Sulaco

Right. Should we wait till they have 100 missiles? 200? How many missiles should we let them get before we attack a terrorist organization? Do you ever think before you type? Scott - Palestine is an occupied territory as such the people there have a right to defend themselves and attempt to regain their lands. All would be so easily solved if Israel would dismantle the settlements and get the heck out. Period. 50 missles is nothing - what about Israels hundreds of nukes? And here bloated defense forces? All propped up by the US military industrial complex and the US GOP. Oh, and of course I think before I type, why with the insults all the time? Hamas was democratically elected. Hamas held to a ceasefire for over 18 months, while Israel did not. In fact Israel is currently violating another ceasefire term by flying over Lebanese airspace (something she has Never stopped doing). Besides that - the one screaming for war seems to be the right wing extremists leading the land of Israel. They called for war with Iraq, they are calling now for war with Iran. Fine if they are the ones who will fight it - but they won't be - they are proxy warriors and need only call on their puppy the US. So, who REALLY wants this? The average person in Israel (probably not) the average Palestinian - probably NOT either. Those who beleive in Greater Israel (ie LAND and RESOURCES now belonging to others) YES. That has been the political aim of the Zionist ideology since its inception. (I'll wait for your next insult with anticipation!!) What a strange proposition. it seems to me that you argue, in response to swcott, that Israel should not defend itself because others have a right to wipe it out. Wow... if only the germans understood that. Put another way - I would never expect anyone not to defend himself - whether in the right or in the wrong.

Exactly. I remember, back in 1966 the US Northeast had a very hot, humid summer. 1967 was cool and rainy, as was 1969. 1968 was somewhere in between. No one thought anything of it.In 1988, when we had a summer very similar to 1966, i.e. heat extending through most of Continental US (except no days over 38 in NYC, whereas 1966 did that about 4 times or so), people were clucking about "global warming". Amusing you should bring up Copernicus. He too was a dissenter from a pseudo-scientific paradigm.

How? If you have the solution, please do share it with us. I am a realist -- really, we cannot kill all the muslims on earth, there are just too many of them. So what indeed should we do Scott? I agree that Islam should be stomped out (ideally all religion should be "stomped out", but let's start with Islam as it is the worst one) I know your question is directed to Scott, but I'd like to give a suggestion. For starters.... First. Let's do away with multi-culturalism. This is for all immigrants from all over the world who comes to Canada. You chose to come here, therefore you live by our laws and our way of life. If you want to keep your culture, do so in the privacy of your home - as long as you are not breaking any laws of this country. It's not us who will change and adjust to you. Second. The burquas and veils must go. And the kirpans! Third. No barbaric protests allowed. If you do want to protest about something, do so in a civilized way. fourth. Anyone caught being involved with terrorism in any way is out of here! If you're Canadian citizens, then consider yourself, ex-Canadian citizens. This will include your whole family. five. Anyone making any threats - include fatwas - will be criminalized under our law. six. Any mosques involved or used for preaching hatred and inciting will be shut down, with no hope whatsoever of being re-opened again. In fact, it will be torn down, and the vacant space be put to good use instead. All imams from that mosque will be kicked out of the country. Any shut down mosque will never be replaced in the area. Hey thats a great idea and whose country was this, so we all embrace the Native way of life. Oh you won't like that, doesn't fit in with your little scheme of things does it. Well - let's see how this analogy plays out. Native Americans were too weak to stop the European invaders. Rather than unify - not to blame them - that may have been impossible - they tried to play Europeans off against each other and use them to settle their own tribal conflicts. As a result they were swalloed up whole, by the more technologically advanced Europeans. Had they unified in time - rather than far too late during the war of 1812 (and even then not fully) they might have had a chance of carving out some land. They failed. You have a new colonization - this time by barbarians. They come into Canada like the Europeans came - and they attempt to change. To make you adapt. You act to late and you wont have enough power to prevent change you might not find acceptable. So yes - you should learn from native American's failure vis a vis the Euros and not repeat their mistake. preserve your dominion ofver these lands -= so to speak. Analogies are fun - expecially when they are as ill thought out as yours was.

