[mike777]

Just started reading new thriller by Demille.

Wildfire is the code name that if an atomic goes off in NYC killing 1 million we send 122 atomics to major muslim cities. We warn all the countries now.

Still leaving us another 7000. Ya so far it seems this plan would have alot of holes in it but the author hopes such a plan exists.

I just wonder what we do when Detroit or France or Germany is mainly muslim.....seems like a silly mass murder plan.

[hrothgar]

This type of scheme is completely immoral...

Lest assume that some group of terrorists nuked Boston where I make my home. I sure as hell wouldn't want to see the US government slaughter hundreds of millions of innocent people in retaliation.

Nuking Cairo, Tehran, Damascus wouldn't bring my family back to life. It would simply lower us to the same level as the terrorists.

You don't kill innocent people because you're pissed off.

[mike777]

As I said just started reading the book...seems based on MAD.......if you allow/do not stop one bomb we send thousands......

[hrothgar]

mike777, on Nov 15 2006, 06:40 AM, said:

As I said just started reading the book...seems based on MAD.......if you allow/do not stop one bomb we send thousands......

Mutually Assured Destruction assumed that it was possible to link an attack to the country that launched it.

If the United States was attacked by an ICBM or an intercontinental bomber, there's an easy trail leading back to the "guilty" party. Personally, I think that massive retaliation is still ethically suspect. I doubt that all the people that you vaporized in retailation consented to this attack being launched from their territory. Hell, most of them probably didn't even know about it. However, at least your assured that you're hitting the right geography. You might even get a few of the decision makers who authorized the attack.

Compare the case where, hypothetically, a nuke gets planted in a container ship and goes off in Baltimore harbour. In a best case scenario, you might even be able to determine that its likely that a specific terrorist group launched the attack. How does this justify murdering hundreds of millions of innocent people based simply on the fact that they share the same religion as the party that you believe to be guilty?

The entire concept strikes as grossly immoral and entirely impractical. The damage that this type ludicrous over-reaction would do to America's standing in the world would far outweight any possible benefit. Personally, I put this whole thought exercise in the same category as episodes of "24". Overly simplistic pablum and a real life version of the "Two Minute Hate".

[hrothgar]

BTW, the strategy in question clearly seems to full under the general ruberic of "collective punishment".

I remember the days when Americans condemned the Nazis for holding entire villages responsible for the behaviour of a small number of partisans. Now we're concocting litte mastabatory fantasies about the day when we get to follow in their footsteps.

Quite ironic that Rumsfeld is being brought up on war crimes trials in Germany...

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Nov 14 2006, 10:01 PM, said:

This type of scheme is completely immoral...

you don't really mean that, do you? i thought we settled long ago that morality can't be objective (in your view), which suggests that you *really* mean "this scheme is, in my opinion (though others might feel differently), immoral"

from a practical point of view, would such a threat work? or would nations that harbor and support terrorists think we're just fooling around?