[kittymyrib]

Have you read Eli Wiesel's book, "Night"? The Jews refused to believe the reports that the Nazi's were rounding Jews up for the gas chambers. They kept telling themselves that surely such things couldn't happen. They were horribly wrong. I fear we are making the very same mistake. Sometimes preemptive destruction of a few thousand people will save millions. That was Truman's reason for dropping the atomic bombs, and it was a good reason.

[illinoissmith]

I haven't read the book, but I agree with the basic idea (as exemplified by Truman's actions).

I guess my main concern is that, generally, it not be a conclusion jumped to lightly.

That said, I think that with what we know about Islam and the governments that protect it, something on the order of what Lurker suggested is a conclusion that can be reached quite reasonably.

I differentiate that carefully considered position, which involves some justifiable mass bombing, from the position of people who just want to wipe out whole populations for vengeance. I'm not saying I've seen the latter here, but in person, I've known people to suggest the latter in anger.

I think the latter is dangerous both because it tends to both: (1) make many sensitive emotion-driven people unduly, unjustifiably, suspicious of courses of action like the carefully-considered former (specifically, I saw previously-moderate students in university go far anti-war after their relatives suggested nuking the entire middle east), and (2) more importantly, because, to the extent it is accepted, it gets a different set of people thinking in terms of fruitless vengeance instead of calculated survival-and-life-oriented pragmatics.

I hope this is clear - my main point is that I agree with you, but I differentiate our position from another one that exists, which is less calculating.