>From Mr. Malloy: >> Dennis Prager just reported that the Taliban has taken over an area of >> Pakistan one hour north of the capitol.
>From Mr.Carrell: > There is span of centuries between getting religious control > of Pakistan and launching nukes. I don't know details of the > Pastani command and control system, but in the US and probably > in other nuclear nations, it is a lot different from shoooting > a cannon. The whole launch system has to kept in a state of > readiness and there is the small. matter of targeting. In the > US Minuteman system, a Presidential code and the cooperation of > two separated men was required, each armed with orders to shoot > the other at any evidence of instability or effort to make a > unilateral launch. The next nation to launch a targeted nuke > missile will be pounced on and the political backlash will be > devastating. IOW, any nation so foolish as to launch a nuke can expect to be bombed back into the middle or dark ages in short order. At which point it is conceivable that some organization like the Taliban may actually become the most civilized governing institution remaining, to pick up the ashes. Of course, such a scenario is utterly draconian. While bombing the nation would hopefully extract some kind of restitution/revenge against those who were responsible the collateral damage would be criminal. How many innocents, whose sole interest in life is to get their crops to market so they can feed their families would be forced to go along for the ride. > Meanwhile nations will build nukes to get *respect* and > show that they a big boys too. I would have to agree with Mr. Carrell' assessment. Over ten years ago I once knew an Indian contract computer programmer who had been hired to help us out. He was the nicest guy. Friendly, inquisitive, and talkative. He wanted to know all about American values. He occasionally loved to instigate friendly debates amongst us natives. He had already saved up a princely sum of ten grand that was accumulating interest in a bank account, an amount which was no doubt an utter fortune if he were to go back to India with his booty. I recall that it had just been in the news that India had exploded a "big bomb". News clips showed Indians dancing in the streets. You couldn't have seen a prouder guy. Our contract programmer considered the event to have been a great achievement for his country. In a roundabout way I congratulated him. Afterward, I asked him, since his country was now one of the "big boys" how he and his country would go about the task of figuring out how to get rid of them since that's the nightmare most of the "big boys" that accumulated the bombs eventually begin to ponder. He said I was an "... interesting fellow." > Mike Carrell Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
