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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Justin wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>> You really like loony hypotheticals. We are not dealing with that
situation, nor are </DIV>
<DIV>> we likely to be. A declaration of war would be nice, if we were going
to have a war. > Unfortunarely that clause of the Constitution has been
sidelined. Ina ny eveny, </DIV>
<DIV>> whether military action was in ordere doesn't depend solely or even
mainly on the </DIV>
<DIV>> scale of the attack. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It depends on the scale of threat and the potential
efficacy of military action. When the threat is large (i.e. there's good
reason to think many thousands will die in the future as a consequence) and
when it also appears that military force will diminish that threat to a
large degree, then it's justified. The question of whether or not the
threat is posed by a government or a terrorist collective is not
relevant.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>> Germany hadn't done much to us when we declared war in </DIV>
<DIV>> WWII. Whether war would be a good idea depends on a lot of things. In
the case </DIV>
<DIV>> of al Qaida, it doesn't do any good. It's like shooting bees. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>You also wrote this:
<P>"I told Ulas that I think that if al Qaida and others are involved in
guerilla war in Kashmir that the Indian govt is justified in using military
means to combat them."</P>
<P>Now, why wouldn't that be "like shooting bees"? (Actually, killing
the leaders of a terrorist organization is more like offing the queen bee than
it is like killing a few individual bees.) </P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>> The horrors are excused if the benefits in welfare outweigh the costs,
according to </DIV>
<DIV>> you. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The horrors are excused if and only if they are
necessary and sufficient means to benefits that outweight the costs. The
siege on Normandy was a member of such a set of means. The bombing of
Dresden wasn't. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>> So you must think they do in this war. So you justify them. Me,
I don't. WWII </DIV>
<DIV>> was different. The Nazis were tilerably close to shitting out the
</DIV>
<DIV>> lights all over the world. Dredsen and Rotterdam were wrong, but it
was worth even > that to stop them. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dresden was wrong because it didn't bring us any
closer to winning the war. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>> Al Quaida is scum, but they're not thats ort of menace.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No. But they don't have to be that large of a menace to warrant
military action. </DIV>
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