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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (204111)	9/23/2006 9:44:03 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

I'll say it another way. MAD didn't apply to the Japanese in WWII and MAD doesn't apply to the Islamic kooks today. That's different than what you said originally. You seem to have also forgotten that you started this with a claim that: "No, but they [BMD] might stop that Iranian or NK missile." To which I replied: "It might on the pre-condition that Iran and NK thought it wouldn't." Message 22810835 Which is when you interjected the concept of MAD [which you now say doesn't apply. "MAD doesn't work on a suicidal enemy. We learned that lesson in WWII against the Japanese and it will appear people of your political views will have to learn it over again." You can then note that in my response I never said that MAD applied. Specifically, I said ..... "That's not MAD you idiot. That's straightforward military execution. If NK or Iran thought that BMD actually worked they wouldn't fire a missile, they would use a different delivery delivery system." Unbelievably, now that you have said that MAD doesn't apply, you ask the question: "how is MAD going to stop someone willing to die to kill you?" Your example of WWII and the Japanese is the perfect example ... for me. It didn't matter whether the Japanese Kamikaze pilots were willing to die. The Japanese leadership wasn't hence they surrendered. There's nothing to suggest that the leadership in Iraq, Iran, or any other mid-east country is willing to die for the cause. [Hitler committed suicide, but only as a desparate means of escape.] They are willing to send someone else to die, but not themselves. You aren't going to see Bush take any chances that he's going to die in combat and neither can you find any examples where any of the leadership in a so called rogue country or terrorist organization is willing to commit suicide in order to kill you. If they were willing to commit suicide, they never would have made it to the top of the organization. An earlier claim from you: "The only way to stop someone willing to die to kill you, is to kill them before they kill you." Which might work if the numbers are small and if you have friends willing to help. "...The US Department of Defense has now provided another measure of the problem it faces. Its latest opinion poll carried out in Iraq indicates that, among the five million Sunni Muslims there, about 75% now support the armed insurgency against the coalition. This compares with 14% in the first opinion poll the Defense Department carried out back in 2003. It is a catastrophic loss of support, and there is no sign whatever that it can be effectively reversed. The rise in hostility to the US forces is clearly linked to the onslaught against the town of Falluja in 2004...." news.bbc.co.uk We've gone from 14% to 75% of Sunnis that have joined the insurgency with some unknown percentage willing to commit suicide in the process. In our brilliant strategy we're created more enemies willing to die to kill us. I'll contend that's not the right direction we want to head. The US military is now using a book on fighting insurgencies [I've forgotten the title/author]. The key point of the book is to fight an insurgency it's far more important to make friends than it is to kill the enemy. When you have more friends, you have fewer enemies and those friends are willing to help you get your enemies. Global terrorism is far closer to an "insurgency" in it's characteristics than it is to a "war" Bush in his address to the UN got a 15 second applause. Chavez got a 40 second applause. Hello! Bush is not making friends with his foreign policies. jttmab