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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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 Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:57 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
Yes, yes, yes. A debate about tactics in dealing with the jihadist threat is exactly what's in order. What you say is spot on: aircraft carriers are nice but they can't stop unconventional assaults such as 9-11. |
We had the means and ability to stop the 9/11 attacks. Bush (and to some extent Clinton, although he was certainly more aware of the threat than W ever was pre-9/11) being asleep at the wheel was the biggest problem. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:03 am Post subject: |
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| The US has too many targets to stop them all. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:06 am Post subject: |
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| huffdaddy wrote: |
| Justin Hale wrote: |
Good Lord, answer the question. Iran having a nuke - kosher or not? |
As a hypothetical yes/no question, I'd say no. But living in the world of reality, it is not just an easy, yes/no question. Unfortunately, these things don't boil down as easily as you'd like. |
What is that supposed to mean? On what grounds do you justify your evasive reply? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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| On what grounds do you justify your evasive reply? |
I'd say, "Common sense" but huffdaddy may have another response. Perhaps he'll say something like, "It only seems evasive to someone who sees the world in terms of black and white." Yet again, he could say, "I can't give a simplistic answer to a complex problem."
We'll have to wait for him to come back and speak for himself. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| On what grounds do you justify your evasive reply? |
I'd say, "Common sense" but huffdaddy may have another response. Perhaps he'll say something like, "It only seems evasive to someone who sees the world in terms of black and white." Yet again, he could say, "I can't give a simplistic answer to a complex problem." |
Thanks Ya-Ta. Any of those will work just fine. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Justin Hale wrote: |
| Good Lord, answer the question. Iran having a nuke - kosher or not? |
Poverty -- kosher or not?
Africans dying of AIDS -- kosher or not?
Pakistan having a nuke -- kosher or not?
Do you get it? There is simply no way to answer "yes" or "no" to these questions. Obviously we would rather Iran not have a nuke. Everyone except Iran would rather Iran not have a nuke. The question is, is the cost of preventing them from getting a nuke worth the benefit?
Iran is one single country. In the next 20 years, a whole lot more countries are going to have access to nuclear weapons as technology improves. Are we supposed to bomb all the ones we don't like?
The biggest fallacy in this argument is the idea that Iran is a "martyr" nation, who would gladly nuke the USA in exchange for a glorious death. This is not only silly, it's a direct buy-in to enemy propaganda, and is such is borderline shameful. Of course Ahmadinejad is not going to go gladly to his death as a martyr, whatever he says in his awful poetry. He doesn't want to die any more than anyone else -- in fact, probably a good deal less than most people, because he's the leader of a state (well, titular leader anyway). Deterrence works. It works on Moslems just as well as it worked on the Soviets, who were, in their way, equally fanatical. The only people it doesn't work on are stateless terrorists like Al Qaeda.
Ahmadinejad is like the CEO of a hostile corporation. Bin Laden is like the crazy homeless guy ranting on the sidewalk. Big difference in the type of threat, big difference in the approach required to deal with it. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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stillnotking, you bring up valid points which I do not ignore --- much as huffdaddy would like to believe I do. All I wanted out of him was his opinion on the matter. What to do about it is another question. And, yes, I do agree it is not so simple. But concluding 'yes or no, should Iran have the bomb?' where is the difficulty in answering that?
I figure part of his problem is he doesn't want to appear to be agreeing with a right-winger like Newt. But that's just a guess. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| Justin Hale wrote: |
| Good Lord, answer the question. Iran having a nuke - kosher or not? |
Poverty -- kosher or not?
Africans dying of AIDS -- kosher or not?
Pakistan having a nuke -- kosher or not?
Do you get it? There is simply no way to answer "yes" or "no" to these questions. Obviously we would rather Iran not have a nuke. Everyone except Iran would rather Iran not have a nuke. The question is, is the cost of preventing them from getting a nuke worth the benefit?
Iran is one single country. In the next 20 years, a whole lot more countries are going to have access to nuclear weapons as technology improves. Are we supposed to bomb all the ones we don't like?
The biggest fallacy in this argument is the idea that Iran is a "martyr" nation, who would gladly nuke the USA in exchange for a glorious death. This is not only silly, it's a direct buy-in to enemy propaganda, and is such is borderline shameful. Of course Ahmadinejad is not going to go gladly to his death as a martyr, whatever he says in his awful poetry. He doesn't want to die any more than anyone else -- in fact, probably a good deal less than most people, because he's the leader of a state (well, titular leader anyway). Deterrence works. It works on Moslems just as well as it worked on the Soviets, who were, in their way, equally fanatical. The only people it doesn't work on are stateless terrorists like Al Qaeda.
