen another American city, with horrors and losses that may surpass the toppling of the twin towers. And while many people in New Orleans have shown themselves to be brave, generous and decent, this season's disaster has instilled more dread than pride, more anger than unity. Why is the mood so different now? At every level, the vacuum of leadership was appalling, but especially among the national leaders to whom all Americans look at a time of catastrophic peril. As rising waters sank the city, summer vacations in Texas and Wyoming, and shoe-shopping on Madison Avenue, appeared to take priority over the suffering on the Gulf Coast.
Four years after 9/11, we know much more than we knew then about the arrogance, dishonesty, recklessness and incompetence of a national government that was never worthy of its power.
We saw how the White House squandered, all too quickly, the uplifting national response to 9/11. Within a few months, Karl Rove was heard telling the Republican National Committee exactly how he planned to betray the Democrats who had unanimously lined up behind President Bush in the aftermath of the attack by using the "war on terror" as a domestic political weapon.
Rove replayed his cynical maneuver at the GOP convention last year, when New York served as the backdrop for more patriotic posturing -- while the Republicans in the White House and Congress refused to provide adequate funding to protect New York from another, possibly even more devastating attack. Disproportionate millions went from the Department of Homeland Security to rural towns that will never be threatened, while city and state officials continue to lack the money and manpower to protect ports, power stations and chemical plants. The same neglectful and perverse priorities withdrew funding from the levees protecting New Orleans.
We learned how the Bush administration misled the nation into invading Iraq to suppress a nonexistent threat from "weapons of mass destruction," while assuring us that the war would be cheap, easy, and almost bloodless. The administration's predictions have proved uniformly false and its prescriptions entirely useless, costing thousands of Iraqi and American casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars. The resulting damage to our national prestige, among both allies and enemies, may well be irreparable. And after all the sorrow and destruction, Iraq may end up as a hellhole of warring ethnic and religious groups, a haven for Islamist terrorists, and an instrument of the mullah regime in Iran.
We found out why the president, the vice president, and their aides wanted no investigation of the circumstances leading to the 9/11 attacks. For nine months they'd ignored the warnings of danger, first from the former officials of the Clinton administration, then from White House national security officials, and finally from the CIA itself in the notorious presidential daily briefing of Aug. 6, 2001.
More recently, we have discovered how they failed to act on an ominous report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, just weeks before 9/11, that pointed to the grave likelihood of a terrorist attack on New York City -- and of a deadly hurricane destroying New Orleans.
And we can have n
Does it make any sense at all?
... given that we now know that there was absolutely no trace of WMD's whatsoever? ... Or would you have even known how big a mistake your country had made, given that some dumbass like Bush would just tell you that the WMD's were destroyed in the blast.
.... and may just force that myth to become a reality at your expense.
Lets use a WMD in a pre-emptive strike against groups that MAY have WMD's!
How proud would you as an American be if you had nuked Iraq
Bush and his cohorts are the problem, not the answer. They are the terrorists bent on destabilizing the world's security. He is a firm believer in the book of Revelations and Armeggedon
IRAN is the new target.
Within 5 years Iran plans to have the bomb.
Iran is too big for Dubyafucker to invade in a conventional manner, without massive conscription.
Iran will be pre-emptively nuked by the time they are ready to test their first bomb. Hopefully it won't result in the immediate retaliatory destruction of the USA by the nations of the world whom this attack will anger.
The preparations are happening, this is not a troll, this is not flamebait.
Go ahead and ask your local representative why your airforce just ordered new flight simulators programmed specificaly for the topography of Iran.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
"The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations."
Hello Irak ! You don't seem to have weapons of mass destruction right now...
Don't move, we send you some !
***
"Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council, who discovered the document on the Pentagon Web site, said yesterday that it "emphasizes the need for a robust nuclear arsenal ready to strike on short notice including new missions."
Message to the world : You bad people stop playing with that dangerous stuff! We need it all for our own experiments !!!
***
And last, but not least, I would like to remind people of a few things about a thing called "succession"
There is this theory that some laws, made especially to serve some particularly strong leaders, can be quite abused by the successors of the strong man.
