Posted on 11/11/2001 3:39:58 AM PST by bulldog905
President Harry Truman ended the Second World War almost overnight in 1945 by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan.
Those operations cost not a single American life.
The atomic bombings were not all that devastating when put into perspective. Just weeks earlier, saturation bombing -- with conventional explosives -- killed as many as 200,000 in Tokyo. In February, 1945, round-the-clock carpet bombing of the beautiful German city of Dresden killed as many as 250,000 men, women and children in a scenario that is awesome, even today. Go to Dresden, as I have and the lasting effects of the destruction are still there to see.
Sir Arthur (Bomber) Harris, legendary head of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command in the Second World War, boasted his squadrons of aircraft had killed 600,000 people -- mainly civilians and children -- in their non-stop flights over Germany.
Most of the able-bodied men were fighting on the Russian front or elsewhere, but "Bomber" Harris' bombing helped demoralize the entire population. Again, Bomber Command used only conventional explosives.
We still look on atomic -- nuclear -- weapons as something loathsome because of their singular forces. You do not need hundreds of planes to drop bombs in a nuclear attack -- as at Tokyo or Dresden -- just one will do the job in quick fashion. A nuclear bomb drives the message home quickly that to fight on is fruitless, to surrender is the best option.
The U.S., Britain and France are nuclear powers. Coincidentally, no matter whether the government of the day in Britain or France is conservative or socialist, neither have ever considered for a second giving up their nuclear arms.
During the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of which Canada is a member, had a nuclear first-strike policy -- if the Soviets invaded Western Europe and looked like they were advancing over large areas successfully, NATO would go nuclear and take out Moscow and other large Soviet cities.
Last month, British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- whose nation has both nuclear attack submarines and fighter-bombers equipped with nuclear weapons, raised the frightening spectacle that if Osama bin Laden's Islamic terrorists had weapons of mass destruction, rather than slaughter just 6,000 people in New York City they would have killed 60,000 or 600,000 with a grin on their faces.
This month, bin Laden has said it is the "sacred" duty of Islamic forces to get hold of weapons of mass destruction.
When he does -- or when some of his contemporaries do -- he and they will use them. President George W. Bush admits to this horrifying scenario.
Indeed, as George Will noted in his Nov. 4 column "Daring Israeli raid saved U.S. grief," if it hadn't been for the Israelis taking out an Iraqi nuclear processing plant in a daring raid in 1981, Saddam Hussein would have had nuclear weapons and many of us today would not be alive.
Saddam is still doing his best to get hold of nuclear or biological weapons and he is surely not going to get them just to fondly gaze at them. He will use them, initially against Israel -- recall the Scud attacks in the 1990s -- but then against the U.S.
Just 22 years ago, during the American hostage crisis in Iran, the Soviets went to Iranian authorities and warned them any moves against the Soviet Embassy and its staff in Tehran would provoke a nuclear response. Tehran would be gone. Not a single Soviet Embassy official was ever touched.
Looking at the current scenario, we can do one of two things: Wait until the Islamic terrorists get weapons of mass destruction in which case any number of our cities and their populations will be wiped out, or we can make some pre-emptive surgical nuclear strikes and end Islamic terrorism for the next 100 years.
If we took out, say, Kabul, Baghdad and Tehran with clean "neutron" bombs, which kill people but leave buildings standing, we would have won the war against these dictators and "rogue" nations without losing the life of a single allied soldier.
It would also be a lesson to the likes of Syria and North Korea that retribution for any of their transgressions will be met in similar fashion.
You do not win wars by pussyfooting around, playing the gentleman or dropping humanitarian supplies to civilian populations -- can you imagine the laughter if anyone has suggested dropping humanitarian supplies to Germans back in the 1940s? You win wars by taking your opponents to the edge of the precipice and letting them know you'll kick them over the edge unless they comply.
You're incredibly mistaken, but clearly you would not benefit from an explanation of all the reasons why.
Utter nonsense, on several levels.
This is nothing more than an assertion. If someone is going to write an article with this title they have to do a little more to explain how this sentence is true. How will this put an end to terrorism?
You owe him a huge apology, but I doubt you'll be honorable enough to do so.
Hint: Believing that incinerating a million innocent civilians is unnecessary and thus unacceptable makes someone neither "limpwristed", nor a "pacifast [sic]". It merely makes them sane and moral.
