GOP Congressman Suggests Limited Nuclear Retaliation

CNS News ^ | 10/18/01 | Jim Burns

[Sender]

I read that gamma radiation can travel for a mile through air, but how about through rock? Would the mountain rock not be an effective shield against this? Of course, if it causes a high pressure blast wave that travels down the cave then who cares about the radiation effects anyway, they are toast.

[verity]

"Buyer for President, 2008"

He is not fit for higher office if he thinks this way. The first use of nukes would be a propaganda victory for the enemy.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Here's to our next President :-D

[Justa]

They'd be ground-penetrators so there'd be little, if any residue alpha or beta radiation at the surface. Additionally, they'd be used against the type of remote, underground complexes -for which they were made. As for public opinion, I agree with you there.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Not necessarily. These guys are smart and cunning, and they may well be waiting for a special moment or for us to perform a certain action before they play their ace.

I think they took their best shot at us on 9/11. They had to know that security would be tighter than tight after that.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I agree. By noon on 9/11 I was saying "Nuke Kabul." (Well, actually I was saying "Nuke Mecca" but you get the idea. Immediate response.)

With all the crap that was flying over us that morning, I was wondering if we'd been nuked or if there was something *special* added to whatever made the WTC seem to explode. And that debris cloud? I thought it was going to kill us, right then and there.

By 9:30 a.m. I was ready to fire up the nukes and aim 'em in that direction.

[Pitchfork]

You're generally right, although not having depolyed these munitions over the range of situations that might arise we have only probabilistic knowledge of how much radiation might escape. Our modeling, as good as it might be is not a flawless indicator or real world results. The likelihood of a messy outcome increases with the number of uses.

That aside, America--justified or not--can be criticized for being the only nation to every use atomic weapons against other human beings. I'd rather we avoid a second episode of this unless it is clear that even the most extreme conventional munitions are ineffective. I firmly believe we can achieve our goal of eliminating Bin-Landin and eradicating the Taliban without recourse to nukes.

Why open pandora's box?

[habs4ever]

We still have another 7+ yrs of Dubya, or have you forgotten? By then, Bret Schundler could be ready and tested....:-)

[NYC GOP Chick]

Bret can be Steve's VP. :-D

[FreeYourMind]

Good point...we do have far more powerful conventional weapons which won't have nearly as catastrophic an effect on the people who re-inhabit the area. All Buyer has done here is illustrate his extreme ignorance.

[zog]

--someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I have always thought and been under the impression that part of our longstanding MAD doctrine was that ANY attack on the US using ANY WMD, would automatically result in an overwhelming counterattack using WMD. both "overwhelming" and WMD, and nukes would definetly fall-in there someplace, almost pun intended. So, now, this isn't true, it's all been a big wussy bluff or something? BAD PRECEDENT.

Speaking of nukes, has shrub yet counter manded klingons PDD changing our launch parameters from "attemtpt to launch after sufferring a devastating and confirmed first strike"? I wonder if he is even aware of it, really.

[Khaleel]

I don't know, sometimes I just think the best thing we could do is lash out with such violence and cruelty that the rest of the world would be shocked into silence for several minutes following. I think we should convince them that we have gone f***ing crazy.

I once had a neighbor who would park in my parking space. I simply parked by car directly behind his so he couldn't move. He would have to come over and ask me to move my car so he could go to work. He explained that he couldn't move because I was parked in the way. I just nodded yes, that was true. He must of gotten tired of trying to rationalize with a crazy man because he started parking his car in the neighbor's space on the other side of his house.

[Khaleel]

I firmly believe we can achieve our goal of eliminating Bin-Landin and eradicating the Taliban without recourse to nukes.
Why open pandora's box?

The box has been opened since 1949 when we disregarded George Washington's sound advice to stay out of alliances with other nations.

All we've suffered since then is retaliation for one alliance that required another alliance that brought about another retaliation, e.g. US & Saddam against Iran, then US & Saudi against Saddam; or US & Osama against USSR now US & Russia against Osama.

All we're doing now is recruiting more for the Jihad. We need to shut the box. Tightly!

[jojo the boxing kangaroo]

There are very few of lifes problems that can not be solved with high explosives.

[vannrox]

[vannrox]

[pgkdan]

Fire 'em up!

[BlueLancer]

"We need to shut the box. Tightly!"

How about radioactive fused glass? Would that shut it tightly enough? Sounds good to me.