--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gibson Jonathan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> Because the USA may be the target of nuclear terrorism. OTOH, > >>> nuclear terrorists might explode a bomb anywhere they can, just > >>> to show they have it. > >> > >> OK. > >> How does this make any difference? We faced nuclear megadeath > >> of enormous proportions for decades w/o erosion of our rights - > >> well, actually we have, but that's another topic - or, at least > >> the ones we curtailed are a "comfortable pain" we are already > >> long familiar with. > >> > > Nuclear Islamic Terrorism is far more dangerous than Nuclear > > Communism. They had something to lose, while the islamic fanatics > > don't - not even if the retaliation would reduce every sacred > > islamic place to radioactive dust. > > > > Nonesense. Why do the puppetmasters pushing suicide bombers have less > to lose than the soviet aparatchniks did? There are any number off > technical, political, cultural, etc, reasons for a ffoolish leadership > to intentionally, or by blender, trigger nuclear bombs. The scale of > mistakes is obviously much worse under the old Cold War than an > isolated nuke going off here or there. Losing Morder, er Washington > DC, to an attack would be bad, but nothing compared to globe-straddling > nuclear winter after a typical US-v-USSR script. > The scale is obvious and one you don't address.
I can think of a number of reasons. 1) In a world with numerous sources of nuclear bombs, it may be impossible for the victim of nuclear bomb terrorism to identify with certainty the source of the terrorism. 2) The source of the terrorism may be a non-State actor. For example, if Osama bin Laden steals a Pakistani nuclear weapon and ships it on a container ship to Seattle - how does the US retalitate? What does he have to lose? 3) Nuclear weapons are primarily suitable for killing civilians and destroying infrastructure. Most modern democracies have officially disavowed the tactic of intentionally killing civilians in warfare and retaliation. As such, an Islamic terrorist may reasonably conclude that the US would not retaliate with nuclear weapons to an incident of nuclear terrorism. Note: *whether* the US would actually retaliate with nuclear weapons is not of first-order importance. It is only important, at the first order, that it is possible for an Islamic terrorist to *believe* that the US would not retaliate with nuclear weapons. JDG _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
