It seems lately that every time I turn around, I see another thread advocating Special Weapons as a sollution to some thorny problem. Most recent example here.
(Nothing personal against H8_2_W8, his thread is simply the one the tipped the scales.)
Why?
Is it that people are sooo impatient for a quick fix that they have to find a “magic button” to make all the trouble go away…?
Could it be that they don’t understand that complex problems almost never yield to a bigger hammer…?
Or are they so limited in vision that they can not see any solutions, and decide that flexing our muscles and waving a big stick around is the only choice available…?
Do they simply want to see a really big ‘bang’…?
Folks:
Nukes ain’t firecrackers, they’re not precision tools, they make crappy bunkerbusters, and they sure as hell ain’t sollutions to hate, poverty, and cultural issues. Nukes are Big fucking hammers, even the smallest of them, and need only be used when a Big Fucking Hammer is called for, and not until. Showing everyone how big our National Dick happens to be, isn’t going to solve the problem. Carefull, patient, painstaking, far-sighted work is the sollution, and it’s gonna take Time, blood, and determination.
So what say we roll up our collective sleves and get to work, huh…?
Or at least stop running around yelling “We want fireworks!”
H8_2_W8’s fetid pile of idiocy almoust brought me to retching.
“If someone bombs the U.S., let’s bomb a completely random city in hastey retaliation! We know that Arab = Islam = Terrorist, so let’s go kill! Kill kill kill!”
I think people may be reacting to the “inevitability” of the situation. Realistically speaking, weapons of mass destruction are in the hands of unstable regimes and megalomanics who have had grudges against one another for many years. Now the US has been dragged into this quagmire of political/religious zealotry. We just want our peace and security back.
Given the current threat of violence against the US and it’s allies, I believe we, as a nation, have shown amazing restraint. We have planned, investigated, and struck with precision unseen in any war that has ever been fought. All in an effort to minimize civilian casualties.
Let’s not forget something: any morning since 9-11, GWB could’ve gotten up, stretched, scratched his nuts, and decided to eliminate entire countries from the map (using any of a number of means). This is the model of warefare we have relied upon for decades. He has not, however. Given that most Americans are still waiting for the other, more deadly shoe to drop in the US from the fuckers, there are several counties that should consider themselves fortunate to still be in existence.
Call it nationalistic chest-thumping if you want. The US has reacted in an incredibly restained and appropriate way, given the options presented to us. Long-term solutions to the middle east crisis indeed will take time, blood, and determination. I believe the US should (and has) contributed the first and third items. I’m not willing to give much more of the second.
In order to do the job right, and “wield the surgeon’s knife”, blood will be spilled. Some of that blood will belong to our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. Much more of it will belong to our enemies, provided we do it right.
I understand anger and frustration. Believe me, I burn with the desire to see those putrescent shitstains wiped off the face of the earth, but using the ‘crowd pleasers’ ain’t the way, and people need to understand this… Everytime someone loses their cool and says “Nuke the bastards!”, our grip on the moral high ground becomes just a tiny bit more tenuous.
Rein in you outrage, dammit, and turn that anger to productive measures!
Veh, completely obliterating the middle east WOULD indeed be a valid solution to the problem of middle eastern terrorists, after whatever ones are floating around the world had blown themselves up in retaliation, there wouldn’t BE any more militant middle easterners (well, except for those who got pissed and became militant. ), thus removing the entire group completely.
Of course it would be completely amoral, but it WOULD indeed be a solution.
Kind of like my solution of killing on drug users on site, I mean sure it WOULD solve the problem, but it ain’t right.
Complete obliteration of a group does indeed solve any problems (except for ‘shortage of’ ) that may exist with that group;
but its damn ineloquent and is ALWAYS last last last resort solution that is only to be taken after serious lives are going to be lost one way or the other and it just becomes matter of whose group of innocent civilians are the ones to get fucked.
