George Bush, US President, often says how serious going to war is, but I'm not sure he really gets it. Sure we're sending our young boys to die. That's relatively easy. But we still live in a nuclear age, and every time we go to war, that ups the odds that today is the last day for the human race (and everything else on earth). Ooops. Old people die too. Makes you stop and think. Either Bush thinks a war with Iraq isn't likely to lead to a nuclear exchange (why?) or he welcomes the idea (oh geez). [Scripting News]

Dave's pretty right about this, but I will add to that by saying that much of what's really going on is out-of-band, since the rules of asymmetric conflict are unwritten and non-linear. 

For instance, there's lots of highfalutin' talk about not letting up on some stance because it would "reward X for terrorism" (Where X == Suicide bombers, Al Qaeda, etc.).  Can't we just admit that they're gaming the system just like everyone else?  Why do *they* always get reduced to some primal instincts, like they're in a Skinner Box, while we're the smart ones.  Hey, sitting around scheming doesn't cost anything, and if someone is motivated to use a nuke, etc., they're not going to react using simpleminded reasoning.

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3:26:23 PM