Why Not Just Admit To It?

Yep. Like when the dog gets a hold of your leg, you might as well let him finish, because he's not going to give up until he's done.

Dang it! I was a Democrat on this issue and durned if BP didn't switch sides.

Re: Why Not Just Admit To It?

We have stocks of chemical agents. How do you square your view with the fact that we have them but have never used them?

I think scrat's right on this, good buddy, bear.

We had nuclear weapons for what, over 50 years?, and they were used exactly twice in combat, and never again.

I don't see empirical evidence for your claim.

How do you square your belief in the US not ever using them when the US has already used the atom bomb on other human beings?

As far as the US and the use of chemical weapons go, that wasn't just pixie dust we were spraying all over Vietnam. I'd certainly classify agent orange as a chemical weapon.

You'd be wrong if you did.

Agent Orange was (is) a chemical defoliant, or herbicide. Its military use was to strip forrest cover to expose enemy combatants and make terrain easier to traverse. It in no way constitutes a "weapon", unless you call Roundup(TM) a weapon. :wink:

I wonder how can an American citizen (and Bi-Polar Bear obviously is an American) object to the technological superiority of his country's Armed Forces. Such a superiority provided peace for 47 years when the USSR was present on the world map, and it will provide it later deterring international adventurists from taking a chance.

Agent orange not a "chemical weapon?"--How convenient. theres a spot for you in the admins dept of euphemistic science. Lets see

its a chemical, (2.4 D and 2,4, 5 T, which contains lots of2,5,7,9 tetrachloro dibenzo dioxin in the environmentally dangerous congener form)

Its even an agent

TWO MINTS IN ONE

Its a herbicide(herb=plants; cide= kill) , formulated out of chemicals that are otherwise not(legally) used in most US agriculture(because the stuff has a feature in which it keeps on killing for years) and it has chemical residues that are persistent in the environment and are known to cause organ damage and are mutagens ( in the congeners that contain the 7 position in the tetrachloro substitutions). so please, dont say that agent orange (one of the 15 or so chem agents used in Nam) is NOT a chemical agent cause you really have no idea what youre talking about.

Now, about the development of 'low yield nukes", I submit that there is no such thing. we have sites out in Mercury Nevada that are heavily laced with Plutonium over 1200 acres or more where "low yield appliances" (less than 10 kt) were tested in the 50s and the sites are now off limits to all but clean-up contractors.

'"nukes for Peace" will be the slogan , and the Orwellian march continues

I hope the opposition goes to the mat on this. Its friggin INSANE.

Fer Chrissakes, we just got done disassebling a nation the size of Texas with conventional weapons, why do we need nukes? Are we on a march to Armageddon?
Now it will be the US and France who will be testing nuclear devices. And we are trying to convince korea to get in the no-nuke camp. Cant we be a great nation by leading by example? How can the US have any international credibility if we start back down this road? If I were a Russian ( in Russia), I would be at a "last straw" position if thsi proposal is allowed to be delivered up., not to mention all the fence sitting Muslim countries. They will be emboldened to jack up their own nuclear programs. Hell, Pakistan is laoded with sedimentary Carnotite, which is an ore of Uranium 238
All the PAkistanis have to do is build breeder reactors (which , by using a core of some Plutonium and U-238, will create, by neutron induced fission, a whole big batch of Plutonium). The only problem?, they use na coolant because the breeder reactors are much too hot for water. Na can be explosive if in the presence of water
Now Im not certain about the Pakistany nuclear safety program, but Im not going to vouch for it either.
we have a planetary time bomb with India and PAkistan , and we are going to stupidly sanction their start of WWIII.

farmerman - The only way you can call Agent Orange a "weapon" is if you claim the US has gone to war against plants.

Agent Orange is an agricultural preparation (defoliant), generally used to fight weeds, that was employed for some military purposes (to reduce the jungle vegetation depriving the Vietcong terrorists of their hideouts). There are certain safety rules pertaining to defoliants' usage, they were neglected, and this caused undesired and unplanned effects, like development of liver cancer in people that worked with the substance. Of course, this stuff is poisonous, but not everything that is toxic can be qualified as a dedicated chemical warfare.

steissd- During the cold war,The prospect of mutually assured destruction was the major deterrent. Both sides were afraid to unleash the firestorm. We have a whole planet full of nuclear powers with unstable governments and warlike agendas (including Isreal). I dont trust any of them and here the US is going to further stoke the furnace with this insanity.
The concept of using small nukes to destroy chemical weapons is laughable if it werent being used as a reason for the program. think about it, were going to detroy chemical weapons with an explosive. that is the most yahoo dumbass thinking Ive ever heard. Under no circumstances is that a compelling reason to develop teeny nukes. the US Nevada test site is riddled with huge contaminated areas where nukes were tested for the"atoms for peace" period.
the sedan pit is a 300 to 1000 acre site in which a nuclear device was used to test the feasibility of using nukes for things like mining explosives or cutting a sea level canal through Panama. The only thing wrong with the thinking is that we created a decent crater and spread radioactive wastes all around the crater so tha the crater is effectively a 'dead zone' for about 20000 years. So they scrapped the idea. and That was in the 1950s and nobody has doubted the sense of that final decision. I suggest the administration read about the "keystone kops" programs that were pursued as research back then. ALL of it has since been abandoned as stupid, dangerous , and... did I say stupid?
Now, just like Santayanna said, " If we dont learn of the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them"

Scrat and steissd- Excuse me if I chuckle at your spin, as well as your smug acceptance of your reasoning. lets say we agree to disagree on this point and move on.

Considering the aggressive proliferation of terrorism around the world, I would hate for the U.S. to be caught unprepared. You all have fire insurance on your houses? How many of you actually expect your house to burn down?

Phoenix--Thats kind of specious. We dont need to be the country to tacitly sanction nuclear programs around the world by developing them at home. We dont NEED to restart this program. We have nukes already stockpiled to blow up korea or any one else. The act of further development of nukes is like waving the green flag at Indy.

as you can see, Im passionate about this whole issue, and any excuse to turn back the clock is just pure jingoistic insanity.

We just turned Iraq into a Wal Mart lot and not one nuke was used . Dont you people find the Administrations entire reasoning on this totally(and dangerously) absurd?? I sure do.

Right off hand, Boss, i'd say that the sudden, acute, traumatic urban renewal in Iraq is what has fired the imagination of the hawkish boys & girls in D.C.--"boy, we kicked their asses, and we kicked 'em good; now, let's get some tactical nukes and show those towel heads, an' all them European whiners and hand-wringers just what we can really do . . .

Children playin' with matches, Boss, i think y'all are conspirin' to rob me of my sleep . . .

whew, for a minute there I thought I was in the twilight zone.

O.K., terrorists are aggressive. Fine, point given. But good lord, Phoenix, how do you describe what the U.S. has been doing for decades? Passive? From my discussions with people from around the world, in my real life, the general viewpoint is that a lot of what is going on in the Muslim world is in reaction to U.S. aggressive interference in places it doesn't belong.

If the U.S. wants to act as fire insurance to the world, do something about Israel/Palestine, do something about Pakistan/India, do something about the real dangers to the globe. I have quite a few friends who came here from India. They are professionals, some are scientists with knowledge of what is happening on the subcontinent. They are convinced Pakistan/India are going to blow themselves up. They came to Canada, in part, as they thought they might have a chance of surviving here. They're not convinced that anyone will survive, but they're hoping.

Yeah - and what happens when/if the US decides that PRE-EMPTIVE fire insurance is part of the New US....sorry, I mean WORLD Order?