The idea of nuking holy sites is one that will come up over and over as the zealots of the world try to darken our future. They worship the past and false ideas about false gods. Basically, the Muslims who worship Mecca and the Jews who worship Jerusalem and the Christians who worship Rome are idolaters. They know nothing about worshiping or following God. That is how they can believe that suicide bombers go to heaven, or that clinging to a certain patch of land will preserve their people, or that the pope is infallible. The rest of us, who believe in God or not, need to understand that it is the future they fear. They long ago lost touch with the Deity who doesn't even make snowflakes alike, much less people. They crave conformity to their superstitions more than the freedom of divine enlightenment. We will have to protect ourselves against the religious fervor that destroys their souls, but trying to do it by demolishing their security blankets will only make them more frenzied.

Excellent points.

The City-levelers also suffer from lack of imagination in another area. While they know they want to unlimber those nukes that have just been burning holes in their pockets ever since Hiroshima, the only real problem they have with a nuke is target selection. It is a bit like trying to treat skin cancer with a chain saw.

If you are determined to use the threat of nuclear weapons to deter nuclear terrorism, the best way to do that would be to promise to nuke any facility that provided nuclear materials to terrorists. It is possible, by analyzing the residual radioactive materials, to determine the origin of the fissile material. This would be a strong deterrent to any government deciding that providing nukes to terrorists would be a good idea.

This policy would have the added benefits of not threatening anyone specific, and of being logical. Course it would not be very satisfying to those who probably would just soon cut to the chase and start lobbing nukes tomorrow, not particularly caring who might be vaporized....

Well, that wasn't so Irrelevant. Your post is possibly the most intelligent comment made on this whole tempest in a teapot over the comments of a complete idiot. I loved the, "those nukes have been burning a hole in their pocket since Hiroshima."

Another good point is that we should just nuke the place that provided any nuclear materials to terrorists. That would work.