Monday, April 28, 2008
It couldn't be any clearer
These few paragraphs say it all.
They are worthy of being published everywhere and anywhere in the free and civilized world...
They are worthy of being published everywhere and anywhere in the free and civilized world...
In the U.K. Telegraph, Alasdair Palmer hits the nail on the head with this:
"Deterrence - the threat that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in our country, we will retaliate in kind on yours - has so far prevented nuclear war between nations. The only time nuclear bombs have been used, it was against a country without the capacity to retaliate.
Deterrence, however, depends on your enemy having cities and a population that can be threatened with obliteration.
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The problem is that terrorist organisations have neither. They are simply groups of individuals with no responsibility for, and no control over, a state or its population.
Deterrence breaks down as a consequence. If they could get hold of a nuclear bomb, Islamist terrorists would have every incentive to use it to cause as much destruction as possible in an "enemy" country such as Britain or America - and there's no threat we can brandish to stop them.
Which means that the over-arching aim of the civilised world must be to ensure that they cannot get hold of a nuclear bomb, because that is the only way we can protect ourselves against nuclear terrorism."
