Slashdot Mirror
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."
Quite simply the US has had a standing policy that any attack on the US with weapons of mass destruction, be it chemical, biological, nuclear or otherwise, will be responded to with a nuclear strike. So if a rouge nation used chemical weapons on a US city or interest, we would respond, most likely, with nuclear weapons. This is OLD doctrine.
You are actually rather ignorant and an totally naive. I served with the nuclear forces (B-52s) for the 4 years leading up to their final removal from nuclear alert in '91. We were not there playing pretend. We were there to USE the nukes when called to do so.
It wasn't some abstract idea, it was real. Very real. There IS call to use nukes in more than simply a situation following a ballistic nuke attack on the USA or its allies. It WOULD be appropriate and utterly defensible to use nukes against a country that hit us with chemical or biologicals. Any such country foreits it right to exist.
The Soviets/Russians have always had a pragmatic view on the use of nukes. It is about time WE did too. Nukes are just weapons.
How is using a single nuke different than dropping hundreds of HE bombs? Both can lead to the same level of destruction. It matters not if a target was destroyed by a nuke or HE, it is destroyed and there is no distinction. Destroyed in destroyed - unless you go with overkill. Of course it would be different if you used a multikiloton weapon against a small target that could have easily been handled by a load of precision conventionals. If, on the other hand, true deep devestation of a target is called for, then it IS valid to use the right tool for the job, and if that means nuke, so be it. You don't allow an enemy to get away with something simply because you think there should be some mystical, unpassable wall barring the use of a nuke.
If you can produce a nice, "clean", little nuke then fine. It may be the ONLY way to properly destroy a deep bunker with the LEAST amount of risk to our troops AND with reduced collateral effect.
Would you be against use of Fuel-air explosives against massed troops? They are conventional weapons yet they have the same localized thermal and pressure effects as a small nuke. Somehow a nuke with the SAME effects would magically be a no-no? Logically...WHY!? There is no logic nor rationality to your knee-jerk response. No doubt, you didn't actually read any of the articles, just the headlines or excerpts from which you automagically develop a Pavlovian reaction against it without thought. In any case, the DETAILS of the plans are unknown to you. None of these articles are THE actual plans - the DETAILS and actual facts remain unknown to you. But no doubt, even if they were known to you, you wouldn't actually SEE them and would maintain your Pavlovian response to anything with the nuke-word in it.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Well, it'd almost be nice if this was a flame, but it's probably a typical example of how most people have no idea what's going on in this region.
p df
g lobe.html
/ news2001/amnesty100301.html
/ eduardoCohen.html
So, am I going to correct that massive information deficit with just one post?
Ha!
You gotta be kidding!
Ok, random facts:
Why are the 'Occupied Territories'/'Disputed Territories' known as the 'Occupied Territories'/'Disputed Territories'?
Because the UN has been saying since 1967 that Israel should withdraw from them.
http://www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1967/s67r242e.
Why do many Palestinines dislike the US?
You could just read this:
http://www.merip.org/media_outreach/CT-Harm-done-
Basically, the US is funding Israels occupation:
- Israel gets about a third of US foreign aid
even though
- Israel's GNP is higher than Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza combined.
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
(actually, most of the US's aid goes to military uses
http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/jul98/23_13_097.html )
What is one of the reasons Palestinians dislike Ariel Sharon?
He was Minister of Defence during a 1982 Palestinian massacre... gah, just look here:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/palestine
About 3 times more Palestinians have died in this conflict than Israelis. About a quarter of them, children.
The Palestinians have vastly less land available to them, they are poorer - many are living in refugee camps, after all.
And blah, here's more.
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/palestine
And "Will somebody please think of the Children!?"
http://playgroundsforpalestine.org/
Ok, so that's not actually funny...
:(
I could say that it's kinda atrocious how one group of people are treating another, considering they know how it is to be treated that way, and worse.
But I'd be living in Lah-lah land. People are not that nice, fair, or decent.
And yay, there's probably some people who will have gotten to this bit, and already decided I'm "a bad guy" so they can ignore me.
But it's not that simple.
It's a war, with all the nasties of a civil war.
It's in the best interests of Fundamentalists on both sides to continue the conflict, as it works helluva good in the popularity ratings.
Each side is gonna say the other side is THE BAD GUYS, because that's how wars work.
If you don't believe it, people don't want to fight them.
Currently, the Palestinians are getting the worse end of the stick, but Israelis are not "THE BAD GUYS" either.
It's just people - working, eating, caring for their children, getting on with life - on both sides, but until you realise that, there won't be peace.
A completely non-revolutionary idea, but still true.
---- I've fallen, and I can't get up.