ANSWER:

Almost nothing, except a love of pizza.

And only that because everybody loves pizza.

Also, within a few weeks (hopefully) none of them are going to exist.

I agree with you on this. Do you feel the hippie dippie space love rolling off this Cracker?

To be fair, there is a trace element of hippie dippie space love inherent in shunning the concept of genocide, I suppose ... but it's certainly not present to the point of vacuity.

Easy. They all lost and they all died (or soon will) in prosecuting their loss.

"What do Carthage, the Japanese High Command, Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein have in common with a dozen nationless religious maniacs from the future, easily engineering self-replicating nanobots in their basement?"

Answer: Bill Ardolino! At least, in the world according to Bill Quick.

Who are people who have never been in my kitchen?
____________
$3000

"What do Carthage, the Japanese High Command, Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein have in common with a dozen nationless religious maniacs from the future, easily engineering self-replicating nanobots in their basement?"

Easy. If you use massive force to kill those religious maniacs, they won't be engineering self-replicating nanobots in their basement. They will learn that massive force effectively solved the problem they represented, just as Carthage learned that truth from the Romans, and the Japanese, Nazis, and Saddamites learned it from the United States.

In your odd example (which wasn't mentioned in the post I termed vacuous) "massive force" would mean the same sort of nano-technology that these amateurs might be using, but instead wielded at several orders of magnitude and effectiveness greater by a first world technological behemoth like the United States.

But what the hell - give your claque here a little fun. Your contention that massive force won't effectively solve anything remains exactly as I characterized it: vacuous bullshit. But if it makes you and them feel better about yourselves, have at it. That your collective level of self-esteem remain as high as possible is one of my primary concerns.

I now eagerly await the first one of your commenters to accuse me of advocating genocide.

You're not making your case, Bill Quick. Piece by piece:

Easy. If you use massive force to kill those religious maniacs, they won't be engineering self-replicating nanobots in their basement.

Ah, but in this future scenario, their basement is in London, or Washington, DC. Still think that dropping a nuclear weapon on their heads is the best solution?

In your odd example (which wasn't mentioned in the post I termed vacuous) "massive force" would mean the same sort of nano-technology that these amateurs might be using, but instead wielded at several orders of magnitude and effectiveness greater by a first world technological behemoth like the United States.

Correct, we agree. Which, cooincidentally, is specifically inferred in this last line of my post:

"The solutions will come from the naturally moderating, humanistic impulses common to free societies, or rely on methods of aggression and security with much more specificity and efficacy than indiscriminate massacre abetted by a fusion reaction."

You see, we'll have our own nanobots coded to home in on targets based on their own DNA (for a wild example), and thus probably won't need to ponder a less efficacious massacre of millions of poorly targeted people in their sleep, chosen for "religious zip code."

Your contention that massive force won't effectively solve anything remains exactly as I characterized it: vacuous bullshit.

First, we're specifically discussing nuclear force and its applications: stop trying to weasel into philosophical generalities about the utility and ethics of "force," and stop misrepresenting my argument.

Massive nuclear force could potentially present a solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism, if employed within a certain window of time, before more destructive, easy to create technologies occur and disperse in the hands of a very few nutters. I've even said that this is the case in my previous comments, if you'd bothered to read them.

But:

A. It's not clear that the use of such massive force would be the best option within this historical window (the window before the ubiquity of dispersed, easy, massively destructive technological means), given that it would seriously injure the world (economically, geopolitically, energy supply) while seeking to wipe out its targets, and because there may be vastly better solutions, still in process.

B. A nuclear strike of more limited scope wouldn't suffice, unless it had the real capability to force untargeted governments to roll up terrorists that would do us harm. Even then, this becomes less useful as time progresses and the techno hierarchies flatten.

C. A nuclear strike within this window - of the necessary scale in point A - probably won't happen within the historical window where it will actually work, as it's very hard for Western societies to accumulate the necessary political capital to engage such a drastic solution. This capital would only accumulate in the case of an incinerated New York, for example, and even then I think that Western leaders would hesitate on the necessary scope, for fear of killing our own societies by eradicating a tenth or eleventh of the world's land surface. They'd nail a few targets, but not enough of them.

