U.S. Works Up Plans for Using Nuclear Arms

rjrjr writes: "The L.A. Times reports on the DoD's new stance on the use of nukes, including such comforting notions as nuclear bunker busters. What it all means is well explored in this cogent commentary."

Comments

Re:Pop quiz! 10 global awareness questions.

[Waffle Iron]

Maybe those poor folks in Afghanistan should have thougt about all these bad things Americans might do to their country before they helped Bin Laden knock over our little sky scrapers.

Re:Ugh

[flacco]

Mao called the American bomb a "paper tiger". Several times he is quoted as saying that he hopes that the Americans drop a bomb to prove who was morally correct. China isn't afraid of US nukes. a fight with China is a baaaad idea. just let them have Taiwan (pragmatism). they haven't fucked up Hong Kong too much.

You're a coward, an intellectual weakling, and a moral reprobate.

Not to mention a shitty geo-political strategist.

Re:Japan

[Brian Knotts]

Where do they grow you liberal cocksuckers anyway?

Universities.

They are little more than leftist indoctrination centers now. They breed wave upon wave of anti-American athiestic know-it-alls who engage in the worst sort of Marxist revisionism, and environmental chicken-littleism.

No, I'm not posting anonymously. Do your worst, moderators! See if I care. This place has become too tiresome.

Re:Yes he would and here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

I, personally, would do whatever I can do against america if a third nuke is dropped anywhere. ANYFUCKINGWHERE. I don't care why you do that. It might be that CIA is convinced that Iraq is going to nuke Ankara (my home city) and USA good guys are trying to protect their ally Turkey. I really don't fucking care. If USA does that again, I'm gonna do whatever I can do.

And I'm a chemical engineer. I can kill at least a few tens of thousands of people, if I am determined. Neither low tech chemical weapons nor high power explosives are out of my reach. I can produce them in USA, or transport them disguising them as legal imports.

The disturbing part (for you) is, it is not because I'm special. Any chemist or chemical engineer can produce weapons of mass destruction. And any idiot can deliver them to their targets. I'm pretty sure that secret high tech compounds are much more powerful than anything I can imagine. But why bother when a 50 year old formula will do what I want to do?

You are the greatest nation. When we are matched one on one with you, we stand no chance. But do not overestimate your power, do not underestimate our collective power. Stay away from nukes, stay away from pissing us all at once and you can enjoy your leader position. Or keep on the GWB way, and USA will be history, just like tens of empires before her. I realize that this will happen, no matter what, sooner or later. Still, I would like to have that later rather than sooner. Don't rush to your fate, it is pleasing for none of us.

Why Using Nukes is Moral

[ego.no]

USA is - and has always been - the most moral country. I dare not think of what kind of hell my country (Norway) would be if the American people suffered the same moral cowardice that predominates the rest of the free world.

While Europe by the end of the eighteenth century was morally corrupt, with various dictatorships striving for evermore power, the land of the free kept the better parts of the continent out of harms way.

Unfortunately, the evil that made us lose the argument to the totalitarians are gradually persuading your countrymen as well.

Not since the days of Hitler and Stalin - perhaps not ever - has the threat to peace and freedom so blatantly admitted their motives and agenda. They hate the western world for being free, western people for being happy, western countries for being successful. They hate us for being good, and the US for being the best.

In the eyes of Osama Bin Laden and millions of agreeing Muslims, life is not to be enjoyed. Self-esteem is a sin. Since we don't agree, they want us to die.

I can't think of anything more moral than self-preservation. We are presently in a situation where a great number of people are staking their lives at killing the most of us. There is no practical or moral alternative, extinguish all military capability by all actual and potential enemies, or await the size of the next disaster.

Neville Chamberlain thought evil could be appeased by granting Hitler lebensraum in Czechoslovakia. Despite its obvious failure his tactic is the model for present-day liberals in both Europe and the US. Now, as then, the suggested solution is to negotiate with people whose stated goal is to kill you. Is there anyone out there who seriously believes the Muslim fundamentalists are less dangerous or have better motives than the nazis? Is there anyone who believes Saddam will hesitate to push his button when the Iraqi scientists give him the option?

This is not a complicated issue. Bad moral is fooling some into thinking we owe our executors something. We don't.

Holy cow

[Quintin Stone]

I've never seen so many hysterical ninnies collected in one place. All these expressions of shock and disgust at the "insanity" of the Bush administration. And why? Over a document that, in some form or another, has been around for decades and the only difference between now and 5 years ago is that you apparently didn't have a clue it existed. It is not a response to terrorist attacks. It has not sprung from the crazy mind of Dubya. For as long as there have been nations, there have been contingency plans, and for as long as there have been atomic/nuclear weapons, there have been contingency plans that involved them. What rock have you people been living under?