I have seen absolutely no sign on this thread that any of the participants are "pacifists" in this thread. We all want to kick the crap out of the terrorists, son, and advocate doing so with extreme prejudice. We only differ on whether innocents who *aren't* terrorists should be purposely slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands in order to satisify some people's bloodlust and desire to "make a point".
Your disgusting accusation is without basis and utterly uncalled for, and should be retracted if you have any sense or honor.
But I'm not holding my breath.
This US Marine and Desert Storm combat vet is advocating the use of nuclear weapons against them in a big way.
We're not going to win this war by being nice, we will win this war by exterminating our enemy and his will to fight. Nukes will do both.
Sure innocent people may die, but better innocent Middle Easterners than innocent American lives.
Excellent point, and it goes to the heart of the matter. The author's main fallacy is that he simply assumes his conclusion -- that flinging nukes around *would* "solve" the problem once and for all.
It's the same fallacy that too many posters on this thread suffer from. They think that this problem can be solved overnight if we merely use big enough bombs. It's a childish oversimplification.
The problem, of course, is demonstrated by considering our own situation: Did the US surrender when faced with the horrifying slaughter of 9/11? Or did it only enrage us and steel our resolve to exterminate those who did it? Would nuclear attacks on *our* cities scare us into submission? Or would they only guarantee that we would hold absolutely nothing back in an attempt to destroy the perpetrators, even if it took generations?
So what in hell makes anyone so naive to think that *our* nuking *their* cities would make them act any differently than we would? Is anyone here truly stupid enough to think that nuking some, or even a lot, of cities in the Middle East or elsewhere would just make them all go, "ooh, that hurt, we'll all be good little Arabs now and leave the US alone", instead of the actual response of, "The US has killed millions of our people, we must never stop fighting them, let every man woman and child strike at them until the end of time." That's not the "end of terrorism", that's the creation of unending terrorism, a thousandfold larger than the current Al Qaeda network. Ironically, that's exactly what Bin Laden *hoped* would happen.
And it's utterly unnecessary. We can and will easily win this war with very few casaulties (on our side) by exterminating Al Qaeda with our deadly conventional weapons, and *without* throwing gasoline on the fire. That's a win-win situation. You don't burn down the neighborhood to take care of a rat infestation.
Think, people...
And think about what you're advocating -- the greatest mass slaughter in human history, against men, women, and children, the great majority of which had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. If you think that's justified at this point, or moral, or likely to achieve any sort of positive results, you're insane.
Then it's a damned good thing you're not in charge. You would drive us into the abyss instead of steering us clear of it.
We're not going to win this war by being nice,
Oh. So you think using C-130 gunships and daisy cutters and bunker-busting bombs is being "nice"? Ooookay...
we will win this war by exterminating our enemy and his will to fight. Nukes will do both.
You're seriously deluded.
Question #1: Would using nukes on *us* "exterminate our will to fight"? Yes or no?
Question #2: Why would you expect nukes used on "the enemy" to have any different effect on them than it would on us?
Question #3: Would nuking some cities actually "exterminate the enemy", given that huge numbers of them aren't even *in* cities?
Question #4: Would the relatives of the millions of people that you "exterminated" in the cities you nuked be more likely to forget about the whole thing, or would they decide to become anti-US terorrists themselves to avenge their dead? Which would *you* do in their place?
Question #5: Are the majority of the men women and children in those cities you want to nuke actually the "enemy" right now, or are they as disconnected from the actions you wish to avenge as were the workers in the WTC?
Sure innocent people may die, but better innocent Middle Easterners than innocent American lives.
Your morality needs some work. Actually, it needs a lot of work.
Furthermore, the flaw in your thesis is the unproven assumptions that 1. It is actually necessary to slaughter "innocent Middle Easterners" in order to save American lives (i.e., that there's no other less brutal way to save American lives), *and* 2. That your proposed "solution" would actually save American lives, instead of cost more by giving a million more Arabs an incentive to attack Americans.
Both assumptions seem completely false to me.
This US Marine and Desert Storm combat vet is advocating the use of nuclear weapons against them in a big way.
Your opinion may be valid... but I still think it is comforting to realize that the military follows orders via the chain of command subsequent to prior combat analysis which more often than not considers the puts and takes of various weapon applications...such as when and where to use them? Otherwise the earth would have the variety of life forms similar to that on mars by employing the "me Tarzan..You Jane" combat strategy.
Thats a thoughtful and measured strategy that you suggest here...A little different than that suggested in # 97...but an interesting way to run our military nonetheless.
I find it a bit more poetic than, "never bring a knife to a gunfight." {;^)>
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