In short, nuclear annhiliation may feel good to rage about and keep you warm at night, but it's far less applicable to solving the diffuse problem of terrorism than other things one would term "massive force."

But if it makes you and them feel better about yourselves, have at it. That your collective level of self-esteem remain as high as possible is one of my primary concerns.

This comment doesn't help any of your arguments.

I now eagerly await the first one of your commenters to accuse me of advocating genocide.

Neither does dropping rhetorical nukes on phantom commenters that don't even exist yet.

But if it will make you feel more secure and keep your attention on the debate at hand, a note to all those reading this post and set of comments: for the record, we're not discussing genocide vs. not genocide, as Bill Quick explicitly states in this line of his post:

"No, I'm not advocating committing genocide upon the Muslim world."

I would like for you to be a little more specific about what type of "massive force" you are proposing that can devastate the Muslim populations of the Middle-East, Africa and South-East Asia/Indonesia and still leave a world behind for the rest of us?

Him or me?

Either of you, I guess. I thought Quick was the one advocating it.

There is one way in which I can imagine nuclear force (and I really did think it was nuclear force that kicked off the discussion) being effective:

Say we get hit again. Say we determine there was any tie at all to any nation's government. Say we nuke their capital in retaliation. Then we announce to the world, "The next attack on us and we hit you like we hit them. We don't care if you're responsible or not. We'll do it anyway. So you'd better find and kill everyone who even looks like a terrorist that you come across. We don't care how you do it."

I'm not sure it's pragmatic. It would certainly be extremely ruthless. It might even work.

I'd rather not.

Me either. I may come to that point, but right now I prefer the patient approach of taking the high road.

Dean -

I actually view that as a relatively pragmatic approach and mentioned it in various comments; it's of course different from the ones that some of these folks are agitating for, viewing "the enemy" as a much more distinct entity than it really is.

I will be very sad to see Doha go. It is a beautiful city.

Bill, I thought you told me NOT to fisk the mad?

Quick's not mad, he's just cranky and using paint-by-numbers arguments designed against soft western sensibilities that are ignorant of the historical utility of violence.

What merits my response is that he's attaching my name to those soft western sensibilities that are ignorant of the historical utility of violence.

I think FrankJ's plan for nuking the moon is far more likely to work than indiscriminately nuking Muslim countries.

FDR said to be an effective President, you had to be a little bit ruthless. That's true and I'm all for it. I'm just not for batshit craziness.
And with that, I'll go about my business.

Heh. Ardolino, you filthy hippie! Carthage, the Japanese High Command, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein all know that arguing against nuking a billion innocent people is high-minded, well-meaning, vacuous bullcrap. You may as well just change your name to Moonbeam and pick up some patchouli and hemp-fiber T-shirts.

I would ask, isn't The Long War ultimately just the latest round of Rome vs. Carthage?

"Your contention that massive force won't effectively solve anything remains exactly as I characterized it: vacuous bullshit."

Well Bill would know all about that. What with his highly unlikely scenarios of Wahabbi Sunni Arabs leaving Jeddah to head to Iran in the employ of Persian Shias.

"I will be very sad to see Doha go. It is a beautiful city."

It's also the capital of our single best hope for spreading reforms in the middle east and most likely our best partner in the region in the fight against terror.

"Say we get hit again. Say we determine there was any tie at all to any nation's government. Say we nuke their capital in retaliation. Then we announce to the world, "The next attack on us and we hit you like we hit them. We don't care if you're responsible or not. We'll do it anyway. So you'd better find and kill everyone who even looks like a terrorist that you come across. We don't care how you do it."

I'm not sure it's pragmatic. It would certainly be extremely ruthless. It might even work.

I'd rather not."

Posted by: Dean Esmay

At that point, it'd behoove any sane country to pick up as many pakistani nukes as possible, and to stash a few in the USA. Just as a deterrent.
Just in case.

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