Pakistan Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile

"No harm will ever be allowed to come to it..."

Au contraire.

As soon as it threatens the West - the 'Islamic Bomb' will be history. Glowing, slag-glass-and-permanent-shadow-on-the-wall history.

Along with those hugging it tightly.
in their fanatical theocratic glee.

Pakistan's 'leaky' nuke scientist, who shipped atomic secrets and banned technology out to fellow Muslim nations, really already has threatened us, but the West, so far, isn't feeling enough pain to react convincingly.

Said scientist is under Martha Stewart-esque 'house arrest'.

Musharref will meet his own roadside bomb one of these days, and the next leader in line may decide that all Muslim nations need the Islamic Bomb.

Then what?

They have no moral restraint from incinerating any non-Muslim, so while the West sleeps, the Muslim world gnaws at the foundation of civilization. With suicidal Paradise waiting if they cause Doomsday and die in the 'holy' effort.

We have enough warning. We know their intentions.

We only need a few million innocent Western corpses to steel the will for the go-ahead to act.

A strange game, this geopolitical 'chicken'.

President Mushi says "The capability was here to stay, will continue to go from strength to strength and no harm will ever be allowed to come to it,"

It is a great shame that this kind of deterrent is required.....we could really use the money for hospitals, schools and infrastructure. Still I suppose it is a case of having infrastructure or being annhilated.

And if you ask me..where is the danger ...why do you need them ...lat me ask you "why does US/Britian/France... etc need them".

Please don't tell me that these countries are "reasonable" and would never use them...who used them 1st?

I accept fully that there is great danger in terrorists getting their hands on these weapons and using them. In this regard it is not only the US but all countries facing that danger.

I don't really know what the answer is...but Pakistan not having nucleur weapons is not one of them.

I guess the real answer is that nobody has them ...but unfortunately that is not gonna be possible.

Naseem-

It not merely that a "Pakistan" has a nuke, but that it doesn't have the scientific or philosophical/moral foundation -through a humbling Age of Reason- to be able to responsibly control them. (Having already failed in Pakistan's case.) The word is: non-proliferation.

Fatalists -whether 'cherry blossom' suicidalist-kamikazees of the former Imperial Japan (which is why the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs were used, since nothing else seemed to be able to get through their nihilistic militaristic skulls short of a threat of total annihilation)- OR Islamic jihadists, who see the Earth as a 'fallen realm', have NO restraints upon letting loose the mechanism of the Apocalypse.

(It would give many of them, in the current Muslim crop, great glee to incinerate millions of infidel dogs.)

Keeping these WMD's out of such intellectually infantile hands is the point.

The West wants to live, explore the micro/meso/and macro-cosm, and learn to read the book of the stars.

The Islamists want to enslave the world to their narrow, intolerant creed, to constrict the human endeavor to the 7th century's cul de sac roadmap of the cribbed Koran, and to kill anyone who dares to disagree about the way to get to such an 'Ideal State'.

Or doubts if one is even possible.

It may be just another human conceptual mistake.

As the blood-drinking gods of many dead cults have proved to be, from Quetzacoatl to Odin.

I'll take my chances thinking skeptically.

And try to encourage the West's goverments to do everything to keep WMD's out of the grasp of those who think it is okay for their 'perfect man' to marry a 9 year old and to talk to the angel Gabriel without feeling something's a little screwy with this picture.

Naseem, I don't think you really understand international deterrance.

Why do the US, France and Great Britain need them? Because the Russians and Chinese have them, and because communist governments seem...a little less concerned...about the humanitarian aspects of their use. Russian these days is communist no longer, but their current political situation is - ironically enough - almost less comforting. So, that's something you need to start thinking about. The major superpowers have them to square off against each other in what's termed 'detente'.

The Americans used them first because they didn't really understand their potential even then, and because it saved them hundreds of thousands (actually, I believe the estimate was millions, wasn't it?) of dead which would have been required for the invasion of Japan. Your question makes a little less sense, too, when you realize that the Americans were first to invent them anyway. It's hardly as though everyone got them at the same time and only the Yanks were 'evil' enough to use them. I might also remind you that the Nazis were working on their own nuclear weapons. I assure you that they, and other totaliterian nations, would have much less compunction about their use. Please don't presume to tell me that fascist and communist nations would be more 'reasonable' in their usage. I think we all know, everywhere, that that's bunk. It's certainly true, as BigSleep informs you, that usage by islamic terrorists or islamic nations would result in massive counterattacks, however. Regrettable, but necessary.

And why does Pakistan 'need' them? How exactly is Pakistan obligated to "develop them or be annihilated"? How is it 'required'? If the protection of Pakistan required that these weapons be built, or else face 'annihilation', wouldn't Pakistan have already been destroyed? (Pakistan doesn't have them right now in any quantity, I hasten to inform you, and has had none for some time already.) So how does it suddenly become a question of 'national survival'? =) Do you feel that Pakistan's political enemies are sufficiently 'psyched out' at the moment to hesitate to obliterate you?

The Pakistani government has every option in the world not to develop such weapons - and use the money, as you suggest, on schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. It seems, rather, that the interest in your country is more geared towards weaponry, which is a sad but telling choice.

And please don't tell me all countries would equally be threatened should terrorists get hold of nuclear weapons. There's a grand total of three countries that would be seriously threatened - the US, Israel and maybe Britain on a bad day. MAYBE. So please stop pretending you have much interest in 'preserving the world' from the terrorist threat.

I recommend you review 20th-century history texts. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.

Geoff

BigSleep,

Excellent points. Fatalism is integral to islam - 'inshallah', as it's said. That alone is sufficient reason for me not to want islamic theocracies to have them. Pakistan is no theocracy, but it's close enough to be very worrisome.

Geoff

Considering her main enemy India has the bomb, it makes military sense for Pakistan to have them too! But the thouoght of more Muslim bombs is scary!

Geoff: There's a great deal Naseem doesn't understand, including why Iraqis who volunteer for the police and other arms of the government are not to be blamed when they are murdered by Baathists and jihaddists, the latter of whom may largely be non-Iraqis seeking to establish an Sunni Islamist state. What makes you think she could appreciate a concept as subtle as deterrence through mutually assured destruction.

More importantly, notwithstanding its enormous contribution to the spread of nuclear weapons to other equally stable and well-run countries like North Korea and encouraging jihaddis in Kashmir, etc. Naseem is oblivious to the fact that nobody has threatened to annihilate the supremely corrupt absolute dictatorship she is so proud to live in.

I'm surprised even Naseem wouldn't understand a concept like guilt. Well, maybe not that surprised.

Geoff