So the two problems I see are :
how can you garantee your future leaders won't abuse that power ("We had a terrorist attack in city XXX"-"bye bye Syria !")?
How could you consider Bush Junior (the man who almost died on a bretzel AND LET IT BE KNOWN) a strong man...?
Both policies allow pre-emptive stikes. Pre-emptive strikes are those against targets that are intending to strike you. This is "do unto others before they do unto you."
France is not saying they will only strike in retaliation - they may hit first if they think someone is about to hit them. The US is not saying they will hit without provocation - but that they may hit to stop an incoming attack before it gets started.
The problem is that the US is forsaking 60 years of carefully built credibility over the WMD issue - as though the war in Iraq wasn't bad enough. This measure (the new policy) does NOT increase American security. Nation-states already weren't going to attack us because we'd reduce them to smouldering rubble. Terrorists will not be deterred because we will never see it coming, and there is no place to productively bomb in response to a first strike.
There is a bare chance that this will make a pre-emptive strike against N. Korea legal if the President feels an attack is imminent. But it doesn't seem likely to make any meaningful difference to the other stakeholders in the N. Korea question. If the US bombs N. Korea with nukes to stop an attack, Seoul will still be gone in the morning. Is this a sign that the US does not believe that a diplomatic solution to the N. Korean WMD issue will be found?
"I'm from England, and I know English history pretty well. England had a time like that, under the ruthless dictates of King John, where any person could be arrested on suspicion of an unspecified crime, on the basis of the accuser's uncorroborated "eyewitness testimony". So horrified did England become that it rose up in rebellion and demanded a written constitution (the Magna Carta)."
:)
Uhm, I thought (Great) Britain does not have a "written" constitution. Its a flexible unwritten constitution in that it isn't comprised of a single document (versus the U.S. Constitution) but made up of all laws still on the books as well as historical documents such as Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights. In that aspect, it could be called a "common law constitution" although the term has never been coined to my knowledge.
Its actually admirable, the unwritten British constitution. At least it leaves Parliament flexible in passing laws instead of yielding to an appointed court-for-life pretending to "interpret" the meaning of a document written over 200 years prior under the guise of "adapting" it to the modern world.
And as for the various "Rights of Englishmen" earned through English history, your own right to trial by jury is under fire from various "reforms" Prime Minister Blair and his allies have proposed. Not to mention the prohibition against "double jeopardy." So perhaps you might want to stick to ensuring your rights as an Englishman from your own representatives instead of critiquing what's going on in our Colonies currently...
ps. If you want to address the subject of tyranny from the English throne, what about Charles I? Surely he was far more a tyrant than John ever was. And unlike Robin Hood, Oliver Cromwell existed...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Russia and China just held first joint military exercises.
China attempts to buy US oil company and is rebuffed.
US having problems in Iraq, perhaps Russia/China see possible takeover bid (maybe with UN approval), or perhaps they are posturing over Iran.
China refers to Taiwan as "terrorists", Chinese general recently threatened to "N-word" the US over Taiwan. Chinese officials back down. (Perhaps this document is our version of this sort of posturing.)
The Bush administration has pushed policies that blur the line between nuclear and conventional war-- i.e. tactical nukes to be used "in theater". This document may be referring to those nukes as well.
China's military spending found to be much higher than previously thought. Rumsfeld muses publicly (i'm paraphrasing) "one wonders why they spend so much when they have no enemies."
There's the issue of Peak Oil (if you believe it to be an issue.) People used to fight wars over salt...
There's also the argument of the "Old Guard". i.e. the Chinese Old Guard is overreacting. (The same argument holds for GWB/GOP versus liberal American youngsters. Gay marriage is a done deal in twenty years folks.)
There's also issues with currency, world economy, and America's out-of-wack personal debt and federal deficit. A lot of that debt goes back to China and Japan.
I suspect all will be well as long as there's no total economic collapse. As long as everybody who's got a finger on the button is feeding from the same trough a war will be counterproductive. Hopefully all the Old Guard will die of Old Age before they can destroy this young man's world.
