Have we won the War on Terrorism?

[The Dharma Bum]

Pakistan doesn't have enough firepower to assure our destruction.

[Indy]

You guys are getting all hung up on the "9/11 wasn't a nuke" technicality.

And missing the point, which has been lost since 9/12/01 and even more buried when President Cheney muddied the waters by attaching Iraq to 9/11.

I have a better idea. You want to stick to AQ worldwide? Go after the money and travel. Without decent funding and support and the ability to get around globally, a bunch of bearded guys throwing rocks in Afghanistan pose no threat to us.

Of course, guess who gives them tons of support and money? BTW we've given Pakistan over $10 billion since 9/11 to "fight" terrorism, which apparently means: set up OBL in a sweet pad astride their military academy so he can hide in plain sight.

[Philly]

Right the difference between 9/11 and detonating a nuke in NYC was merely a technicality.

[The Dharma Bum]

Indy raises a fair point.

3000+ casualties is actually a fairly substantial number of deaths for an attack.

How many died in Pearl Harbor? Look at the result of that and it was less than 911.

Also 911 struck at the heart of global industrial production. The choice of target was symbolic. They didn't attack soldiers they attacked planners and decision makers at the heart of our financial structure.

Extremely sophisticated strategy really. Don't let the primitive nature of the attack vector fool you.

[Indy]

Thank you Dharma I had forgotten about that.

Yes, let's not forget that over 3,000 Americans perished in the worst attack on U.S. soil in history, exceeding even Pearl Harbor.

I thought the point of this thread was admitting that SA and Pakistan are the two biggest Islamic terrorism sponsors in the world but somehow now it's an argument about how we will or won't nuke Pakistan back if some ISI guy slips his AQ buddy a nuke to use on us and he does.

[exploited]

I don't know if you'd nuke Pakistan back. All I know is that their stockpile would be handed over to you, and they would allow you to come in and clean house, or they would be destroyed. That would be the only acceptable position to take. Any politician that didn't get on board with it would be crucified by the public.

Everyone knows SA and Pakistan are the two biggest sponsors of terrorism. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." -US Foreign Policy

Talking about SA and Pakistan as if they are homogeneous entities doesn't make alot of sense. The truth is that some of the families and tribes are allies, and some are not. I personally don't want to go to war against Pakistan or Saudi Arabia at all, and I think the primary job of making the US safer was to be done in intelligence-gathering, not war-making. But if a sovereign nation allows its nukes to go missing, they have to pay for it when it turns up. Simple as that. Any other response would create the worst precedent possible.

3000 people is big, and Dharma is right to point out that it was a well-executed atrocity. But for all the damage it caused, that damage is minuscule compared to even a 10 kiloton nuke going off on Wall Street. You would be wiping untold billions of dollars of wealth off the planet, tens of thousands of lives, and making the entire area uninhabitable for years. And the psychic factor is just so huge. There is no way that the responsible nation would get off the hook. None.

[The Dharma Bum]

Well, the damage that actually resulted from the pearl attack harbor includes all of the deaths of WWII, soldiers and civilians alike.

The final toll of the 911 attacks is still in the future. But it includes the millions that died in the military attacks on middle eastern countries in the aftermath, my estimation.

WWI was triggered by assassination of a minor figure in an obscure country. Millions dead.

Lord only knows what the final result of a major nuclear strike on the US would be. Probably we would just shit nukes all over the whole planet and kill everything.

[Philly]

[Indy]

[The Dharma Bum]