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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (896)	12/12/2004 1:09:09 PM
From: cirrus	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 224668

Yes. I think Islamic radicals could get hold of a nuclear bomb. Everything is avaialable for a price. Would they use it? Of course. If a person's reasoning is guided by religious zealotry and a belief that eliminating infidels via a nuclear attack is for the greater glory of Allah, one would be foolish to think otherwise. Ironically, if Osama bin Laden obtained a bomb or even two or three I don't think he would use them without first attempting to gain concessions from the United States. Why? Because then he's played his trump card. The United States has thousands of nuclear devices and I don't think there would be much hesitation about retribution. The destruction one Trident sub missile launch could cause to the Arab world is beyond one's imagination. Osama wants power and glory. Can you imagine the titanic shift in thinking that would occur if it were proven that Osama had a bona-fide nuclear device and he appeared on a video tape warning that he would detonate one in a major US city IF the United States did not withdraw from, say Iraq and Saudi Arabia? What then? Shit. Iraqi democracy wouldn't be worth a whole lot then, would it? Would the people of say, Tulsa, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Green Bay or any one of the hundreds of other large and mid sized targets be willing to die for Iraqi democracy? I don't think so. I said I didn't think Osama would play his trump card without trying for US concessions that would make him the undisputed leader of the Muslim world. If we ignored demands, would he then use nuclear weapons. One would have to think "yes". The reason I say we must stop focusing on Armageddon is that it screws up one's thinking. We Americans think that big dangers like a Muslim nuclear device going off in an American city require equally large solutions, often causing us to overlook the thousand mundane things we should be doing to prevent that from happening. Paying Russian scientists to work on other projects, for example, to reduce the probability that they might be tempted to raise cash by selling that suitcase nuke in the closet. Speeding up the securing of old Russian nuclear stockpiles. Removing the American military presence from Saudi Arabia. Encouraging moderates to put pressure on Muslims to close the religious schools that preach extremism. Checking cargo containers before they reach US ports. tightening immigration and securing our borders. Rechecking the security and personnel who work in our nuclear facilities. Airplane pilots don't focus on avoiding a crash. Pilots focus on making sure wing flaps are set properly, that they have sufficient fuel, that the pre-flight checklist has been done and so forth... All this and much more needs to be done without focusing on one threat simply because the Armageddon to which I refer may well be caused by the next Tim McVie, who gets his hands on a nuclear artillery shell because he threatened the guard at a storage facility with ruin after he caught the guard fooling around with his 14 year old daughter. As the saying goes, "Take care of the little things and the big stuff take care of itself." As we saw from the Space Shuttle disasters, it's the little things we need to worry about. Armageddon may be a bit of a strong word but let me ask you something... Do you think that islam radicals could possibly get hold of a nuclear bomb? and do you think they would use it? or any other WMD for that matter. So I disagree with you that we should stop worrying about " armageddon " IMO that is exactly the mind set we need at this time to be able to put in place the common sense things or laws that you refer too to make the USA more secure. It was not paying attention ...as you suggested.... that allowed islam terrorists to commit the atrocities of 9/11 and other murders.