... is that it wouldn't be anymore appropriate to "nuke" Iraq because a small number of @ssholes kill some Americans there than it would be to "nuke" Chicago (or any other city) because a small number of @ssholes kill some Americans here.

Ostensibly, we invaded Iraq because we feared that they had (and might use against us or other innocent people) weapons of mass destruction. So, now some of us think it would be okay to use a weapon of mass destruction to kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women or children because a small number of terrorists have killed an even smaller number of Americans? Sorry, but the logic escapes me.

I hope JB is right (and like to think that he is) when he suggests that we will never again use a nuclear weapon against a civilian population (though I'm not sure I agree with the implication that it was a "mistake" to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

>> Should we just roll over and decide that if the worst of our society is as bad as
>> the worst of their society then terrorism must really not be so bad after all?

Not at all -- but I would also hope that we wouldn't decide that just because the worst of their society is willing to kill Americans that the use of a nuclear weapon against their entire society "must really not be so bad after all".

>> Whatever happened to the idea that "All that is necessary
>> for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing"?

Which evil are we talking about here? The evil of Iraqi terrorists killing American soldiers and hostages? Or the evil of America retaliating for such killings with mass murder on a scale unprecedented in history?

---- jim o\-S