Amen! Preach it, hon! I just don’t understand all this “Nuke 'em” bullshit neither. Don’t folks know that if we start lobbing nuclear warheads at folks that shit will come back to haunt us in ways we can’t begin to fathom. We already got global warming wreaking havoc with the environment. Can you begin to imagine what would happen if folks just decided to set off a warhead. I’m not sure if any studies have been done to see how the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all the nuclear testing we did back in the mid-20th century or so has affected the environment and folks’ health as a result. I’m not sure what all this Star Wars Missile Defense Shield mess is supposed to do. Even if folks get their way and erect the damn thing to prevent nukes from hitting America, it’s not going to stop all the radiation and crap from fucking up the environment even worse. Okay, so I’m not a nuclear physicist, correct my ignorance on these matters. I don’t understand why folks who ought to know better keep wanting to fuck with nuclear bombs. :mad:
My outrage is already sufficiently reined. I suffer more from pessimism (realism?) than rage. We’re not that far off in idiology, Tranquis.
I don’t believe that we need to level entire countries right now. The point is we could, and we have not. I believe this shows amazing restaint.
We are currently weilding the aforementioned surgeon’s scalpel. I advocate we continue to do that, for now, because I hope it will yield the best results for the USA. Sadly, however, I don’t think it will. What I think will happen is the urgency will wane, we will get caught up in misc. bullshit, as Americans are want to do, and something much worse will happen to America. I don’t think this is so far-fetched, with nuclear briefcases, stray nukes, Iraq, blah…blah…blah. Many people in the Middle East have shown their intent to reign terror down on the US in the future. Sadly, I think it’s only a matter of time.
Again, sticking with the surgeon’s theme: Let’s say I have cancer. I can cut out the one little tumor and hope we got it all. Or I can go through chemotherapy Hell and the tumorectomy, and feel pretty certain I’ll be ok. Which one is better? I dunno. I’d rather not have cancer at all. I didn’t do anything to deserve it, I’m nice to most people, and I liked my life without it. I just know that no matter what my surgeon tells me, I’ll probably wake up every morning expecting to find the cancer has returned.
I hope 20 years from now I run into you while vacationing on the newly contructed Six Flags over Iraq, and we can talk about this thread over a nice powder sugar-coated funnel cake…
Poo. I think we should drop nukes (just itty-bitty ones, to make a point) on the following countries:
[ul]
[li]Argentina–hey, get your SHIT and stuff together, willya?[/li][li]Bermuda–for being so dang far out in the Atlantic Ocean. [/li][li]Iceland–ditto.[/li][li]Colombia–for sending us all that cocaine. Hey, grow some coffee for a change, 'kay? It’s LEGAL, plus it won’t rot your nose.[/li][li]Turkey–for forcing their way into NATO. Hey, get a clue, it’s the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, who invited youse guys?[/li][li]Sweden–for inflicting ABBA on the human race.[/li][li]Mexico–for stealing our water. Or something.[/li][li]Scotland–for making foreign movies in incomprehensible accents. I had to keep rewinding Trainspotting and even then I STILL didn’t get most of it.[/li][/ul]
That’s all for now, but after I get done in GD I’ll probably have some more.
Well. What to say. I suppose that someone who uses Kid in their username should not be held to much higher standards than a child, but nonetheless, I am an optimist in some sense.
Firstly, it is rare that capitals make a bad argument more convincing.
Second, you may – although to be frank I rather suspect that this has escaped you given the general dimness displayed to date and the general state of American knowledge about the rest of the world, or indeed anything outside of the TVGuide (with apologies to my concitoyens who do not fall into the stereotype) – be aware that most Muslims live outside the Middle East.
Now it is true that most of the hardline Islamists are in the region – most – but let me suggest the following.
(a) a fair strain of Islamist influence is found outside the Middle East, although excepting Pakistan it has not found much of an audience
(b) the nuclear destruction of the Middle East – or even simply its major population centers is likely to create vast new audiences for Islamist radicalism in Muslim populations in the Americas, in Europe and in the Muslims in Asia and Africa, hitherto largely hostile to Islamism.
Further, barring engaging in a complete nuclear holocaust, it strikes me as unlikely that we could kill all Muslims (leaving aside the poor fucking Xtians, Jews, Parsees, Druze, and other various non-Muslims living in the region) such that one might expect some number of folks with a good hardened hatred of us. Now this also abstracts away from the large numbers of non-Muslims in the down-wind regions who would not likely be extremely ecstatic to have their air and water poisoned by nuclear fallout as one may hypothesize that it would be significant as one would want to be thorough to minimize the survivors.
