smooth

No we don't have to see that because many of us don't believe that foreign nations have the right to impose their will on other sovereign nations.

I find your position--that imposing one's will on another somehow secures the threats against "free people"--internally inconsistent.

I don't agree that bullying people into acquiescence (as our actions have done to the Iranians and Libyans) is a ringing endorsement of freedom.

Iran, for example, has claimed that their nuclear program is an attempt to seek alternative power sources. So far, I don't have any evidence to suggest otherwise. I don't even know that I would care if I did have any. I don't think the human race would have gotten very far had some powerful nation-state roamed around squelching any technical advances it felt were contrary to its long-term interests--I mean, we wouldn't have ever gotten out of the damn stone age if that had happened!

I also don't understand why people think that other leaders of other nations are so irrational that they won't be able to stop themselves from nuking the Western world once they achieve the capability to do so. I don't even see how people believe that the leaders don't realize that their economic interests are tied to our economic well-being. It's the non-government actors that we ought to be concerned over--and that includes Western corporations as well as Eastern terrorists. Both are challenging our current model of nation-state governance.

For as much hatred as we're taught the Eastern world has towards us, it's amazing to me how little damage has actually been accomplished. We know that people have access to dirty bombs, suitcase devices, and etc. since we've been warned of the possibility for over twenty years now. I haven't seen one go off anywhere around the world, however. In fact, no one has even set off a large conventional bomb in LA.