Why I Support Our Troops
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 15:49
VIEWED: 13777
PAGE 10 of 10
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Well, according to the person who leaked this, it would be after a terrorist attack on the USA. The point, apprently, would be to use the fear generated from such an attack to create support for something that we otherwise wouldn't even consider. Not that there's been any recent precedent ....
Oh, well under those circumstances, nuke the bastards.
Twice.
Just don't hit the oil wells.
H
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Hero, the first part of the scenario was: Nuke Iran in the event of a terrorist attack on the USA. The rest of the scenario (which I didn't reproduce, I presumed you scrolled up to the original quote) went... even if Iran had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. So, would you be in favor of nuking Iran in the event of a terrorist attack on the USA in the case where Iran had nothing to do with it?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Hero, the first part of the scenario was: Nuke Iran in the event of a terrorist attack on the USA. The rest of the scenario (which I didn't reproduce, I presumed you scrolled up to the original quote) went... even if Iran had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. So, would you be in favor of nuking Iran in the event of a terrorist attack on the USA in the case where Iran had nothing to do with it?
Depends on how many are killed and how many we would kill. If, for example, we were going to use a half kiloton battlefield nuke with little or no fallout and a "relatively" small blast radious and kill say, hundreds and we were responding a terroristic refusal to pay City utility bills (thus placing a greater burden on the rest of us) then I'd say 'no' to being in favor of an attack.
If the terrorist act was a coordinated attack on many nuclear facilities that resulted in the irradiation of the eastern seaboard, then I'd say a response that turns the most radical of the Islamic states into glass would find approval from my corner of Ohio.
Like we said before, its all in the details, the details of our plans and the details of the circumstances in which it is used.
At the end of WW2 the Japanese navy was finished. Yet Hiroshima, with a Japanese naval base, was the target of the first military weapon of mass destruction. The dead included women, children, fishermen, shopkeepers, thousands of innocents. It was almost entirely a civilian target, as was Nagasaki that followed. Truman then promised to destroy every Japanese city, one by one until they stopped making war or they were all dead. He did this to save a couple hundred thousand American dead who would have died invading the home islands. In the end a people whose culture dictated fanatical devotion and suicide attacks was brought to its knees not by the defeat of its military, but because of an absolute certainty demonstrated by promise and action that we could and would end the history of the Japanese people.
Do I believe the people of the Middle East need a similar understanding of American resolve? No. But I have an open mind on the subject. If the terrorists convice me otherwise, then I would support both the threat, the demonstration (the destruction of one or two Iranian cities) and, if they prove to be so much more foolish then Japan, the execution of the threat by the systematic and complete eradication of the Arab world until such a time as they are unwilling or simply unable to continue this conflict. I'll feel bad about it. I'll help them rebuild. Heck, look what we did for Japan. But if the terrorists pull off an act worthy of such a response, then they deserve the fallout (in every sense of the word) for their actions.
H
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There are two troubling aspects to your reply. The first is the moral aspect of pre-emptively nuking a nation. The major distinction between your exemplar of the WWI bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that we were already at war with Japan. That distinction derives from a practical one, which is...
In the WWI situation, Japan was the proven aggressor. The government was using the national economy to wage war. Therefore, a case might be made that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasake (much like the firebombing of Dresden) might have an impact on the outcome of the war.
But in the case of the "war on terror", your plan to keep nuking Iran until "they" cry uncle is based two flawed assumptions. The first is that Iran specifically in the "most radical" nation and therefore the source of terrorism. The second assumption is that Mideast national governments in general have effective control over terrorist activities. I suspect the situation in most Mideast nations is very much like Israel and Palestine: while Israel can curb terrorist activities, despite it's military-style occupation of refugee cities and territorial acquisitions (checkpoints, tanks, and soldiers everwhere) it can never entirely stop them. So your proposal is likely to be ineffective at best.
And then, given the anger that your action would probably engender, terrorist activties would probably spring up from areas that were previously quiescent- Indonesia, the Phillipines, Malaysia etc. And then we'd see anti-American action from the rest of the world: China, the EU, Russia, most of Central and South America. I don't think we'd see a military response, but China might dump our Treasuries, and the world might decide to take it in the chops and standardize on the Euro. Trade would be very hard to come by. We might be disinvited from key alliances, Our bases would no longer be welcome. The economic and political fallout would be immense.
As you say- it's all in the details.
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