"How effective do you think each of the following steps would be against the war on terrorism ?- Use of strategic nuclear weapons "
Very Effective 33%
Somewhat Effective 21%
Not at all effective 39 %
Not Sure 7%
A READER WRITES:
My 100% American, dyed red white & blue patriot supervisor, who happens to be Syrian-born&raised, recently flew to Syria for visit. You would think this might be risky, particularly with all the flack about "profiling", "flying while Arab" and all that, but this guy is pretty hard-headed and he would not let minor details keep him from leading his life as he wishes (his motto: "I can't sleep well at night if I haven't taken a risk during the day"). In fact, I'll bet (I'll ask him on Monday) he'd be the first to say middle eastern visit/visitors bear closer scrutiny.
Anyway, after he came back from Syria, with Assad Junior blathering about civilian casualties in afghanistan, I asked him what the Syrians were thinking about us. Now read this closely: He said, "Everyone asked me why we hadn't used nuclear weapons yet."
There is no substitute for victory, swift and ferocious. If we do NOT send in ground troops to Afghanistan, we will find that public opinion in the Middle East will move even moreso to support the terrorists. If, to the contrary, we go in, kick a** and take names, we can then ask "Who's Next?" with impunity.
As a corrollary, if we DO find a weight of evidence implicating the Iraqis, we must go to war with them, and it must be a war for the "unconditional surrender" of Iraq. We must then use nuclear weapons. What we call "tactical" nukes are still truly awesome weapons. If the sniveling appeasers in the State Dept want to 'send a message' to the Arab world, you can be certain that dropping nukes on Saddam's palaces would send two unmistakable messages: 1)if you provoke us, we will kill you and destroy all that you hold dear, and 2) we are willing to go to any lengths to get the job done.
In this war, nukes are probably the worst possible tactical weapon to use against the terrorists. A nuke strike would kill far more civilians than terrorists if it kills any terrorists at all. It would be useless as a deterrent since the terrorists don't care about civilians on either side of the line. Most terrorists would favor the escalation anyway. And we would instantly recruit millions to the terrorist cause.
We must face the fact that WMD are a vastly greater threat to people like us who have much more to lose than a terrorist in a cave somewhere. And another fact is that terrorists' WMD will be almost as survivable as our own carefully established air/sea/land triad was in the Cold War. Unless we deported everyone who looks remotely Mideastern (are you listening Justin Raimondo?) the terrorists WMD threats will always be present.
What do we do instead? Pinpoint police-type actions, defensive measures, support for allies who help fight terrorism (i.e. no easy answers).