Andromeda

How do the wise men calculate their 3,000 American dead in an invasion of Iran? Or 10,000,000 to 100,000,000 total dead in the Middle East in the next two decades? How do they mark up a chalkboard and make the unthinkable so thinkable? Well, it's quite easy.

The simple key is to remove yourself from the facts. Instead, use possible facts. It turns out possible facts are much more malleable than old-fashioned, regular facts. And much scarier:

"What if they already have nukes? That is the question, the answer to which reduces all of the viable options to one: take them out now."

Yes, if Iran has nukes, and it is willing to face the consequences of massive retaliation for any nuke that falls into the hands of terrorists, and it is willing to give up a nuke to some unreliable group when it has so few, and the terrorists manage to use the weapon, and they wouldn't have already been able to get the weapon anyway from all the unprotected leftovers of the Soviet Union, well, then we absolutely must attack immediately and devastatingly.

The dialecticians among you may notice this method of reasoning would apply equally for attacking anyone. That is what is so neat about it! What if the Swiss have a secret army of killer robots? Well, we can hardly wait for them to turn the robots on, when a few hundred nukes in a grid pattern over Bern right now will allow us all to sleep peacefully, knowing we will not wake in the middle of the night with steel claws clamped around our throats, staring into the evil red beam of their robotic eyes sliding back and forth with perfect Swiss timing.

Good God! Why are we even talking about Iran? The Swiss may be poised to strike!