- Nuclear weapons?
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- Madness.
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- Yes, the government has called the new nuclear plans
"conceptual" and "contingency" and such things. Vice-president
Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice say there is
nothing new here; that the military routinely "repostures" its
nuclear policy.
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- Don't buy it.
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- The new plans call for the building, testing, and use
of an entirely new type of nuclear weapon---so -called "limited"
nuclear weapons that are allegedly more target-specific.
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- This is nothing but a plan for nuclear war.
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- Here is what William M. Arkin---senior fellow at Johns
Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington
and adjunct professor at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Airpower
Studies---wrote in the March 10 Los Angeles Times:
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- "When Bush administration officials talked about
the implications of Sept. 11 for long-term military policy, they have often
focused on 'homeland defense' and the need for an anti-missile shield.
In truth, what has evolved since last year's terror attacks is an integrated,
significantly expanded planning doctrine for nuclear wars."
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- Mr. Arkin was intimately familiar with the Nuclear Posture
Review delivered to congress Jan. 8, outlining the new policy.
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- Funny how it took a media leak to bring this to the attention
of we, the people.
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- Let's address a few points raised by, and implied by,
the study and the Bush administration:
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- *Nuclear weapons would reduce collateral damage
(also known as the killing of innocent people.) The military takes justifiable
pride in the reduction of this horror through technological advance. Still,
in every war action, bombs go awry and the wrong people are killed. Why
should this not happen with nuclear weapons?
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- *Nuclear weapons would only be used only in response
to biological or chemical terrorist attacks or "surprising military
developments." More terrorist attacks are all but assured---and
"surprising military developments" covers a lot of ground---so
the use of new nuclear weapons, under the new plan, is all but assured.
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- *Nuclear weapons are needed to reach the depths of
underground command centers. If we can land robots on Mars, determine
the age of the universe, genetically manipulate food, and clone animals,
we certainly can blow up caves in Afghanistan without resorting to nuclear
weapons. Ditto for terrorist training camps and chemical and biological
weapons centers.
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- *Nuclear weapons would deter further terrorism.
This is true to the extent that some governments would likely show increased
reluctance to support terrorist cels. Would it deter further terrorist
attacks? No. Nothing stops a feud. Nothing stops deep-seated hatred driven
by religious zeal. (See Northern Ireland.) The use of nuclear weapons would
only galvanize hatred of the U.S. among terrorists---and hostile non-terrorists---as
never before. Not to mention alienate most, if not all, of our allies.
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- *Nuclear weapons would increase U.S. security.
If the Bush administration develops a new family of nuclear weapons, every
other nuclear power on earth will follow suit, and every non-nuclear country
will step up its nuclear development (and chemical and biological weapon
development.) If the U.S. actually integrates "limited" nuclear
weapons into battle, why shouldn't Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North
Korea, and every other nuclear power do the same? This increases exponentially
the prospect not of security, but of all-out nuclear war.
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- The Bush Administration's plan seeks to make the unimaginable.
. .imaginable. Once something is imaginable, it becomes. . .acceptable.
Thus would nuclear bombs be de-stigmatized.
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- Madness.
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- Let us not forget why no one has used nuclear weapons
since World War II---that they are the most hideous, genocidal force yet
devised. Let us not forget the fear that children grew up with in the 1960s,
when Kruschev appeared in TV commercials shaking his fist, saying "We
will bury you!", while students practiced "drop-drills"
and "walk-home drills" and mom and pop dug absurd "radioactive
fallout shelters" in the backyard. Let us not forget the images of
women and children in Japan, wandering the rubble of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
with their skin burned away. Let us not forget the cancers that befell
countless more, years later, from the radiation.
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- The "war on terrorism" is a horrible necessity.
As President Bush puts it, the U.S. must "rout out" terrorists
far and wide, and, to quote Henry Kissinger, kill them "unambiguously."
If this means destroying third-world governments and regimes that harbor
terrorists, that secretly seek to wreak biological, chemical, or nuclear
havoc, it must be done---and it must be done by an allied force of nations,
preferably with at least the tacit approval of Russia and China. Are our
colossally successful conventional forces capable of getting these jobs
done? Look no further than the examples of the Gulf War, and Afghanistan.
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- The attacks of Sept. 11 were carried out by a loose international
cadre of extremists, relying on box cutters, wiles, and a lot of luck.
Nuclear bombs---limited, or otherwise---would not have stopped them. Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said as much---that the nuclear deterrent
was of no value.
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- The new nuclear "strategy" is a Dr. Strangelove-ian
nightmare. The subtitle of that movie was "How to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb."
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- No thanks.
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