Which is a bigger threat to the US?

[minionofmidas]

Neither is a major threat to the US.

[minionofmidas]

Iran is more dangeorus, as their leaders are religiously motivated, and therefore sure to be less rational than the good atheists in Pyongyang who are smart enough to know that killing millions will not open the doors of heaven.

Also in Iran they now make Christians and Jews wear marks on their clothing to denote their religion!! What's next? Re-education camps?

Quote?

[minionofmidas]

"On May 19, 2006, the newspaper ran two pieces alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring religious minorities to wear special identifying badges. One piece was a front page news item titled "IRAN EYES BADGES FOR JEWS" accompanied by a 1935 picture of two Jews bearing Nazi insignia. Later on the same day experts began coming forward to deny the accuracy of the Post story. The story proved to be false, but not before it had been picked up by a variety of other news media and generated comment from world leaders. Comments on the story by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused Iran to summon Canada's ambassador to Tehran for an explanation. On May 24, 2006, the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Doug Kelly, published an apology for the story on Page 2, admitting that it was false and the National Post had not exercised enough caution or checked enough sources." Nuff said.

[minionofmidas]

I disagree - you have to take into account the general behavior of a country(both leadership and people) when deciding whether or not that country might pose a threat. The country is a threat because of that behavior. Countries that don't talk about wiping others off the map because of stupid bigotry and hatred tend to be a greater threat to civilized society than ones that generally behave rationally. That's common sense, right?

Not necessarily (assuming that the "n't" after "that do" is misplaced.) People might have a perfectly rational reason for talking such arrant rubbish.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm not advocating an 'us-vs-them' mentality - I'm merely saying that one should seriously look at the behavior of other countries in determining how to deal with them. You can't make irrational, stupid behaviors and mentalities go away by simply ignoring them, now can you?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, duh - but the world isn't full of rational states, now is it? Because it isn't, we should rationally analyze which countries tend to be more irrational than others so we can know what we're dealing with. The irrational behavior of Hitler and Nazi Germany was ignored for a good long time, and it almost ended up in the Nazis controlling all of Europe. As I said, you can't ignore such a problem and expect it to just go away.
[/quote]The truth of the matter is - people usually behave (at least somewhat) rationally upon the premises of their own convictions - especially when they bear responsibility for others as well. These convictions themselves, though, are never rational (some people's may be closer to it than others) - and they can be very different for different people.

Hitler behaved quite rationally upon the premise that the Jews were all Communists, the Communists were all Jews, they were out to destroy Germany, and he was the Lord's Chosen to save us...

Al Qaeda (well, the Al Qaeda masterminds, not necessarily the attackers themselves) also behaved quite rationally. They sought a way in which the US might be vulnerable to an underfunded terror network operating from a cave on the other side of the world, and found one. As they didn't know enough about statics, they never expected the towers to collapse - and therefore couldn't expect the scope of the world's reaction to their deed, and the invasion of Afghanistan for which they bear responsibility. That's an error due to limited information (and imagination), but not a sign of irrationality.