Nuklear bomb

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by winny

Well said.

Very well said, actually, but short sighted.

Why go to war? That's the question it seems. Let us take the current situation in the middle east as an example.

In no particular order;

Oil: The Green Peace brigade (environmentalists if you will) would love a world that needed no carbon based fuels. That is at least a couple decades away (more). Oil is the fuel of the world economy. The world's economy collapses without free flowing, cheap oil. While that would make many of the environmentalists happy (who cares about economic collapse when a tenth of a degree of temperature change is at stake?), the rest of us see the horror of such a collapse.

No entity can be allowed to threaten or control the world's oil supply. By doing so they would control the world economy.

Israel: No matter what one may think about Israel, they are the only ally to the West in the middle east. They are hated by virtually all of their neighbors. But, they will not be abandoned by the West, nor should they be. The West will not allow Israel to be threatened and conquered. For the record, neither will Israel.

Nuclear Proliferation: When countries that actively work to eliminate other countries gain nuclear capability, the risks go sky high. When a country that espouses the destruction of Israel (the West's ally), the US (the lone remaining super power for the time being) and any allies to those countries gets nuclear capability, you have to consider the real possibility that they will use that new found power to bring about the destruction they have wanted.

Radicalism: People LOVE to point to the Crusades as a low point in civilization. Granted. That was 500 and more years ago. Similar motivations are present today, just not in the Christian world.

Moral Relativism: That's their culture, whatever they do is their business. Really? Is that still true when all the other circumstances described above come into play? "But Christians did it, this is no different!". Wrong, this is 500 years later. The world (or much of it) has evolved.

So when to fight? Do we wait until the enemy is on our doorstep? Do we believe and hope that they will never decide to come to our doorstep? Do we let the world economy collapse by giving over control of the world's most needed energy resource?

Leaving the Arab world to their own devices is a recipe for economic disaster, the destruction of Israel, and a guaranty that the "war" will be fought much closer to home in the years to come. Delaying the inevitable makes no sense when the other side can only get stronger and your side can only get weaker.

Is it the entire "people" of the middle east our enemy? Of course not, it is the radicals in charge of nations or in charge of militant organizations. Their numbers are not great but their power is. Do you think we can talk to them and come to an agreement? That is not possible because you (we) do not qualify as friends or even acceptable neighbors to the radicals. And some countries are controlled by radicals.

Ask yourself this: why would Iran want nuclear power (fuel recently supplied by Russia, BTW) when they are sitting on the world's second largest energy supply? It would have made much more economic sense to build refineries instead of reactors.

Answer: To be able to threaten their neighbors AND the larger powers in the world. It really is that simple. The leadership is radical.

Why should we keep nations out of the nuclear family? Is that fair? Why, yes when the new member of the nuclear family will seek to sell radioactive fuel, or nuclear devices, to organizations whose sole purpose for existence is the destruction of infidels. The new member of the nuclear family has continually expressed the desire to destroy other nations through violence.

One atom bomb is enough to ruin your whole day . Fight them there, or fight them when they attack your allies, or fight them when they are attacking "here". It really is the only choice unless the other side backs down. True? Do you expect the other side to back down? Do you expect them to accept "us" as world neighbors? Or will they do exactly what they have said their objective is?

Fighting for one's home or in a time of famine is about survival. Choosing to fight that battle at an earlier time to avoid those circumstances is intestinal fortitude. That is where we in the West are lacking right now. We would rather trade a few more years of relative peace and comfort for having to fight now. We are putting off the hard choices until tomorrow.

This is exactly where the Untied States was prior to WWII. How the Brits ever forgave us for abandoning them for so long is beyond me. But we were recovering from a depression (familiar?) and pretty comfy here with two huge oceans between us and invasion. The US did not want to go to war in Europe or the Pacific, we wanted to put that off and hope (HAH! Never works) that the situation would work itself out. It wasn't our war until Pearl.

Since then, we learned that the situation does not usually work itself out. Morally and strategically we have been right....tactically, because we do not want to fight dirty and costly wars, our execution has often been abysmal.

That's about the US....where is the rest of the world? WTF are the other countries doing as the sky is falling? Talking? Negotiating? Coming up with sanctions? Really, look at history...how often do those tactics really work?

Fight them on their terms, that's survival. Fight them on your own terms, that's a willingness to sacrifice today to avoid fighting for survival tomorrow.

Splitter