Tactical Nukes Against Iraq?

It might be appropriate to reassure Blatham and others that the United States government has made no specific threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict with Iraq.

The U.S. government's stated policy for the use of these weapons has not changed significantly since 1967. It states that the United States will retaliate for any weapons of mass destruction attack on its territory or forces abroad with nuclear weapons. The UK and France have identical doctrines for use of these weapons

In the specific matter of Iraq, the consistent response of Administration spokesmen has been that, in response to the use of WMD by Iraq, the United States will respond with any or all of the weapons at its disposal, as may be appropriate. It has been reported in the press that in 1991 James Baker assured the Iraqi government that, if they used WMD against coalition forces, the U.S. would immediately retaliate with nuclear weapons. That, of course, is almost certainly speculation and would likely never be confirmed by our government.

The rest of the details on this thread have been the (very interesting) analysis and speculations of the various posters - not the expressed intent of our government. The self-righteous indignation of those who would attribute murderous intent, rabid chauvinism, and worse to U.S. government officials is a bit premature. Blatham's imaginings of Rumsfeld and others chortling in delight as innocent civilians are incinerated illustrates only his own irrational loathing of our country - it has nothing to do with the facts of the situation. He should stop his hyperventilating.

"He should stop his hyperventilating."

checked the mirror lately?

boys, boys....

Its far easier to imagine evil, chortling gnomes and trolls slavering over the prospect of an ill-got meal than to conceptualize principled, concern-ridden individuals with homes and lawns and kids to educate and dogs to walk swept along in a current not of their making or choosing, hoping to influence its course by the strength of their resolve. Its so much more convenient when folks one would rather not like for whatever reason and likely never will meet can be seen lesser beings than oneself. That is comforting to some, I suppose. I almost envy them. At least they don't have to think about the problems.

On a lighter note, history has a sense of humor. We have a Left Wing seeking to prevent the toppling of an oppressive corrupt Totalitarian Right Wing Foreign Militarist Dictator, and a Right Wing which sees no reason to force the toppling of an oppressive, erratic Radical Left Wing Foreign Militarist Dictator.

Kinda reminds me of an old Star Trek plot.

timber, who adds; "thank you, snood"

Er, can you elucidate for the poor foreigner, Timber?

Yes, timber, please.

'Scuse me Timber - Star Trek scriptwriters would never introduce a character who spent 4 years in combat against forces armed, trained, financed, and otherwise supported by the United States and is suddenly and magically metamorphosed into a gung-ho supporter of an all-out attack - nukes and all - by those same United States.

Some other agenda is at work here.


P.S. to DLowan, WHinteler: lots of us are having difficulty with that part of the plot, as you can tell! Here's a passage from the writings of Francis Bacon:

"This is well to be weighed; that boldness is ever blind; for it seeth no danger, and inconveniences. Therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution; so that the right use of bold persons is, that they never command in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others. For in counsel, it is good to see dangers; and in execution, not to see them, except they be very great."

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waiting wiv 'bated breath!!!!!

Well, our Left, The Democratic Party, opposes the Republican Administration's position on Iraq. For decades, Our Left whined about Republican support of Right Wing Dictators ... Asian, South American, Middle Eastern ...didn't matter. The Left hated the Right's support for Right Wing Governments. The Right, Our Republicans, have always looked askance at Left Wing Dictatorships ... notably Communist ones, which numbered among their apologists here, if not necessarily adherents, many of Our Left. Today's American Left perceives North Korea, a Communist Dictatorship, to be a more immediate and serious threat than the Right Wing Dictatorship of Iraq, while Korea is a Left Wing Dictatorship with which which Our Republicans hope to come to agreement. The reversals are perplexing.

In an old Star Trek, there was a warring civilization composed of two factions, divided ideologicly and were physiologically differentiated from one another only by different bi-colored skin pigmentation. One faction was light on the left hand side of their bodies and dark on the right, the other of course was dark on the left and light on the right. The core of their dispute was a sort of racial, instinctual, mutual perception of "The Others" as evil incarnate. It took The Crew of The Enterprise pretty much the whole episode to figure out the Light/Left-Dark/Right /Vice Versa thing. Their efforts to understand the contention, with hope to resolve it, were confounded in that The StarFleet folk did not notice the reversed symetry of the factions ... they saw each as equally 1/2 light and 1/2 dark, considering not at at all which half of which individual was which shade. Our heros were perplexed by a difference the did not perceive. By the time Kirk, Spock, and Bones had tumbled to a key to unravelling the enigma, the two Races of the Warring Civilization had wiped each other out. I think Frank Gorshin was one of The Aliens in that episode.

