Not in a world with suicide bombers, Christians looking to bring about the Rapture, and religious leaders of all types trying to enhance their own political power. MAD only works with reasonable people.

One does not acquire power in even a "rogue state" by being irrational. This is especially true in non-domocratic states. Mind you, being rational does not imply benevolence, but it does imply an extent of predictability.

The nations that seem most likely, to me, to use nuclear weapons already have them. Some of their enemies, however, do not, which increases the likelihood of a nuclear attack.

I like this notion, very astute. What I wonder is where the tipping point is. Surely some countries have more to gain from war than trade (yes, I'm going back on a former point, I like to think I can still learn). Otherwise Africa would make no sense what-so-ever. What draws the line between war being more advantageous and trade being more advantages.

As for you comment on social cleansing, I agree to an extent. But I tend to think that those are overlying excuses for an underlying resource insecurities. It's still a competition for resources in my mind. It's just that when your in the same country you can't use the oh-so-convenient "the other country is the enemy" excuse. So you draw lines across other boundaries.

Yet, there are truly hateful people, that cannot be denied. I suppose the real question becomes, what allows hateful people to get in charge? Do people under stress simply yearn for the simplicity of black and white hatred? I don't know, honestly. But I think that's headed in the right direction. Thoughts?

Africa makes sense to me for the same reason that Al Qaeda makes sense, or street gangs make sense to me. You have poorly educated, but slightly more ambitious than average people at the top inciting uneducated, highly indoctrinated young men to commit murder on their behalf. They do it in the name of patriotism or religion, but it's all the same, really. It's the way these things have always been, and when one of these groups gets a hold of nuclear weapons, they're going to use them.

The recent bombings in Great Britain were attempted by a group of MDs. Hardly poorly educated!

The real key to terrorism is this: without a huge organized army, a group of fanatics of any stripe engage instead in psychological warfare. Their acts are really directed at the audience (the general public) - not at the victims (who by the norms of a conventional war are relatively few in number).

Democracies in which freedom of the press reigns supreme are terrorist's best targets because fear sells newspapers and puts bums in seats in front of TV sets, so the media will hype every incident and fan the flames of fear in the general population. We get round-the-clock coverage of every public detail repeated day after day, and in these days of cell phone cameras there is always video to show of every incident.

As this happens, a culture of fear develops among the general population that permits, even encourages, the loss of and threat to our normal freedoms. We all take our shoes off before boarding an airplane, and feel, quite unreasonably, safer instead of indignant. Bear in mind that we do this because one deranged person crossing the Atlantic on a scheduled airline flight (Richard Colvin Reid (aka Abdul Raheem)) tried to ignite a bomb carried in his shoe!

Terrorists with causes that are based on religion or ethnicity (or both) have a further leg up in the West as well, because of the overwhelming surge of political correctness in our cultures in the last two decades. Profiling of any kind is a major no-no, so 80-year old grandmothers must suffer the same indignities as much more likely suspects in spite of the fact that virtually all of the terrorists identified to date were young, single men. The terrorist's message touches and terrifies us all, inconveniences us all, gets our names on no-fly lists, etc. And this happens in spite of the overwhelming probability that no act of terror will ever involve you. Fear is enumerate, and terror is irrational - that's what this "war" is about.

Since we are unwilling (and rightly so, in my view) to muzzle the press, our own free press institutions are working for the terrorist cause, and defense against terror is an excuse for all kinds of indignities. We find ourselves in nasty conundrum; hoist, as it were, by our own petard.

An exception that proves the rule. Most acts of terror are not committed by doctors, and I have no doubt that these particular doctors were not well respected in their field.

Some may not even be doctors. There's a tendency in the press to label people as more than they are to sell the story. The Taliban for example is routinely referred to as "students" but how many of them could solve a simple algebraic equation, understand basic high school physics beyond bomb making, read or write music, or intelligently discuss any history not directly related to the Quran?

I'll grant you that -- one (or perhaps it was two) of them were refused admission to Australia before entering England.

