Posted on 12/01/2012 10:40:09 PM PST by nickcarraway
A couple of days ago, speaking in the House of Lords, former British Labour Defence Minister Baron John Gilbert suggested that UK should drop a neutron bomb on the Pak-Afghan border for creating impassable sanitary cordons between the two countries. "Your Lordships may say that this is impractical, but nobody lives up in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan except for a few goats and a handful of people herding them," Baron Gilbert is quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India. "If you told them that some ERRB (Enhanced Radiation/Reduced Blast) warheads were going to be dropped there and that it would be a very unpleasant place to go, they would not go there."
The statement might be disregarded as idle talk of an 85-yer-old former functionary, but several factors prompt to attach a little more importance to it than may come to mind at first glance.
For one, Baron Gilbert, despite being retired from active service, still remains an influential member of the defence and intelligence community in the UK.
But what is more important, the statement reflects the present state of affairs surrounding Afghanistan in view of the expected withdrawal of NATO troops form the country. Britain at the moment has around 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, while the US keeps a much larger contingent which at the moment numbers around 66,000. The numbers are going to be reduced, but at the moment no one can tell for sure to what extent.
Recently, the US and British media reported that while no final decision has been made, the US top military brass is mulling the idea of keeping around 10,000 troops (the options range from 6,000 to 15,000) after the announced withdrawal. To understand the exact figure, one must ask what the troops are going to do there.
Their mission is definitely not going to be "security and assistance" as it has been over the 11 years of their presence in the occupied country. These goals could not be achieved with the 100 plus thousand, and while the number of foreign troops is reducing and the number of "insider attacks" by Afghan troops against the coalition is increasing, the chances of achieving these goals are coming close to zero. And the Taliban are only too eager to wait till the number of foreign troops gets down to the critical point to launch a decisive offensive.
If that is the most probable prospect, then why should the US (and, probably, its allies) want to leave behind any number of soldiers risking their lives like it happened as far back as 1842 when the whole British contingent in Kabul was slaughtered by Afghans?
The answer is simple. Afghanistan plays a specific role in the US strategic plans of imposing its geopolitical pressure on the whole area embracing the Middle East, Central and South Asia. Therefore, it is crucial for the US to maintain at least four or five military bases on its territory for an unlimited and unspecified period of time. Ten to fifteen thousand troops is just the exact number needed for the bases' maintenance.
But this needs at least relative stability. The present Afghan leadership (or whatever leaders are imposed on Afghanistan after the 2014 troops withdrawal and "general elections") are obviously incapable of guaranteeing it.
This leaves only two options. One is trying to establish some dialogue with the Taliban. But neither side seems eager to do this. And recently one of the most vocal instruments of the US "humanitarian" global policy, the Human Rights Watch, unequivocally stated that it is opposed to such dialogue, urging the US administration not to provide immunity to the Taliban fighters in return for peace talks.
But if the negotiation process looks out of question and the West-sponsored leaders lack the capacity to ensure stability in the country, that leaves open only one option – the tactics of the scorched earth.
And in this context, Lord Gilbert's suggestion comes in more than handily.
Neutrons bombs don't contaminate an area for generations, or for centuries. That's the whole point. Drop the neutron bomb. Kill the people. But leave the buildings intact so people can move in and repopulate the place.
No, It would be a very unpleasent place to be (for about a second), then not so much.
The whole idea is the Enhanced Radiation Warhead is a prompt radiation wave of fast neutrons which sweeps through everything, armour, concrete, rocks, wood, flesh and delivers a lethal rad dose to anything living, leaving the area unradded and accessible to your followup troops to seize control.
It is totally not suitable for quarantining a region.
theres nothing there worthy of such a bomb. and kill which people? the talib are in the mountains and caves and would likely not even notice such an event.
you’d destroy kabul or kandahar? for what?
I always like the concept of the nutron bomb
Kill everything living and leave the realty intact ... return and clear the enemy corpses in a couple of days
it even kills roaches
.
You need big fusion devices for this, not n-bombs.
An idiotic idea for several reasons, not the least of which is the technical ineptitude of the subject. No one has adequately explained (to me anyway) why we are even there. Oil pipeline, control and profit from narcotics? Bin Laden is supposedly dead and you’re never going to “win the hearts and minds” over there. And googling a photo of the moron that said this shows a bloated old limey probably with colored servants that serve him tea at three that would probably order troops to open up with enfield .303’s on a crowd of unarmed women and children in another era. I say leave them to their goats and poppies, but otherwise quarantine them from the west through adequate immigration enforcement, and security intelligence. Neutron bomb, gimme a break.
Some ERRB (Enhanced Radiation/Reduced Blast) warheads would be the perfect solution to the Palestinian problem in Gaza and the West Bank.
So how do we get all liberals in the same place at the same time?
Huh? I didn’t say I would do it. I was just stating the rationale for such a weapon. John Gilbert seems to think it would contaminate mountain passes and prevent the Taliban or other hostile forces from infiltrating across the border. But that’s not true, and it’s not why the bomb was invented in the first place. Not even close. It’d be totally useless for that purpose.
I’m surprised that someone who was Minister of Defense doesn’t have a better understanding of the thing. But then he is in the Labour Party. Explains a lot. What a bunch of idiots. Libs everywhere are complete bumbling idiots.
I wonder what President Jarrett and White House spokesperson Steve Dunham think about this?
McArthur suggested creating a radioactive cordon across Korea to contain the norks. Of course, it was vetoed.
The easy solution would be to poison the poppy fields. They, and US drug interests, are driving the idiocy as much as islam. Oh, and erase the whole Bush family, as well as the Sauds. This is tailor-made for genetic plague, which can also be used to get rid of the poppies.
IMHO, A good idea. Jihadists could be sent to Allah and the less crazed could live in the intact structures afterward..
Yes, after years of stupid things, McArthur was finally given the boot when he went too far on nukes.
Yep, ever since 1945 the US has been doing acrobatics on how to avoid inflicting casualties while the russians always saw nuclear conflict as winnable.
Now the US is all but gone, and Russia remains. And you have a muslim in the oval office. Helped there by we-all-know-who.
Success.
Well done!! My Friend. I always go to google images to get a quick take on someone I never hear of.
Where have you been my all seeing JB?
I agree.. as I understood it, the neutron bomb was specifically designed for rapid depopulation, but preservation of the infrastructure for later occupation. It might not be optimal for the area in the border regions, but a few Pakistani cities could use some cleansing. When the liberals and their Soviet allies referred to it as the “capitalist bomb,” that was too much for Carter, who unilaterally killed the program.
Yes, Carter killed the program but Reagan started it back up in 1981. What the end production was I suppose is anyone’s guess but our great leader obamao will probably have the devices turned into plowshares, er, I mean, solar batteries.
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