rec.autos.simulators

Well, I have a few atlases of world and military history.  The general
problem is that every region of the globe has had at least 2 different
peoples occupy it militarily at some point in history, and many places have
had a lot more than that.  The specific problem with the Holy Land is it's a
unique ideological resource that nobody's willing to share.  Sharing
Jerusalem would help a lot, but nobody will do that, because it diffuses the
oppositional ideology that everyone's so heavily invested in.  Since they
can't physically exist in the same place at the same time, they are at war
with each other.  Also, nobody has recently proven to be strong enough to
wipe the other guy out.  Israel probably could do it, but at the expense of
the condemnation of the international community, which at a strategic level
seems to be important to them.  Also nowadays it would likely trigger a
local war of mass destruction, whether that's chemical, biological, and/or
nuclear.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

- Robert

Invade.  We've done it to Germany and Japan, and we know what the formula
for reconstruction is.  But, there may not be anywhere to invade.  And
unless we are very lucky it is unlikely to be a cakewalk, it would be a
major war.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

No Federal buildings were blown up.  A McVeigh fanclub would have attacked
an *internal* institution of US power.  The Pentagon and the World Trade
Center are both projections of US power abroad.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

The only way that can be true is if it's a terrorist organization /
insurgency within the USA itself.  I'm tempted to think that our internal
security isn't that crumbly, given Waco, Ruby Ridge, and whatnot.  I think
our track record is to shoot suspicious people before asking questions,
there doesn't seem to be a lot of oversight as to what our internal spooks
can do.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

The problem with the US is that it has a huge amount of military strength
but very little maturity in weilding that strength; it's like a kid with an
Uzi.

Another worrying thing is that the current president has been compared to "a
monkey in a cowboy hat with his finger on the button". It worries me,
anyway.

Well, that and the nukes ;-)

- Robert

Someone?  Try everyone.  As close to everyone as you can practically
achieve.  You really have to be living in another mental universe to think
it's ok to kill everyone in sight for your cause.  Unfortunately, that
thought pattern is hardly unique in human history.  In fact according to my
military atlases, it's basically the way warfare used to be done.  Accounts
of the Spanish invasion of the Netherlands are pretty grisly.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

I dont follow these things really closely but AIUI, were only in
uninhabited portions of countries and are basically just restricting
fly-zones.  This is a far cry from holding streets with armed troops.

I dont really see how this isnt obvious to anyone claiming there was
ever security, or ever could be.  2-3 well trained men could take
basically any plane with knives, and knives can be (and are) made from
plastic composites that could only be detected by visually finding the
blade, which would be incredibly hard to do.  Youd have to search
everyone, and everything they carried.  Basically impossible.

People are not generally prone to jumping in front of knives, or doing
rush attacks on people in vastly better positions to defend themselves
through training and being armed.  Unless you happen to have some
people who are expertly coordinated and have a mindset to fight
several people in a crowded plane, youre unlikely to ever stop a
prepared group of terrorists.  This doesnt even get into their ability
to use force against people who wouldnt fight them (like children) to
keep those that would from doing anything.

Thats the problem with defending against this stuff, you basically
cant stop it.  You cant have eyes everywhere.  You cant stop people
from moving small items around.  Anyone could bring explosives onto a
bridge with a car full of them if they could get them, which never
seems to be the issue.

All of this is part of why terrorism is so effective.

My point was that if the US moves into other countries agressively,
its just going to make tensions with people who are borderline now.
Despite some other comments on this thread as "we have nothing to
lose", we certainly do.  Right now some people are willing to die for
this cause, but thats a much smaller number than if they see the US
actively invading their homeland.

I think to add to Jason's well-put point, there cant be a retaliation
thats going to make things worse in the long run.  That IS what these
people want.  They obviously arent content to just live their lives,
they want military actions, and right now they dont have many.  The
more we up the ante, the more theyll be able to as well as theyll just
have more volunteers to stop the US's "Evil Empire" and more money
coming in for support.

-Geoff Howland
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

- Robert

I'm not sure there's ever been an empire / superpower that was otherwise?

More than terrorists who crash our planes into our densely populated
buildings at will?

First you have to assess the overrunnability of the enemy.  Japan was an
island, with a huge population, and a fanatical military regime with some
remaining war material and an ideological ***hold on the populace.  Not
the same conditions as, say, Iraq.  Even if it was Afghanistan, we could
conventionally bomb any country into oblivion, if we had the political will
to do it.  However, the problem with bombs is they always cause civilian
casualties, no matter what they're supposed to be hitting.  It erodes our
political will because a lot of us don't like bombing civilians.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.

It's the combination of both that's worrying. If the whole thing escalates
and there are many more similar events in retaliation to whatever the
American does next, then that could be far worse than what's happened so
far.

- Robert

Regards all,
istoff

"Its easy to get lost in thought
if you don't go there often"    - Me, 1993

Yeah, I've held one of those, back in junior high a friend of mine had one.

But you're forgetting the lesson we've all learned: they're going to kill
*EVERYONE*, including themselves.  It's a "better go out swingin'!"
scenario.  What people were probably hoping as they were hijacked, was that
the terrorists had some demands and would take the plane to somewhere that
they could get those demands addressed.  They probably didn't figure they'd
take the planes to the WTC and the Pentagon.

Who knows, maybe a flight recorder will show that something like that
actually happened on the Pittsburgh plane, which seemed to be heading for
Camp David.

I guess we could all start carrying our *own* undetectable plastic knives?
:-)

Country.  Unlikely that there's more than one target.  Even if there is,
hopefully the spooks in the White House would be bright enough to realize
that one enemy on the chopping block is enough.

"Make tensions" and "we will show up in your airports with suicide squads
and kill 10,000 of your people at a time" are two different things.  Don't
underestimate the object lesson of overrunning someone's country.  But the
thing is, as we've learned from Iraq, if you're going to do it then you'd
better be prepared to finish the job.  Otherwise the problem does not go
away, and within a decade it's actually worse because you look ineffectual.

Shoot you don't even have to bribe Iraqis to surrender.  They know their man
in charge is an *** and that we're nicer than he is.  The Taliban would
be a different matter.

So you'd just appease the terrorists then.  "Stop that, it wasn't nice!"
Why do you assume that just because the terrorists have a desire, that the
future will automatically unfold in their favor, no matter what we do?
That's fatalism.  Maybe their strategy has just backfired in their faces.
Personally, I think it's built into the system of insane/delusional despots
that they just take and take and take, until finally they take too much.
Then their world implodes.

--
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

People who make personal attacks are useless.
I killfile them no matter who they are insulting.