But if you think the leaders of that movement are uneducated or unintelligent you're sadly underestimating them - it's the peons who die for sure, but they were urged to that by folks who are neither stupid nor uneducated. bin Laden certainly went to university and his number one guy was educated as well. To become a fanatic is not a left-brain logical decision; it's an emotional committment. One does not become a fanatic by reading a holy book either; one has to be convinced by a respected teacher that certain phrases in it mean certain things and are to be taken literally.

Yes, the top guys are educated, but that's not to say that they're well educated. They're educated well enough to be dangerous, but not well enough to make reasonable arguments in favor of their views. That's why they need to use terrorism. It's the only tool they know. Combine that with Religion's (ALL of them) tendency towards intolerance of any opposing viewpoints (forcing creationism into science class for example) and you've got a perfect recipe for use of the bomb. All that's left is for them to get it.

I think it's easy to think of this as an Extremists vs the West situation, when really, these guys want to kill you because you don't believe as they do, and it doesn't matter to them whether you're a westerner or an arab muslim from a different sect. They aren't reasonable, they're not going to be reasonable, and they have taken over a country before: Afghanistan.

Just for some flavor, I would like to note that you can be awfully intelligent and completely insane at the same time. Well educated is also a relative term. I think I can see where you're coming from cwtnospam, but I wonder what well educated means to you. What would a well educated person know that stops them from terrorism?

For starters, a well educated person would know that there are much better ways to accomplish their goals. They would also know that terrorism is counter productive in the long run.

What have the efforts of Muslim extremists from the early 1970s until now accomplished for their side? Sure, they've gotten us to take airport security more seriously, but what about the Muslim world? Have they achieved anything? Remember, they're goals are not to erode our freedoms but to increase their power. So far, they can't even manage to repeat 9/11 in even a small fashion, despite the fact that we've done a very poor job of securing our borders.

I don't want to imply that it's just Muslims who go off the deep end though. I think that there's really no difference between them and Christian fundamentalists who kill doctors at women's clinics, and only a small difference between them and people who try to change school science curriculums to include religious beliefs taught as fact.

Here's what really worries me: Muslim extremists are not unique, and people aren't moving in one direction or the other. They're the same now as they've always been, and they've always used whatever weapons are available, and most often without thinking about the consequences.

I disagree entirely with both of these statements. Intelligence, religious ferver, and common sense are completely uncorrelated in my rather long experience. I had a very intelligent [PhD engineering] colleague who is an extremely gifted machine designer and a Creationist at the same time. Our working relationship was based on leaving religion out of our interactions: he would eschew preaching at me, and I would eschew whacking him upside the head (figuratively, for sure, but that was how I put it to him).

Well for just one thing, they've substantially altered the way "the rest of us" behave in many more ways than doffing shoes at airports. If any of them utters a word, the whole world listens. They've got our attention. Just as small children often do, misbehaving gets attention, and any attention is better than none. Happens every day.

Careful here - I've carefully avoided this slant or the thread will end.

You keep coming back to A-Bombs. This thread is about more than that.

So he was more intelligent than a terrorist then!

That wasn't my question. Getting us to alter behavior for security purposes does nothing to benefit them. How have they benefitted from their actions?

Scientists are always looking for the one equation that explains everything because they believe that everything is connected. I believe they're right. I don't believe you can separate like actions and behaviors simply because the people performing them are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

A-Bombs are only part of it. If you look back at the last 40 years, terrorism has gotten steadily more vicious. That isn't because of us, but because it isn't working, and the frustration leads to more anger. More anger leads to more desperate acts, and that doesn't bode well for the future, with or without A-Bombs. Technology provides lots of other nasties that can be just as deadly.

Thanks. I wish I knew where that tipping point is.

I suspect that it comes down to the relative costs of war versus trade and the relative benefits. I don't think there is a static line, but rather a dynamic relationship that changes with the various nations.

