How comfortable do you feel?

Six Arab states join rush to go nuclear.
Given the militancy displayed in the last few years does this cause any concern?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...436948,00.html

[Ducimus]

How comfortable? The only feeling i get is a sense of fatalism. I wonder how long we have until a small nuclear device is detonated in one of our cities. I dont think its a question of IF.. but WHEN. I really don't think we can stop them, and we really have no NBC defense to speak of.

[P_Funk]

Its only a metter of WHEN if the way the West keeps treating the Middle East stays the same. Its obvious that we aren't doing a very good job of keeping tensions down. Especially gieven the way the invasion of Iraq has been perceived (like the West will invade any nation it pleases). We don't exactly reach out to them like they're equals. We've been stripping them of their sovereignty since we pushed back the explosion of Islam in the Middle Ages.

Our foreign policy is obviously completely wrong. And since most of the Western world is locked up in Afghanistan and Iraq I can't see another occupation being realistic. So we play the bully and we can't back it up there isn't gonna be anyway to keep most nations that want a nuke from getting one. Sanctions won't work either cause you bully the wrong nation and Opec will have us wishing for last year's gas prices.

I'm not that uncomfortable. What another sovereign nation having a nuke has to do with terrorists beats me. Russia has already lost track of enough and North Korea already has one so if anyone's is gonna sell the technology it would be them. And since the US already ignored a nuke into Kimmy's hands I think we're WAY past being any less comfortable.

CNN might start saying something spooky but the truth has been there for a while.

Its high time we stop being scared of these savage nations and start being smart. Being the big bad boys from the developed world isn't gonna do anything.

The only thing that I really fear is when another politician is going to tell me that we can't afford my rights because of a theoretical threat with no defined variables has been picked up on by the major news sources.

[Oberon]

Hmmm....

Enough of them get nukes, they may just nuke each other instead of us. :hmm:

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Hmmm....

Enough of them get nukes, they may just nuke each other instead of us. :hmm:

There is no "each other". The US or Russia or China or India or somebody else has an agenda and is pulling strings (or is trying) behind the scenes. There is a constant interest somewhere in that region for someone who ought not to be buggering around in someone elses back yard. No one can deny that that was the case in the cold war (it was obvious) but the cold war isn't really over other than Soviet Russia blinked and we all started t believe that it was over.

World powers are always dicking around in the undeveloped or underdeveloped world trying to con someone out of something and create a proxy this to fight that and secure some economic interests here and blah blah.

No offense to Israel but why do you think that Britain and the US supported the creation (and still do) of Israel? Not cause of guilt or the Jewish right to a homeland but primariy because of the need for a new foothold in the middle east after the collapse of the British Empire. That the Jews were victimized and deserved something is like Iraqis being "liberated" by the invasion. Its all just a selling point.

Sorry to sound so cynical and I don't mean to offend any Jews or Iraelis here but no one cares about Israel other than Israelis, not in the upper echelons of Western Power, except for where it benefits them or their interests (be it national or personal or corporate or whatever else).

They nuke "each other" and it'll escalate into something world wide. Every major economic power has interests in the Middle East and no one is going to trash that garden cause it feeds the whole world right now.

We're worried about some crazy arabs controlling nukes but think of all the crazy Russians that have or had control. Think of all the personal interests involved in the decayed and obscenely corrupt Soviet Union.

The only thing new about all these fears we're obcessed with today is our awareness of them.

[The Noob]

Everyone has bombs, counterbombs and counter-counter-bombs. One day it had to get out of controle. The insane idea of Holding peace by Firepower, by weapons wich you can't use for defense without commiting suicide. Totall madness.

[P_Funk]

We can only hope that the urge to survive overpowers the urge to control the world and via destroying the world deny control to our enemies.

But if you think about it the people who are threatening our existance are as much our leaders as they are the other guy's. By promising to destroy the Soviet Union we promised to destroy ourselves. I don't care how bad Stalin was, denying humanity its existance because we didn't want the "Commies" to run things is as insane as anything the other side was spewing.

Even if the Cold War was about controlling the world there was another very fatalistic and apocalyptic level that dominated the mindset of both sides. Somehow in the ever changing opera of human history we forgot that our time under the lime light is as fickle as any other's. Somehow we were ready to deny the Human Race it's future for the petty and forgettable specifics of the ideologies of the day. A half dozen men were ready at any one time to sacrifice the world for the entire race.

