🚀 go-pugleaf

Greg d. Moore wrote:

> ...... remember, playing with some of the so called "rogue"
> nations that may believe they have nothing to lose and
> everything to gain from humilating the US is a dangerous game....

I guess that this is one of the fundamental issues here. If
one believes that we are indeed confronted with utterly
implacable adversaries who are completely Hell-bent on
our destruction to the exclusion of all other possible
considerations then perhaps we have a problem.

OTOH, I have a bit of trouble really believing that the leaders
in Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea wake up every morning and
start worrying afresh about how they "have nothing to lose and
everything to gain from humiliating the US." I mean, after
all, these folks have countries to run [not very large or
impressive countries, but countries, more or less, all the
same].

It seems to me that it is in the natural course of events that
if anyone in their leadership circles got a burr under his saddle
about having "nothing to lose and everything to gain from
humiliating the US" that there would be other folks within the
leadership circles who would suggest that perhaps other concerns
had somewhat higher priority, like overfulfilling the quota for
the Third Five Year Plan, or sniffing out heretics up in the
mountains, or doing in the chief of the security services, or
something.

Rather, the folks who rise to the top of the leadership circles
of these countries are survivors -- otherwise they would have
been purged a long time ago. They clearly recognize that nuking
TheSoleRemainingSuperPower[tm] would be a really neat way of
turning their dinky little country in to a SmokingRadiatingRuin[tm]
in about half an hour. Look, these folks have no interest
whatsoever in seeing their jerkwater statelets getting turned
into a RadioActiveParkingLot[tm] or a SeaOfRadioActiveGlass[tm]
and they know full well that the LandOfTheFree[tm] is just the
one to do this to them if they get too frisky.....

So to the contrary, these countries have nothing to gain and
everything to loose from messing with us, particularly in a
nuclear fashion...

-- 
John Pike
Federation of American Scientists  http://www.fas.org/
 Public Eye                        http://www.fas.org/eye/
 Intelligence Reform Project       http://www.fas.org/irp/
 Space Policy Project              http://www.fas.org/spp/

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
  - Jefferson