Politically there's no group in America more committed to Israel than the Evangelicals. Why? Because the Bible says that Jews must return to their homeland before Jesus will return:
[Jer 30:2-7] : 'For, behold, days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.' The Lord says, 'I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers, and they shall possess it.'
And in Ezekiel [37:21]: "This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land."
Living in San Diego, I am within 100 miles of Camp Pendelton, Miramar Air Station, Point Loma, and Navy Pier. It is a major target, because there are a lot of nukes around here-- the Point Loma Naval Base is where the 'boomers' come to dock. The nuclear subs that can take out most the world by launching all their missiles? When that North Korean nuke comes down at Point Loma to get rid of those subs, I sure as hell will remember you-- because it is, "only one or two nukes."
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nuclear
(I changed the dicionary symbols to regular chars)
I guess that explains why people say it that way.
Well you laugh or you cry. Bottom line is I'm not a U.S. citizen and don't live in the U.S. I have next to no power to do anything against that cowboy you elected. To make matters worse our prime minister wants to be his best buddy.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
1: Define "neocon".
2: Cite some specific examples of whom you are referring to.
3: Cite some specific quotes by these people backing up your childish, absurd claims about them.
4: Demonstrate that these particular fools have both the power and will to execute their idiotic claims.
5: Demonstrate that the public support for such people is great enough that their words are likely to result in actions by others.
Until you can do this, your absurd cries of "moral equivalence" are meaningless. Note that all of these unquestionably apply for Osama, if you substitute "neocon" with "Muslim Terrorist".
I'm willing to admit I could be wrong, but I don't think it very likely. Even so, I'm willing. Would YOU be willing to admit YOU are wrong, if documentary evidence did turn up that Japan had already surrendered by the time of the atom bomb attacks?
Oh, and I don't think the Native Americans that your ancestors massacred with Smallpox were much of a threat, either. Not very likely to overthrow the US Government, so what was with the biological weapons? No, Americans HAVE carried out acts of murder and genocide for reasons that have nothing to do with self-preservation and a lot to do with xenophobia.
Other cultures aren't immune to this, either! The Zulus regarded the British as noble enemies, worthy of honor. Wish they had been - the British carried out some unbelievable butchery and savagery. The English have carried out massacres against the Scots, I don't think the Red and White Russians have ever had much good to say about each other, and about the only good thing I can say about Ghengis Khan is that - unlike all the others I've listed - he didn't bother trying to think up justifications.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
> their weapons and live a peacefull life, or we hunt them down in their neighborhood.
Funny - that's not the conclusion people who've actually studied suicide terrorism have come to. From The American Conservative:
RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign--over 95 percent of all the incidents--has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bush's policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don't have to fight them here.
RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.
According to someone who's studied the problem, the "other methods" include such things as removing our troops from unfriendly foreign soil and our military backing from autocratic foreign regimes. Basically, stop stomping around in other people's backyards and maybe they'll stop telling us to leave.
Will it work? I dunno. But even the CIA says our current approach is failing, and is making the threat of terrorism worse:
The insurgency in Iraq is creating a new type of Islamic militant who could go on to destabilise other countries, a leaked CIA report says.
The classified document says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of skills, from car bombings and assassinations to co-ordinated attacks.
It says these skills may make them more dangerous than fighters from Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.
roughly 40 years of economic sanctions? And it will all end if you attack your "enemy". N Korea does nog have 1 enemy, but multiple. Still, I do not think they can or will attack anybody from their current state. Looking at the developments between S Korea and N Korea, I would even say that they are looking for a graceful way out of the current situation.
What if there would have been no sanctions, and N Korea would be as prosperous as the USSR, or China (their closest relatives in vision). That would not make them a superpower: They are just to small. But would it give them any reason to launch an attack on the US? Not really. They might try to intimidate S Korea, but with more to loose, most likely nothing will happen anyway (look at China vs Taiwan: Lots of threats, and not even one shot fired).
Yes, N Korea has a dictatorship which tries to build certain weapons.
To be afraid of that: No, they will probably not succeed anytime soon, and to use such a weapon is not a good idea anyway.