So what does all that have to do with Egypt and Algeria and the rest of the spooky arab world wanting nukes? Its all our fault if the world comes to an end. But more specifically, its all our fault if the proliferation of nuclear arms extends wholesale through the Middle East.

Who is we? Well just about anyone who has had any say in the way things work for the last... 2000 years. Waddaya know they're all white (mostly). We have been buggering around in the Middle East for centuries and, particularly in the last 100 years, we have been going so far over the line that today we are seeing the full grown Western Resentment lead to all kinds of hatred almost all directed at the West. When it isn't directed at the West its usually because OF the West. We decided to plop Israel into the middle of things and just displace an entire people without a home for them so carelessly. We denied Sovereignty to so many tribes in so many ways and drew them together and apart so many times that we have countries like Iraq that are just migled and massed together in a great bunch of non-white peoples (they're all the same right?) that hate each other. We have used middle eastern nations against their neighbours for our gains and fought proxy wars by supporting dictators. We have used natiosn there against each other so much we think its just normal to intervene how we please.

Now they want nukes. Why? Because we have nukes and we say "no you can't decide what to do with your nation because WE HAVE THE NUKES". So how does a nation or a party or a terrorist group become credible? It gets a nuke because nukes are the political currency that buys you a seat at the table. And who gives them nukes? We do. Because we have chosen not to seek to undo the threat we created but to use it against our enemies because we are so righteous.

If it all goes off in a big mushroom cloud its because we didn't let THEM join the party. If it doesn't go off we just have a bigger stalemate that was begun after we apparently destroyed the worst Regime in the world. We killed the Nazis and then decided to destroy the world if our "allies" got any ideas.

So am I comfortable? Sure, because this is all an abstract dream and if a nuke falls on my city at least I won't feel it. Better than watching it all crumble.

[TteFAboB]

Uncomfortable? Only if they can send it across the ocean, so that's some port security, coastal security and Mexican border security for you. If Iran can get away with it everybody else will want one too to avoid being hostage to Iran or to join in with Khamenei.

[Oberon]

I just thought I'd say it before someone else does, bout time I had my anti-ME moment for the year

It seems that nuclear weapons, and nuclear technology itself is being made available on a wide market, it probably won't be long before Columbia is sporting ICBMs of all places. Then it's DEFCON time, when the person with the best missile defence wins....but then, what can a missile defence do against a dirty bomb?

The only defence against nuclear war lies in human nature....

I'm confident...

[ASWnut101]

Yes, that makes sence, Obernon, but come on. a dirty bomb.

dirtybomb=worthless, just to scare you

Its mainly the fact that the dirtybomb spreads radiation that freaks people out the most. but they are actually are pretty worthless. all it is a some sort of radioactive dust or aerosol attached to a block of high-ex. They are ment to scare, not kill mass amounts of people. Where do you live? unless its in downtown manhattan or a place like that, you should have no worries about a DB attack.

[Oberon]

Well....I live not far from the biggest dirty bomb of them all:



But I've long since stopped worrying about that going up, there's more chance of seeing Elvis.

But no, admittedly a DB is a pretty low grade weapon designed mainly for the 'terror' aspect...but then again, isn't that what terrorists are good at? I mean, imagine the panic and hysteria? God alone knows what the media would make of it.

[ASWnut101]

more like what HAVE they made it. they dramatize. "oh no, a dirty bomb will kill off all of the North East US! Run and Hide!"

I would have absoulutally no problem living close to a nuke-P.plant. Pretty cool. maby the fish by that lake glow green at night......:hmm: :hmm:

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

No offense to Israel but why do you think that Britain and the US supported the creation (and still do) of Israel? Not cause of guilt or the Jewish right to a homeland but primariy because of the need for a new foothold in the middle east after the collapse of the British Empire. That the Jews were victimized and deserved something is like Iraqis being "liberated" by the invasion. Its all just a selling point.

Hogwash on all points, both regarding Israel and Iraq.

P_Funk wrote:

If it all goes off in a big mushroom cloud its because we didn't let THEM join the party.

They are part of the UN aren't they? Isn't that being part of the party?

[Sailor Steve]

[quote=waste gate]P_Funk wrote:

If it all goes off in a big mushroom cloud its because we didn't let THEM join the party.

Of course anything bad that happens is all our fault. Any positive solutions, or just more finger-pointing?