You just had to squeeze in that poverty mantra, huh? It has absolutely nothing to do with "poverty" in their homelands. Most of these morons are born in Britain or in the country they are raising hell in. It has very little to do with support for Israel, except whenever the so-called "moderates" want to blackmail a western government on its foreign policy. "Oppression by western supported dictators?" That doesn't even make sense. Its actually not a "bunch of reasons." It's actually very simple...all we have to do is listen to what they say instead of what we, looking through a rationalist lens think their reasons ought to be. They want the ascendency of Islam and of the the Ummah. Everything else is secondary. They want to bring the west to its knees because the west works better than Islam, and does so in direct opposition to the precepts of Islam. If Islam is right, then it follows that western ethos must be wrong, and the fact that it works better must be the work of the devil. We're dealing with 6th century savages here, following the most reductionist and intrusive excuse of a religion ever invented. It's just not complicated. Sounds like you need to go back and read some history and find out who the savages were several centuries ago Perhaps a talk with Saladine or a good read of his history would help. Are you saying Saladin was not svage in his behavior toward those whom he conquered. That is an interesting proposition. I think you might be hard pressed to support that. or have you been watching that Ridley Scott movie too much. Heck - even that silly-ass film acknowledges that had Jerusalem not held out and pushed for terms - a slaughter would have been had. But Saladin did wear makeup - and that, I guess - made him civilized.

One should always dig into assumptions made by various arguments. My favorite punching bag has always been the proposition that if only the masses in those third world countries were educated all would be good. Usually this argument comes hand in hand with left spawned poverty is a root cause argument. The pair have made their showings regarding muslim extremism. What poppycock. Usually the "just edumacate them and all will be fine" arguments are made by our effette academes. One wonders how these thinkers can be so ignorant of history. And how they can be so blind to the cultural imperialism they so denounce generally but are preaching through their war cry. What these professers reall mean is not " give them an education" - they mean "educate them in a manner that we prescribe". Teach them our values. if all of them take these values on they will be pacifist doves. All will be utopia. Bah... you aren't be doing any such social engineering without a lot of guns pointed at the third world teachers. And they must mean to social engeneer - because just education makes for better informed fanatic. As we've seen in the past you could be very well educated in the sciences, liberal arts, maths etc. and call for the wiping out of all jews. As we have seen this past week you can be a passable doctor and attempt to inexpertly set off bombs. Is the assumption then that the educated would refuse to be cannon fodder for a cause? Umm no - again see the last week. Observe how most highly violent revolutionary movements started out as cadres of very vicious very aducated - and only after some time accreted some portion of the unwashed masses. Frankly the educated can and are far more vicious than the uneducated. They have abstract causes. They have communism or they have an idealized islam. So does educate them mean indoctrinate them? If so I say to a professor of this bromide - usually a pacifist - you and what army? Or I would ask him: are you really so silly as to believe that the educated are somehow precluded from strapping on an explosive vests, chopping off children's heads, or slaughtering women - simply by the virtue of completeing university?

Really? No catastrophes at the end of vietnam. i guess that's true as long as the several million that died after US withdrawal are viewed merely as slant eyed gooks. The commander is a dumbass.

Can you expand on that?Mu is what you reply when you interpret the question as being unanswerable of sorts. For example, to the question "Are all cork-screws straight?" I would likely answer Mu or ignore the question or present a litany of cockamamie conspiracy theories. It is an answer that means neither yes nor no. It states the question can only really eb answered by another question. It really tells you to unask the question.

There is a deeper truths in this. 1. The globe changes. it has changed before humans got here and ahs continued changing since we've been here. Seems to me there is a dream that we can arrest chage by ceasing certain behaviors. Ridiculous. Take us out of the equation and the planet will change. 2. Humans are highly adaptable. We are mobile and have invaded more environments then any other creature except for those that free ride with us. Catastrophe my ass.

Any evidence for that, so far? Both China and Russia are on the record stating that they aren't seeking such technology and don't want weapons in space. Who exactly do you have in mind with that "their own technology"? So one day I invited my younger brother to race. Now he was 7 years younger but old enough where I had stopped letting him beat me. No way he could out-run me. He told me he had no intent to seek victory. Then he told me that, all in all, things would be ebtter if our feet were cut off. Or something like that. Parable is failing. Of course Russia and Chine will say this. At this moment they would not be able to keep up. Not sure why the US should not move forward with protecting itself from rogue states nonetheless.

