Hiya Tom,
Viz-a-viz nuclear weapons, I imagine that everyone agrees that Kim Jong-Un is a sarnie or two short of a picnic and is probably mad enough to use nuclear weapons. Moreover, South Korea will be his most likely target. Now, suppose that nightmare were to actually play out. What should / would we in the west do? Unleashing a bunch of Trident missiles will kill tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of innocent North Koreans, who already have the misfortune of living under a brutal dictator. And the environmental disaster will be made even worse. It will serve no useful purpose whatsoever and merely inflame what will already be a nightmare situation. Most importantly, it's a completely ineffective way of killing one man and a handful of his henchmen, not least because you can bet your bottom dollar that he will survive the strike by taking refuge in a well stocked nuclear bunker from where he'll launch further attacks on Japan etc.
It's better for us to ditch nuclear weapons and, if Kim Jong-Un needs to be 'dealt with' - then do it via a drone strike, or get undercover agents to slip him some Polonium-210 in his afternoon tea, or parachute in a crack team of SAS marines to do the job etc., etc. Any or all of the above have to be more efficient and a thousand times cheaper than nuclear weapons. Besides which, if they all fail, we can send in Daniel Craig! ;-)
Well, the first part of Pat's post isn't contentious as Muslim leaders the world over have condemned ISIS and the terrorists and made very clear that Islam does not condone the atrocities carried out in its name. So, in this regard, the terrorists have hijacked a religion for their own purposes. Theoretically, they could have done the same with Christianity and then Justin Welby and the Pope would denounce them - just as the Imam's have done - and say they are not acting in accordance with core Christian principles and beliefs.
The second part of Pat's post is debatable in that - as far as we know - none of the terrorists have undergone psychiatric evaluation and, therefore, no medically qualified practitioner has pronounced any of them as being "mentally sick psychopaths". That said, I don't know what someone has to do to get such a diagnosis but, in my book, the Manchester bomber and the attacks in London on Saturday night must, surely, come pretty damn close. I suspect I'm not alone in my views.
Tim.