Craven de Kere wrote:timber,
ANY nation has the potential to enable terrorism. ANY individual has the potention to cause tragedy.
Potential is one thing, demonstrated, ongoing, active participation is another thing entirely. I own many firearms, which gives me the potential to shoot up the neighborhood. There is no reason to suppose I might, and much reason to conclude I would not.
Quote:If that is the logic behind such proclamations of doom, if the supporting evidence for preemptive attacks is of such little concern, I can imagine why this would be simply the beginning.
If no differentiating factors between possibility and probability are needed for you to justify attacking other nations without real provocation I can only imagine what you'd consider acceptable.
Your observation here suffers from oversimplification, unwarranted assumption, and flawed logic. The role of states as the sole entities of global politics has ended; there has evolved an entirely new class of entities which are stateless geopolitical operators. The world is a bit slow catching up to the phenomenon. A threat need not, in fact increasingly will not, have a flag, borders, or civil infrastructure. The Community of Nations, by and large, is and has been moving away from the practice of overt State-vs-State Armed Conflict. Proxy war has become the norm, wherein a state will, either covertly or otherwise, endorse and support a faction engaged in a third-party dispute, generally of internecine nature, with a faction the defeat of which would be of strategic benefit to the sovereign entity providing the aid. A given conflict may be subject to a number of proxies, working to differing ends, and often in most Byzantine, complexly intertwined, multi-tentacled fashion. By nature of the dichotomy of "Establishment" and "Anti-Establishment", an anti-establishment faction may be expected to be required to exersize unconventional means to attempt the effecting of its ends. Terrorism is a frequently employed tactic. The conflict in which Civilization is engaged is not with any particular State or States, but against the ideology which employs terrorism. This ideology is stateless, areligious, and bears no ethnicity. Terrorism is a vile, vicious, detestable, contemptible evil which, as largely has been slavery, must be eradicated.
Quote:
I call the following my "let see if this is an abject waste of my time" quiz:
Do you support preemptive attacks on
1) DPRK
2) Iran
3) Syria
4) Cuba
Very briefly, DPRK: Diplomatic and economic solution likely.
Iran: Shows signs of interest in becoming an economic partner in the global community. Among other indicators of this is Iran's restraint in, and indirect cooperation with, the issue we are currently prosecuting in her back yard. Syria, and Jordan, are closely related to the current matter, and are materially involved, as indeed is the entire region. Much depends on how effectively the US presses The Roadmap while demonstrating a commitment to the Best Interest of the Iraqi People, and not her own. Cuba will go the way oif the Soviet Union soon, and will benefit greatly. As will Florida. Altogether, this is likely to be a difficult act to pull off. The ways of the world are changing and adaptation is called for. We adapted to the advance and retreat of the glaciers, we'll adapt to this. It shouldn't take nearly as long. There will be successes and setbacks along the way. Renovation and rehabilitation of a building may be the goal, but details of decoration and fire protection are of little consequence if the immediate task is to extinguish a fire in that building.
Quote:Really, the "pro" camp should stick to the "liberation" angle. It's an exemplary red herring to the "kill the neighbor because he could kill me" ratiocination.
Have I addressed that to your satisfaction?
