I question your sanity.
Posted on 03/30/2009 12:35:19 PM PDT by Mind Freed
Very interesting, bump to read more into later..
Most nation-states have pathetic military establishments when it comes right down to it. Their ability to wage war effectively is severly constrained. But you’ll notice that most wars involve poor countries. Now give those countries unfettered access to nuclear weapons with few safeguards (ain’t going to be any ‘nuclear football’ of permissive interlocks on first-gen, 3rd world nukes). What do you suppose WILL happen?
I question your sanity.
So far a number of countries have managed to get nukes. If a country wants to get them, they will go right ahead, provided they can afford the technology.
Surely no one is suggesting that the USA GIVE nukes to anyone?
The nuclear club has gotten rather large, the past several decades.
I love that movie!!! Friggin’ hilarious!!
Because our culture is superior to every other one on the face of the earth. More freedom, more liberty, more ability to trancend class based on your own achivement, more chance to invent a change that will alter the world and make you rich. Because we have had the Bomb for over fifty years, and have only used it twice, and that saved millions of lives on both sides. Because we have never flown airplanes into skyscrapers to make a political point. And we are all of the above...because we have the means to prevent other nations from taking it, and up until recently, have had the backbone to use it.
Oh, and because the only thing that keeps the little crackpot nations from using the ones that they have bought, made, stolen, or copied with the help of Democrats is that we have more, bigger, more deadly ones.
The nation with one or two bombs is more likely to use them (and expect not to receive a return missile exchange).
And it isn't just the US that wants to keep other nations from becoming nuclear powers. And there were those within the United States who aided Stalin's Soviet Union (via espionage) to give the Russians the Bomb.
Madelyn Albright said that she didn't want to see the US become the world's lone super power. Have to wonder what sort of mentality likes to see the US taken down a peg or three.
If we did give up our nuclear bombs, all of them, can we trust that the other nations would do the same? Saddam Hussein wouldn't even let UN weapons inspectors visit his sites without a lot of runaround. Consider Saddam a convicted felon. He was permitted to remain in power after the first Gulf War but there were agreements he never upheld. Among them was an end to his weapons programs. Whether he was successful in obtaining those weapons or not is beside the point, he was like a felon out on parole trying to obtain prohibited weapons in violation of his parole.
You don't have to hire a hitman to go to jail, if you make the effort to, you can be convicted.
Back to the nuclear powers, the bombs exist. They are not hypothetical. So what evidence do we have that they would all be destroyed? What basis do we have to believe that China, North Korea, Iran, etc would not continue weapons development?
There is a deterrence effect in having these weapons.
We probably would have seen a lot more conventional wars after WWII if there was no nuke.
And there has been an unwillingness to fight to win since WWII. We don't need to use a nuclear bomb to win or even threaten to use a nuclear bomb.
The nations we have been at war with since WWII could easily have been conquered with an all out assault (as we did on Germany).
The decision to go to war is not an easy one but all Commanders in Chief should be prepared to lead this nation in war. It goes with the job of the Presidency. Anyone unwilling to do so is unfit for the job.
Barack Obama has pledged to end our weapons development programs, to oppose the militarization of space (what do you think China's rocket launch program is about), and to cut the military budget (actually shift funding to a domestic civilian "security" force).
If I recall, the No Nukes protest movements came from those who believe we never could or should defeat the Soviet Union, that we would have to accept the USSR as a Communist entity.
When the US government's two branches fall into the control of progressive appeaser Democrats, hostile foreign nations, with a bent on destruction....like, say, Japan, Nazi Germany; Iran, currently, eg.....are permitted to arm themselves by means of engaging the US and other free, like governed, civilized nations in schoolyard diplomacy and false promise that allow the appeasers to feel good, and give the bad guys room to prepare for mayhem.