As such, let me say that:
it wouldn’t be a solution you stupid drooling semi-literate little moronic git. If you engage but twelve – to choose but a random but not inherently arbitrary number – of your shriveled neurons I am sure that with some modicum of logic and a glimmer of understanding and information
No, like your drug problem solution, it speaks of a particularly shallow idiocy, an immaturity which is neither endearing nor indeed terribly interesting, an ignorance which is neither excusable nor particularly worth any effort, unless one happened to have a Nine at the back of your skull by some happy consequence free coincidence, combating other than for the vague value in reducing my irritation at the general level of idle bigotry and uninformed idiocy which surrounds the comments made here in regards to this area.
I believe that a phrase from the 80s is of use here: waste of human flesh.
As for marcro boy, bloody hell don’t be so bloody pessimistic. Suitcase nukes are as likely to be a figment of cold war prop. as not and no one has verified their existence outside FSU. Conventional threats are far more realistic – I would look to ships into harbor to be frank, think Texas or Nova Scotia – but one only lives once, no sense pissing ones pants.
In a related vein, WTF is with all the small-minded Islam-ignorant Muslem-stereotyping idiots hanging around Great Debates lately? Did we get an influx of morons from the Yahoo! message boards or something?
I think there should be a new rule. Before any poster is allowed to post in any thread about the Middle East they should be forced to read Ask The Muslim Guy.
Whatever happened to Muslim Guy? I hoped nobody dropped a nuke on him.
This is all about emotion and frustration, not reason. A while back, I started a thread with the ill chosen title How 'bout we condemn the BOTH Arabs and Israelis!.
I KNOW nuking the Middle East would be a terrible thing. But I’m tired of never-ending violence and destruction, and the spillover of it into the rest of world. My gut says “Infection, clean out the wound”, and vaporizing a fair chunk of the planet sometimes seems not too insane, and intensely emotionally satisfying, because at least it would CHANGE things.
Of course it IS too insane to do. Look at the posible targets: Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, those little Gulf states, where do you stop? Oh, yeah and let’s not forget India, Pakistan and Indonesia. We’d end up making Hitler, Joe Stalin and Mao look like utility infielders in the mass killing game.
But I do understand the emotion behind such expressions. I’ve felt it myself.
I don’t think that anybody is seriously suggesting (I know, I read the other thread, but I mean seriously) we randomly nuke some sandy hot country after every terrorist attack.
Of course, If the attack is bad enough, (9-11 was), and we have indisputable evidence that it was a state sponsored act, I am all for nuking them. Couple of big ‘ifs’ to deal with, though.
Granted, there would have been a definite feel-good factor for the sane people of the world if we popped one off on 9-11. Who knows, we may have regretted it later, but damn, it would have been nice to get a little payback then and there.
Since I consider myself at least partially sane, let me assure you: I would have experienced no feel-good factor whatsoever if the US had retaliated to 9-11 by dropping a nuke on Afghanistan.
Let me also state that popping a nuke on 9/11 would not have made me feel better.
It would’ve made me feel sick to the core of my soul. It would’ve guaranteed, at least in my somewhat educated expectations, a lifetime of unrelenting terror and guerilla warfare against the US. That is not the stuff of good feelings.
Yah, poor babies. Maybe we can get them into a Multi-Level Marketing Scheme somewhere, so’s they can bond with somebody. How does Amway sound?
But I gotta go make a list of “Sandy Hot Countries” for us to nuke when the next terrorist attack comes off–the Feds issued another “alert” on the 5:30 ABC news.
Hmm…Tahiti? Australia? Chad? Oh, Chad sounds good, let’s nuke Chad…
Hey, we have clear evidence Chad interfered in the last U.S. electoral process. You do remember the “hanging chads” debacle in Florida, right? Fucking Chad. Think they can send their agents to “hang out” at our polling places and intimidate the people into voting Buchanan. [Homer Simpson Voice]I.Hate.Them. So.[/Homer Simpson Voice].
), thus removing the entire group completely.
:mad: 
