Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Morality

I didn't say that.
Tom Brosz — (archived)

I did not say that "nothing" was a reason to attack a country.

What I said was there was "nothing" in the real world that would meet your standards as an "imminent threat" of a terror attack. If there is such a scenario, please describe it.

The exact quote:

in the case of terror attacks, there ARE no reliable signs of "imminent danger." There are no troops lining up on borders, no missiles being rolled out, no aircraft warming up on runways. There are no diplomatic warnings, no declarations of war, nothing.

I would edit this in hindsight to say "100 percent reliable."

The only thing I have been able to ascertain is that the only real-world criteria that meets your standards of "imminent threat," or those of others here, is an actual attack.

You call this an extreme, yet are unwilling to go any further by defining a middle solution. I've been down this kind of road a dozen times with Davin on similar threads, and at some point he bails out by telling me it's not his job to define the mythical "third side of the coin." That's what we pay the government for.

There are many ways to see danger coming from terrorists that are definitely not 100 percent reliable. Intelligence. Sources. Pictures from satellites. Scuttlebutt from the internet. Phone intercepts. This is what we have to work with in the real world, and mistakes can be made. Look at all the alerts that come to nothing. Look at the current situations in Iran and North Korea. Is anyone 100 percent sure that what they are doing is making nuclear weapons? Surely there is a real chance they really do just need the electricity.

Now, you're the President. Which way do you bet? Leave them alone and hope a warhead doesn't end up in New York? North Korea in particular would sell one to anyone for the price of a new car.

Or engage in some provocative action, maybe military, that has many risks? Look at Iraq. We are in a tough situation, but by God we know for dead sure now that nobody in that nation is building WMD or selling arms to terrorists.

What many politicians would do is negotiate and tapdance until it becomes Somebody Else's Problem. Eventually, it does become Somebody Else's Problem. Ours.

Hey, whaddaya know. There AREN'T any easy solutions.

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