[lit-ideas] Re: Nuclear Responsibility and Iran
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 20:17:20 -0500
John: when you madly race about hunting for instances when the
U.S. or Sweden ...
Eric: I did no "mad racing"; that's in your imagination of who I am, as
is your belief that I claim any special authority. The articles were on
this afternoon's Drudge Report page. Check it out. (The FBI 'MISUSED
PATRIOT ACT' link is still there.) They seemed relevant to our discussion.
I do enjoy a good debate, however. Your comment that "we regard these
hard-won advances as so precious. We know how easy it is for demagogues
to become tyrants by playing on our basest instincts" is well said. I
agree with your much of your criticism of Bush's initial response to
9/11 though I do not yet see reason to agree with your evaluation of the
overall threat.
John: Compared to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or the Japanese Empire, al-Qaeda
is a piss-ant operation.
Eric: "Compared to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or the Japanese Empire,"
al-Qaeda can do the unthinkable: set off multiple nuclear weapons in
multiple US cities simultaneously. There's no MAD doctrine in place to
deter them, unlike what Stalin and Mao knew they faced. Our "high-tech
delivery systems" are useless against a stateless enemy. Pause for a
minute and think what ten US cities being nuked simultaneously would
mean ... then reconsider your evaluation. Unless the US leadership were
decapitated, leaving some second-banana Christian fundamentalist in
charge, it's unlikely the US response to such a strike would involve
nuking the entire Muslim world.
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