Hope that made sense. I'm going to bed soon anyway, so it will have to do for now.



timber

Is this the closest we've had to a flame war to date?

Oh - however the dictatorships live on....except the ones the US didn't like a lot, and replaced with other dictatorships.

I see no flames yet, Mr S.

anyone consider that the administration has leaked this information out as a ploy to make saddam think twice? disinformation as it were.

hey steissd, good to see you back.

Yep - I have wondered. Still think that is a bad thing to do, though - for the reasons cited above...

Timberlandko, such transformations of political sympathies of the Left can be easily explained by the logic of competition for the Congress seats and Presidential office. If tomorrow Mr. Bush decides to support Saddam against Kurds, the Left will attack administration for its negligence toward human rights issues.
Such political games, in our case, regarding the national budget, take place every year in Israel. When the government is a Right-wing one, Left claims that it neglects interests of the plain people in favor of big business. But when the Left-wing PM leads the coalition, the Right suddenly becomes more socialist than the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was...

Pueo, many thanks; but it is very probable that I may be drafted once more for indefinite time soon: at the beginning of sequel of the Gulf War. And I shall be back only when the USA wins the war. Israel is a likely target for the Iraqi missiles with non-conventional warheads, therefore medics (and this is my military profession in the IDF, unlike this in the Soviet Army) are supposed to be drafted.

Timberlandko,

You have repeated the objection, frequently put forward by opponents of the current Administration that North Korea is a greater danger than Iraq, and therefore must be dealt with before any action against Iraq is contemplated.

I believe the logic behind that assertion is faulty at best and that the intent of many of the political figures who advance it (mostly Democrat opponents of the administration) is only for political gain, not national strategy.

North Korea almost certainly posesses nuclear weapons and, as the world has seen, the intermediate range ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. It has chosen this moment to directly challenge the United States by announcing its long-standing violation of the 1993/94 arrangement negotiated with the United States and demanding more direct negotiations with us. This is in keeping with a long standing position of that country that its quarrel is not with the United Nations (with which it has only concluded an armistice., not a peace), or with South Korea, (with which until very recently it would conduct no direct business). Our position was the opposite, until in 1993/94 the Clinton Administration negotiated the direct arrangement North Korea recently repudiated (and evidently never intended to comply with). That all this became clear in the midst of the current crisis with Iraq is hardly an accident.

North Korea is indeed today a greater military risk to her immediate neighbors than is Iraq. However she is surrounded with powerful neighbors (including China) which have compelling interests in limiting her worst excesses. (Contrast that with the situation in the Gulf) In 1949 North Korea had greater population and far more military and economic capability than did the South: today the situation is reversed. While it is certainly in North Korea's interest to deflect the United States from its course (and show the world it can do so) it most certainly is not in our interest to be deflected or even to acceed to their demand for direct negotiations. Our interest is to force North Korea to deal with its own grave economic problems and to deal in a civilized manner with her neighbors, including Japan.

Nothing would dampen the recent excesses of North Korea so much as to see the fall of the Iraqi regime, and nothing would encourage her more than to see their blufs and posturing deflect us from the grave international problem in a critical area of the world on which we are now focused.

I believe all this is well known to most of the critics of the present Administration, and those of them who also advocated the 1993 "arrangement" with North Korea are either supremely foolish or quite cynical in their political positions.

Iraq today is approximately where North Korea was in 1993, with respect to nuclear weapons. Had we dealt more firmly with North Korea in 1993, we and her neighbors would not have the problems we do today.

The notion that, in matters of national strategy, one must deal with the most severe danger first, does not survive careful analysis in any case.

I suupose I "repeated" the objection but, as I've indicated many times, I don't SHARE the objection, george. I was just commnenting on it. In fact, I've often posted personal assessments of DPRK and its relatively lower (IMO) threat. Sorry if I confued you ... I was tired and reeling from an unexpected football upset.


timber

Such is the fate of Raiders fans. Hope you are feeling better now.