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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Copperfield who wrote (122323)12/28/2003 8:36:52 AM
From: jttmab  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Sooner or later wars end.

There are two major differences in the war on terrorism to any other "war" you might compare it with. Every example you can come up with involves a nation state. There's someone there to say, "I lost" and the war is over. In this war, there isn't any one to say we've lost.

The closest comparison is to the war on drugs. Where the word war is more symbolic than real. You can win a battle here or there; disrupt funds for a period of time. But there is always some one to step in and take over their own little niche market and the money always finds a route to flow.

The second difference is the weapons involved. Biological weapons far worse than any single nuclear weapon. The cost of development is/or will be quite small. It's not going to take a national budget to develop a biological weapon. And that particular type of weapon doesn't have the time limited effects of a nuclear weapon.

A nuke has intial blasts effects measured in seconds; radiation deaths measured generally in a few days. Long term deaths such as cancer deaths caused radiation are small.

Biological weapons are not contrained by time. A designer contagious Ebola or smallpox for which there is no vaccine or treatment will continue until it burns out. It can make the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic look small.

jttmab
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