There actually is only one danger left with this: Hard cash: Sell the bomb which you create to some extremist group, let them play with it.
Somehow I think however that even extremist groups are not that crazy. They have seen by know what 2 airplanes can cause in counter actions: The leaders are not taken, but two countries have lost their goverments, and taking out a third or a fourth is no serious problem for the US. The US goverment has also shown that they will not obey human rights anymore in such a situation. The step to a complete masacre has become a lot smaller. A second holocaust could be the result of an extremist organization using a nuclear bomb.
Looking in general at countries with a dictator or similar goverment: They do attack their neighbours, bot only if they think they will gain something from it.
Looking at wealthy democratic countries: They do attack countries all over the world if they think they can gain something from it.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
AFAIK the pentagon can't grant the president any powers. And certainly not through signing some 'doctrine.'
The preemptive strike on Iraq has been a disaster. If I didn't like the president I think now at his lowest hour would be the right time to try and push something through like this.
I know what you mean! I love the GrandParent Poster's idea, too!
Along with killing the genuine "evil men", we should be really should be sure to kill their families, since they all almost certainly share their ideologies.
The same goes for their neighborhood, and maybe even the whole damn city. Even if the whole city, neighborhood or relatives are not guilty/evil, people really shouldn't complain because it's all for the cause of:
1) Fighting Terrorism
2) Preserving the American Way if Life
3) Making the World Safe for Democracy
4) Stopping Religious Extremism
5) Keeping that oil flowing so we can still drive our SUV's in the face of rising gas prices and global temperatrures (some say this bears a close simililarity to #2, but they're just pinko hippie communists)
6) Deposing those evil/misguided leaders who we either put into power in the first place, or aided, so that they could fight another evil/misguided leader.
So what if killing one evil man, and maybe his wife/family/brother/cousin, causes three or more to take up arms against us! So what if they aren't actually the ones who attacked us in the first place! God and morality are on OUR side! Our religious and government leaders say so!
So you can see there is no room for (intelligent) diplomacy, compromise or alternatives!
DIE! DIE! DIE! YOU EVILDOERS!
(cough cough)
ahem.
We know return to our regularly schduled broadcast of the 700 club.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
It's still amazing to me that y'all thought Bush, given his first 4 years, was worse than anything the DNC could provide. Bush was a loser from the beginning, and we asked for more! I guess we really do deserve what we get.
This past Sunday was the 4th anniversary of the 9/11 bombings that destroyed the World Trade Center.
,speech by President Bush that he would capture him.
Osama Bin Forgotten, um... Bin Laden, is still at large despite a very firm, clear
I can't help but have the intuition that all of this cold war era recycled talk of big missile nuclear is the rattling of sabers so that the US doesn't feel like a paper tiger.
In under 6 years we went from the most powerful, prosperous, and confident nation in the world to a country that can not ( or will not ) catch a grown up spoiled child in the middle east, to a country with red/yellow/whatever alerts, and to a country that gets offered foreign aide ( and needs it ) after a natural disaster.
Maybe we need a new administration( republican or democrat ) instead of a new nuclear war doctrine.
"We give them what they want! We get the **** out of Saudi Arabia!"
We already did.
Should we cave into their other demands? Let's list what they want us to do:
(1) Become dhimmis. That means that we can't testify in court against any muslim. If we refuse to worship Islam, then we must pay an annual dhimmi tax.
(2) Stop charging interest. Stop receiving interest.
(3) Stop giving equal rights to women. Women must cover their heads and must be subservient to their husband. If they don't have a husband they are worthless.
(4) Kill all gays and adulterers and pornographers. Bill Clinton is one of the people that Osama bin Laden frequently mentions as being morally reprehensible and eligible for execution.
(5) Adopt Shari'a law in our land. This is far worse than anything you read in the Bible.
(6) Submit to a global caliphate. That would be a world government administered by Islam imams. Think Iran but on a global scale. No, think Spanish Inquisition replacing the blue-helmetted UN.
So we'll just cave into the demans. You're not an adulterer ot homosexual are you? Why don't you just commit suicide and make our job easier in submitting to Osama's demands.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.