Also, different cultures can place different values on the resources. For example, let's say nation A has a need for a certain kind of lumber but possesses few of the trees, and nation B has rainforests with a relative abundance of the tree from which the lumber is harvested. If nation B values the trees over the lumber and steadfastly refuses to offer them for trade, nation A might feel obligated to obtain the wood by force, invading nation B and taking control of the real estate.

To be honest, I don't remember commenting on social cleansing (for the record, I'm personally against it.) Could you please point me to that post?

I agree. Here in the US, I've known people to rationalize theft because they were stealing from a corporation or company. Or they might use race as justification to try and cheat someone out of something that they coveted.

I think most leaders are hateful in one capacity or another. Unfortunately, leaders like Gandhi are exceptions rather than the rule (no pun intended). People tend to fear what they do not understand. From there it is fairly easy to manipulate people into hating what they fear. It's easier to lead people into ethnocentrism than it is to lead them out of such a mindset.

We become appalled by such hatred when we cannot relate to the motivation behind it. Whether we see someone as a freedom fighter or a terrorist depends more on whether we agree with their politics than anything else. The US has tacitly approved terrorism against our "enemies" or by our allies for years. This approval has been to varying degrees, of course, ranging from active (albeit covert) approval (anti-Castro) to toleration as a political concession (Chechnya). Yet, the US claim to lead the "Global War On Terror," and have spent trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to that end. Are we (USA) fighting hatred or promoting it? Or both?

I think if Gandhi had been US president (yes, I realize he's long dead) on September 11, 2001, far more effort would have been made to understand the mindset of the groups that attacked the WTC/Pentagon, and less on vengeance. As it was, many Americans lashed out at anybody of Middle Eastern descent, despite the attacks originating from a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the world's Muslim population. Even today, almost six years later, it is not uncommon to hear, at least here in Florida, anti-Muslim rhetoric espousing hatred for all things Islam.

Of course Islam is not the only recipient of widespread hatred in my country. Many hate homosexuality and homosexuals, promoting their treatment as second class citizens. Race based hatred, while declining in the past fifty years, is still very real. Some Americans even have an irrational hatred of science, fighting to have Intelligent Design taught as a "credible alternative" to evolution in Science classes, despite a complete and total lack of even the first shred of scientific evidence to support ID as a valid scientific theory. Still others hate communism and socialism for no reason other than prolonged exposure to Cold War era propaganda. Some hate the rich because they believe they exploit the lower classes. Some hate the poor because they believe they are lazy leeches trying to get a free ride through life with a welfare check. There's also Democrats that hate all things Republican, and Republicans that hate all things Democrat. There's even libertarians, who hate all things government related. Many Americans passionately hate Bush, who, it's safe to say, has a very, very low level of fondness for "liberals."

It's very easy to hate but much more difficult to understand.

Our leaders do little to rectify, stop or condemn such hatred. Many actually condone and promote some of it for political gain. Why promote understanding when it's so much easier to exploit hatred? The citizenry isn't generally appalled by this hatred because we are used to living with it, having seen it most, if not all, of our lives.

Hateful people come to be in charge because most people, in some capacity, hate. It's simple probability.

I don't think you will find many educated people that can do all of the above. I'm gigged by the read and write music criteria. I know many students that, while having passed College Algebra by the skin of their teeth, could not apply the information to a simple algebraic equation. A surprising number of them are even incapable of performing long division. Bomb making is a bit beyond the level of high school Physics.

Some of the Muslim students I've known have Biblical knowledge far exceeding even some Biblical scholars, and are in no way ignorant of non-religious history. These folks aren't Taliban, but I seriously doubt we can accurately describe Taliban with such a broad brush, either. I would expect that for every one as ignorant as you claim, there's another that could make most any of us "educated folk" feel like ignorant fools.

Fighting to the death for something you believe in, regardless of how those beliefs came to be, does not imply ignorance. As a former soldier, I would describe it as courage, quite admirable even as I disagree with the underlying beliefs and the violence itself.

You don't think it requires a reasonable argument to convince someone to strap on a suicide belt?