Umm... right. What single minded naivete. The reasons why humans fight are as varied as the reasons why humans don't fight. Religion figures as reason for both. As does ideology, greed, altruism, slavishness and desire for dominance, meekness, geography, genetic imperatives to breed, to spread, so on so forth. The desire for freedom, the desire to subject, the imbalances between males of breeding age and available females, social structures etc. etc. etc. And there is, of course, our capacity to reason, that adds that extra spice to our warring that other animals miss. Though in a way ants do war - I once saw an ant carrying a cross, leading a multitude. Yup - it's all religion.

I guessed, Churchill It was the mention of commerce that pushed me toward Churchill. While the language excluded Americans and the more modern, the mention of commerce excluded those in the far past. No german could write this elquently in English. The two languages are simply too incompatible in their "cultures".

Okay..... Quite right, in fact, the shield isn't targetted at all. A shield designed to protect US cities from rogue states will have little value for Seuol......and a nation acting as a proxy or seeking regional power and doesn't fear MAD won't worry if 9 out of 10 (such optimism!) warhead are magically intercepted..... ...whats's more a nation not up to developing a delivery system that can evade counter measure will simply load the bugger on a freighter and sail the package into Tokyo bay...... Spending an inordinate amount of time and money on ballistic missile defense is like French Knights trying to come up with better armour to counter the long bow..... Cost benefit ratio change immensly for great powers acting through proxies and rogue regimes. The argument that because you cannot defend against every emthod of delivery you should defend against none is ridiculous on the face of it. Same as arguing that there is no point of developing body armour if someone will always have weapons that will penetrate it? Or mroe on point with your analogy - what would ahve french knights gained from developing better armour - higher survivability for its charges. By your argument armour development should have frozen at the time the English slaughtered the French.

You really need it laid out plain and simple, Scott. Huge nuke arsenal combined with perception of invincibility (whether real or imaginary) could create a very strong temptation to use that power for the best of humanity. To liberate us from all that stands between this miserable state and eternal bliss. By dropping a few nukes here and there. To me it looks like too much temptation. Definitely the recent actions of US administration have shown that they aren't up to the challenge. I.e couldn't and shouldn't be entrusted with such power. The missile shield is not targetted at Russia or China. An ability to intercept high tech missiles would be a nice side benefit but the real issue is with the low tech prolifirators. The problem with MAD is that it works well on great powers but is of limited utility when the nuclear power is small and especially when it is irrational. These small nations understand the moral issues that the west would have with using nukes while they themselves are less likely to have such qualms. They also are more likely to assume that if they use nukes in a limitted manner they will not suffer a counterstrike. Whether that is true or not is not the issue. Their perception is more likely to be that they could escape a counterstrike. If you will - any nuclear exchange involving the great powers has to be to the hilt. It's always going to be all or nothing. But a small power may imagine that limitted strategic or tactical employment of its nukes will leave the great powers that might retaliate scared that retaliation will bring on a full exchange. A small power might be inclined to think that a great power, especially the US, will be able to absorb a limitted nuclear strike, that it will calculate costs of retaliating (potential of an all out exhcnage with other great powers) will far outweigh the benefits (punishment of the small state). Again whether the small pwoer is right or wrong in its analysis is irrelevant. You don't want them to even think they can employ nukes successfully or without retaliation Take North Korea for example - it is: 1) far more likely to use nukes as blackmail. 2) far more likely to use nukes for limitted strategic or tactical reasons 3) in my opinion the pattern is that it is much more likely to be reckless. A missile defense shield changes the arithmetic in dealing with these small nations. It is their nuclear forces that become neutralized. And that is where the shield is really directed. One more point - small powers can be used by great powers. North Koreas nuke force can be used in proxy by the state it serves as client to. Chine might, at some point, push for a limitted nuclear exchange. At worst china sees North Korea flattened. It is unlikely US would carry out a full exchange. A missile shield will limit the ability of great powers to use small powers as nuclear proxies. I cannot stress this enough - the real worry in the nuclear arms race is not the great power, it is the small irrational state acting as client fo great power or even worse, on its own. This is where you, and Morris Dancer go wrong.

What an incredibly slanted headline. As if it were written by a Chavez employed propagandist.

Simple experiment. Stick a plate on the point of a stick so that it balances. Mark the point on which it balances. Then tape somrthing to the side of the plate and place it with the same mark on the point of the stick. How does the plate fall? Does it rotate? Does it tip away?