From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu Aug 22 2002 - 20:09:46 MDT
On 22 Aug 2002 at 19:12, rhinoceros wrote:
>
> [Joe Dees 1]
> And when isthe 'proper' time to panic? After the mushroom cloud
> rises? How much better to forfend that possibility; even if uncertain,
> it is far too devastating a possibility to risk its actualization.
>
> [rhinoceros 2]
> Joe, has it occured to you that while you are busy with Saddam someone
> else in South America is secretly preparing to deliver the mushroom
> cloud on NYCity? You never know.
>
> [Jake 3] Yeah, we better invade South America.
>
> [Joe Dees 4]
> We'd better attend to the genuine threats of which we know, rather
> than making fake ones up in a futile attempt to score rhetorical
> points.
>
> [rhinoceros 5]
> But the Saddam threat is also just a possibility. What if a colleague
> of Bin Laden supported by huge funds has established an underground
> laborary under the Andes? Would you risk caught in surprise and the
> mushroom cloud delivered upon NYCity? It would surely be too late to
> regret then.
>
> [Joe Dees 6]
> Yeah, and what if those dwarfs busily fellating unicorns beneath the
> mountains of the moon were also constructing interplanetary ICBM's,
> ayy? I speak of genuine, authentic, substantial, concrete and real
> possibilities, not those whioch may be considered as a sliver over
> zero probability simply because statistically, no logical possibility
> can be absolutely discounted. Let's deal with the overwhelmingly more
> likely.
>
> [rhinoceros 7]
> How likely is "more likely". When it was pointed out that your
> arguments about Saddam's threats, actions, and mental state could not
> support your conclusion that Saddam was going to deliver a nuclear
> strike on the USA, you replied that you just had to make sure that the
> nuclear mushroom would not rise above New York.
>
> [Joe Dees 8]
> Actually, his past history eminently supports my position that he is
> fully capable of just such an action.
>
> [rhinoceros 9]
> "Supporting your position" that Saddam is likely to hit an American
> city with nuclear weapons is an overstatement. Against all evidence,
> you do not accept that the USA has been proven to be fully *capable of
> delivering* a nuclear strike on a whim, while at the same time you
> assert that Saddam is fully *capable of developing* nuclear weapons
> AND *capable of delivering* a strike on New York City with those
> imagined weapons AND *willing to deliver* a nuclear strike onto New
> York City on a whim. Just notice that your assertions are so unlikely
> that you have to speculate that Saddam is insane.
>
Or a potential suicide bomber writ large, brainwashed by his hatred of
the US (the chief instrument of the destruction of his plans for regional
hegemony and perhaps caliphhood) and sense of personal destiny (a
sense much stronger for him than a mere whim or velleity) as surely as
Palestinian suicide bombers are brainwashed by Hamas recruiters.
And it is a bare bones fact and white dog truth that Saddam has been
attempting to buy nuclear material on the black market, and that Iraq
already possesses physicists fully capable of rendering a nuclear
device from same.
>
> If this kind of logic seems to you adequate justification for killing
> several thousands Iraqis more, just in case, then you will find it
> difficult to sleep well at any time in the future. The unicorns
> engineered in South Africa some years ago, combined with the reality
> of moon flight, combined with the possibility that dwarves are really
> busy fellating the unicorns beneath the mountains of the moon and
> constructing interplanetary ICBMs will haunt you in your dreams.
>
There are several million lives at stake; that's a ration of a thousand to
one. A reasonable possibility (unlike unicorn-fellating dwarves) is too
much to risk when the potential differential between action and
forbearance is so dauntingly massive.
>
> I do not mean to say that the USA administrations is delusional or
> anything like that. They just want to play their domination games and,
> by the way, dump their annual load of bombs somewhere for the third
> year in a row.
>
Nope; they just do not want to explain to a nuclear-devastated American
people why they had advance warning that such a gargantuan
catastrophe was a distinct possibility and did nothing to forfend it. The
issue is greater than a single presidency; the party that is in power
when such a thing happens, if it is allowed to happen, is henceforth
doomed in American politics, for failing, even after due warning, in their
duty to ensure the safety and security of the American people. The
Democrats would not risk it, either. And this is also why they are not
speaking up in any great opposition.
>
> [rhinoceros 7]
> Well, how can you be sure that someone else is not secretly preparing
> to deliver the mushroom upon the heads of the inhabitants of New York
> City, causing unimagible destruction to them and grief and pain to
> their relatives and friends, and all this as a result of an
> inconsiderate attitude of denialism.
>
> [Joe Dees 8]
> I cannot be, but it is important to deal with the very real threats
> of which we are aware, rather than succumb to a terminal 'analysis
> paralysis' simply because there remains the bare logical possibility
> that there are threats of which we are not aware (although we should
> look for those, too). The possibility of a second threat is no
> logical grounds not to act to forfend the first.
>
> [rhinoceros 9]
> Yes, you are aware of many more threats, of the same or of a higher
> probability than your presumed threat from Saddam. The possibility of
> the secret laboratory that I mentioned, the possibility of a fraction
> of scientists in Pakistan, the possibility that in ten years from now
> some dozens of little strange men holding suitcases will be crossing
> the borders and blowing up American cities, are all much more probable
> than your Saddam scenario. Do you really want to be safe just like
> me? Try to convince the USA not to piss off people by bombing them.
>
The overwhelmingly likely source of suitcase nukes would be a Saddam
left in power long enough to purchase or produce the prerequisite
fissionable material and use the already-present-in-Iraq expertise to
build them, and either employing his own agents to deliver them or
contracting with Al Quaeda or another Muslim terrorist group to do so.
Pakistani scientists are much more concerned about India and Kashmir
(which is why we are engaging in an ongoing high-level mediation of
that conflict which has succeeded in recently reducing cross-border
tensions), and are firmly in the US antiterrorist camp, both as to
Musharraf and as to the vast majority of Pakistanis. And the only thing
that will unpiss radical Wahhabist Muslims will be the total elimination
of a Dar al Harb from the face of the earth and the advent of a global
Dar al Islami Ummah administered according to Shari'a law.
> ----
> This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on
> Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=26194>
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