Conservatives know this. When they are in power, we suppress dangerous global criminality for real. And, knowing the day will come when a milquetoastee, proud, naive commie will inherit the reins of government, conservatives also build bombs and delivery vehicles...train forces to maintain and use them...so that when the future appeaser's diplomacy fails to thwart war and death, the limp-wristed John F. Kerry types have the big bombs, etc, at their disposal to save the planet.
The appeasers, of course, take credit; but actual credit belongs to the war-hawks who assembled the means to pull the plug on a global catastrophe.
H-bombs...tactical and humongous, are the best plug-puller available, and have a proven record of saving millions of innocent lives, at the expense of tens of thousand innocent lives: one of those unfortunate things that must happen when assholes...like those who populate the majority of Federal, elected offices this day, drop a ball which rational men would not, ever.
MHO...YMMV
From the KAMics.
Not really. If you could 100% guarentee that you could tell that other countries dont have nukes then maybe you could make that argument. But you simply cannot do that. Our nuclear arsenel is now as it has been for decades, designed to be a deterrent. Other countries that have nukes (which eventually will be any country that wants them. We simply can’t put that back in pandora’s box) know full well that the retaliation for a nuclear strike on the U.S. would be the annaliation on their country (maybe less so now with 0bama).
The only caveat and it’s a scary one is an organization with no country (ie. Al-Qada) getting ahold of a functional nuke. They have none of the restrictions on them provided by the old cold war MAD concerns. If they were to smuggle it into the U.S. and set it off then it may be next to impossible to determine where to retaliate and some of the responsible parties may not even be detected (though I imaging every ounce of our intelligence community would be brought to bear).
Just go back and re-study World History from 1900-1965. You’ll find enough to answer that question there.
Same theory applies to nukes. Rogue countries, those that are known to do harm to others, will not give them up, and then they would be able to wield that power over those countries that would abide the no-nuke policy.
First and foremost, we arm our country to protect it and our citizens. Then, we do our best to keep mass casualty weapons out of the hands of bullies and murderers.
Of course, a lib would say the USA is a bully and a murderer, so there really is no using logical arguments with them. They also think if guns are outlawed, every gun will magically disappear.
Libs do not understand being prepared to defend yourself. They assume if you hug everyone enough, things will just be peachy.
Hay Dave, good to see you still knockin around this joint.
1)We need them cause other people have them and will never give them up or could be trusted to completely do so.
2)We need to stop more other people from having them so there is less of a threat to us.
3)This is so 70’s.
Hi there yourself. Don’t have a lot of time for posting outside of the Word for the Day.
I question your sanity.
The question at hand was whether the U.S. had a right to prohibit other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons - not whether it is in our national interests to do everything in our power to prevent them from doing so.
As I wrote:
We have no logical arguments, and must therefore use persuasion and - if necessary - force to prevent certain countries from coming into possession of nuclear weapons.
So I am certainly not in favor of rogue states, failed states, or what have you, of getting their hands on nukes. On the contrary, I am very much in favor of our using even "dirty tricks" (covert tactics, the assassination of rogue leaders, etc.) in order to achieve such aims.
I merely maintain that it cannot be argued with Aristotelean logic that we, indeed, possess any objective right to dictate to other countries how they should stock their arsenals.
I admit that the argument is a subtle one, but I trust you to understand the difference I am trying to make.
Regards,
In the case of Israel it is a needed self defense mechanism.
The U.S. has objected to the likes of Syria, Iran,Iraq, NK, Libya, and a couple of others from aquiring the technical capabilities, however we have failed on a massive scale from preventing some of them.
Libiya gave them up in fear of being pounded into glass by Reagan, now we have a weakling for a President, a society that doesn't understand the danger, and a LOT of countries that don't like us.
By literally giving other countries a pass on development of weapons grade materials, you create the ability to use that new power.
Governments change, sometimes by force, a lot of times by subtlety. In either case the danger, such as the volatility of a Pakistan, can destroy us all.
As the leaders of the free world, with a society unlike any in history, and with so many who want what we have, and those who hate us for it, we SHOULD dictate .
For the sake of us all.
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