Damned if you do, damned if you don't. After all these half-baked wars from Korea to now there simply is no solution to proactive rogues in this nutty world. In our own county we can't even wipe out druglords, perverts and the Mafia, let alone Islamic crazies. As some have suggested, give up trying before we totally drain our monetary and human treasures and concentrate on the nut cases here.
Giving up is losing. We cant stop murder, but that does not mean we should give up on trying to.
Even with a long history of failure, eh? It's obvious we can't go on with horrendous collateral damage any more than to wipe out crime here we bomb ganglands across the country.
We can (if we had the will) starve the gangs of their revenue stream (and reason for being), but we won't. There is no similar option with Islamic fundamentalists/jihadists - there's nothing we could do as they have no 'material' motive. We have only 2 choices: fight back or capitulate.
The so-called war on drugs has never cut off sufficient thug revenue. with war on terror we occasionally freeze assets to little avail. With these terrorists there's a third option--energy independence.
As Daiwa said, cut off the source. We never did with the war on drugs. The source of the MONEY. The war has bene on the source of the drugs.
As bad as the drug lords and mafia are, they aren't trying to develop nuclear weapons. That's bad for business.
Actually, eliminating the thug market through legalization is the only way we'll starve the gangs. We'd have problems, just like we have with other legal but problematic consumables like alcohol, but the criminal element would be drastically reduced. The gangs fill & thrive off of the vacuum of illicit demand. Bad as the legalization of drugs would be, it could not possibly be worse than the reality we live with now.
The war on the source of the drugs only drives up the street value and has for all intents and purposes failed miserably, but it will remain a permanent, perpetually growing fixture of life as long as drugs are illegal.
Those comments were directed mostly toward Korea and Iran, they may be fanatics but their not crazy. I believe if Al Qaeda were offered a device (they will never be able to build one due to logistics) they would take it in a heartbeat, however, I don't believe even the most rogue of nations, that could supply one, for a second wouldn't know that we would find out were in came from and what would happen to them.
It just might be. We haven't had anything on the scale of madness like WWII since. If you look back at the time frames of great wars prior to WWII, we seem to have avoided the blood letting in a massive way. Probably not enough to the liking of some, but that might just be what is keeping these humans from overrunning the planet. What will stop that now that we are trying to disturb the genetic coding?
First, I disagree with Nitro. I think there are some that crazy. Especially Korea (because they do not care about their people as has been demonstrated) and Iran (because they have developed a cult like status where all reason is thrown out for the good of the cult).
In 1945, all we knew about Atomics was they were BIG bombs. The quest for big bombs did not stop with 1945 either (MOAB, bunker busters). It is easy to look back with the knowledge of the 21st century and see the genie we have unleashed, but at the time, all we knew was that it was a big mo-humper of a bomb. There was never any evil intention with it (outside of the fact that we were at war and millions had already died in it), and to assign 21st century knowledge to those of 1945 is both stupid and shallow.
And in another way, 1945 was inevitable. regardless of who invented it, and who had it, someone at someplace in sometime had to use it so that we could understand the terrible nature of the weapon. if it had never been used, it would be used today. At some point, a threat has to be used to be credible. We can take some solace in the fact that the time these were used, it literally saved millions of lives (Overlord).
Doc, I believe Korea and Iran would or could use nukes themselves, if they felt the need. I just don't believe they would give it to a terrorist group for use. These two governments are control freaks, they wouldn't want the type of blowback that would ensue if the device were to be exploded in say NY city. They don't want their destiny in someone else's hands. Iran has a 50/50 chance if it nukes Israel, how much support would they get if it were discovered they supplied a device that blew up NY? Hard to say with this US administration.
Good statement, but don't lecture me on the atom. Remember I had just returned from Okinawa and in training on Guam for the big homeland invasion. I and my mates were thrilled that we went to Japan for the Halsey signing at Yokosuka naval base in lieu of attacking it.
There's no 50-50 with respect to mutual annihilation.