I've only read The Art Of War a dozen times or so, but I'm pretty certain than Sun Tzu would consider the modern use of terrorism against much larger, more capable enemies to be very, very smart and effective warfare tactics. The cost:effectiveness ratio is extremely low, especially compared to US tactics.

I don't believe terrorism is the only tool they know, I think it's the only strategy they can afford to sustain. I don't judge the intelligence of a soldier by his army's budget. Civilian casualties of a car bomb aren't any less fortunate than civilian casualties of a "smart" bomb.

I agree (with your whole post, not just the part I quoted), but would add that offensive violence, not just terrorism, is counter productive in the long run. Unfortunately, there's a lot of "educated" people who do not understand this, some of which hold important positions of power.

And really, this is the question I was trying to ask before. What is it that a person needs to know to be an effective, non-violent leader of a country (or people) that desperately needs to be saved. (And try not to flame each other, I like this thread, I don't want it shut down.)

I think the most important thing they need to know is that if you're the one starting the violence, you've already lost. Iraq aside, it takes a great deal of provocation to get a Democracy united enough to fight you, and if you've managed to do that, you've made some major mistakes. Even Iraq had spent a dozen years trying to shoot down American planes before the invasion.

The second thing you need to know is that you will never get everybody to think as you think they should, and the idea that you can kill them for not following your theology is ridiculous.

I think it requires deception (72 virgins) and moral bankruptcy to send a kid off with the express purpose of killing himself and innocent people. I don't see that as warfare with collateral damage, just thugs trying to convince themselves they are men.

There are lots of tools that are much more sustainable. Civil disobedience for one. Boycotts for another. If they don't want western ways, no one is forcing them to adopt them. The reality is that these guys can't use any tactic but terrorism because they don't have the support they need to accomplish their goals. Terrorism won't let them win, but it does delay their defeat for as long as they can keep killing innocent people.

Which UNSC resolution authorized the US to maintain No Fly Zones in Iraq? I'm fairly certain there was no such authorization. In other words, The US planes were flying in sovereign Iraqi airspace. Iraq had every right to fire upon them (assuming there was no UNSC resolution).

Agreed. I don't know of any country that's killing people off due to their religion, at least not in recent years. Saddam was a secular leader, despite being a Sunni. He may have ruled with an iron fist, but he was able to maintain stability, and quell uprisings far far better, and with a lower cost in terms of both money and lives, than the occupying forces that removed him from power. He was rational and predictable.

Iran, on the other hand is a theocracy, but it is a theocracy that was voted in by the people.

I've always been curious as to where the 72 virgins promise came from. I've never, ever heard a Muslim mention it (and I often go out of my way to discuss religion with non-Christians, especially Muslims). Does anyone know where in the Quran I can find mention of this?

These are options when you are fighting your present government, and not when fighting an armed occupying force. Having an armed occupying force forces your hand to violence. Iraq did not have a terrorism problem until they were invaded.

If they did not have local support, they would be easy to crush. They have all the support they need. Terrorism already allowed them to "win," in the sense that they have not been and almost certainly won't be defeated by the foreign occupiers. However, "win" is not a very accurate term, since, as Sun Tzu said, "No nation has benefited from a prolonged conflict."

I'm not sure what goals they have other than getting the US out of Iraq, and out of Iraqi government. Until those two things happen, there's sadly little hope for peace in Iraq.

I think the first and foremost requirement is a non-apathetic citizenry. It's not enough for people to need to be saved. They have to want to be saved. If the underlying desire for change isn't there, no leader, no matter how charismatic, no matter how intelligent, no matter how well educated, no matter how well meaning, can thrust that change upon them.

If a leader has such popular support for change, then I think it would come down to having the vision and wisdom to always see the non-violent option, and the fortitude to maintain the struggle through the inevitable hard and difficult times.

Leaders like this are usually shot, but once in a while, the seeds they plant live on.

I think Einstein would have been such a leader, had he chosen to accept the Presidency of Israel when it was offered to him. I believe the Middle East would be a much different place today.