Ahmadinejad is like the CEO of a hostile corporation. Bin Laden is like the crazy homeless guy ranting on the sidewalk. Big difference in the type of threat, big difference in the approach required to deal with it. |
Wouldn't put it past Iran
| Quote: |
RAFSANJANI SAYS MUSLIMS SHOULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPON AGAINST ISRAEL
TEHRAN 14 Dec. (IPS) One of Iran�s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only".
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran. |
http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/dec_2001/rafsanjani_nuke_threats_141201.htm |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| Justin Hale wrote: |
| Good Lord, answer the question. Iran having a nuke - kosher or not? |
Poverty -- kosher or not?
Africans dying of AIDS -- kosher or not?
Pakistan having a nuke -- kosher or not?
Do you get it? There is simply no way to answer "yes" or "no" to these questions. |
The answer to all those questions is straightforwardly no. Africans pump the least c02 into the atmosphere and there's no defence at all that can be made in support of them dying of AIDS in any other case. There's similarly nothing to be said for poverty; the question is whose responsibility is it to fix it? Pakistan Mosques are hotbeds of Saudi-sponsored wahhabism and one should worry a little that they do indeed already have them.
So, I submit there's a perfectly simple answer in the negative to all those red herrings.
| stillnotking wrote: |
| Obviously we would rather Iran not have a nuke. Everyone except Iran would rather Iran not have a nuke. |
You're presenting a self-contradictory position. You said previously that that "Iran having nukes - kosher or not?" doesn't have a simple yes/no answer yet say above that you (and everyone except Iran) would rather they not have nukes.....and that has obviousness. Why would everyone rather they not and why is this obvious if, as you previously argued, it's more complicated?
| stillnotking wrote: |
| The question is, is the cost of preventing them from getting a nuke worth the benefit? |
Well, that's a totally different (yet reasonable) question to whether we can tolerate Iran developing nukes intrinsically.
| stillnotking wrote: |
| Iran is one single country. In the next 20 years, a whole lot more countries are going to have access to nuclear weapons as technology improves. Are we supposed to bomb all the ones we don't like? |
Worthless and contemptible regimes full of senial theocrats need to know that we, the developed world (not just the US), will have absolutely no toleration for such regimes developing nuclear weapons. We invented them, so we have a say who's allowed to have them. Japan - no problem. South Korea - absolutely. Brazil - go for it. Iran - forget it. Saudi Arabia - get lost. Syria - nope, sorry.
| stillnotking wrote: |
The biggest fallacy in this argument is the idea that Iran is a "martyr" nation, who would gladly nuke the USA in exchange for a glorious death. This is not only silly, it's a direct buy-in to enemy propaganda, and is such is borderline shameful. Of course Ahmadinejad is not going to go gladly to his death as a martyr, whatever he says in his awful poetry. He doesn't want to die any more than anyone else -- in fact, probably a good deal less than most people, because he's the leader of a state (well, titular leader anyway). Deterrence works. It works on Moslems just as well as it worked on the Soviets, who were, in their way, equally fanatical. The only people it doesn't work on are stateless terrorists like Al Qaeda.
Ahmadinejad is like the CEO of a hostile corporation. Bin Laden is like the crazy homeless guy ranting on the sidewalk. Big difference in the type of threat, big difference in the approach required to deal with it. |
You're dangerously underestimating the power of belief in and worship of the beloved Islamic celestial autocrat.
Iran seems to be focusing weapons capable of hitting targets in Israel and Tehran acknowledges a long history of undeclared nuclear work and it was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States. It continued until the 1979 Islamic revolution.
I'm not at all optimistic. The worst thing is....they don't need them. If they don't try to get them, nobody will attack them. They know full well what would happen if they tried to nuke Israel or the United States. They want the bomb as insurance against invasion. We should have contempt and hatred for Islamic theocracy and they have a huge vulnerability: the overwhelmingly young population is fed up with medieval rule. How's it gonna look that Turkey has evolved into a near-European state while Iran is in enforced backwardness? Iran is fully entitled to a nuclear energy program (which would decrease its oil-dependency), but on the sole condition that the status quo is changed in accordance with any conception of civilization and decency. |
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