You're right Leigh. Our knee-jerk reaction may be to lay waste to the cradle of civilization.

MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction rests on the principle that both entities care about their existence. Extemists/Fundamentalists who are already prepared to face their maker really don't care, so you are left with only 1 party and a broken paradigm (to use an overly-abused term).

If the West was to retaliate against several targets in the Middle East for razing... Chicago and London let's say, we would be annihilating countless millions. Is it the right thing to do if they support or at least tolerate the terrorism that got us to this point? We are still debating the necssity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 50 years later, so I don't expect an answer.

But I do fully expect to see someone drop or detonate a nuclear device within my lifetime (hostile, not test). And once it does, we'll find radiation gear at Wal*Mart. Made in China, of course. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />