Replies

A. I don't know how the Israelis would react, with conventional or nuclear weapons.
B. I'm sure everything possible would be done to reduce friendly fire casualties. Just like the US Armed Forces would do if they were hit by chemical weapons and had to retaliate. And I suspect if he was to hit Israel, he would also hit the US Army.

A. Israel has already stated it would respond with nuclear force.

B. This is an argument against IDF involvement in the war. If the US is similarly attacked, US forces would most certainly respond similarly to the response of the IDF.

A. I personally think chemical weapons are much more likely.

My point is that Sharon's comments are ridiculous. IDF is handcuffed by the circumstances. Even if they had the force to mount a response, Israel can not politically. If Sharon does respond militarily, it will likely damage US-Israeli relations for a long time.

B. The United States, without knowing what it was looking for, or knowing to look for it, recognized Anthax in a country of 270+ million in under a week?

We got lucky. The infectious disease physician in West Palm Beach was an astute clinician and he made the correct phone call to CDC in a timely manner. Nevertheless many people suffered and died during the attack. Part of the reason is the inability of local physicians to diagnose the disease with locally available labs. CDC has not prepared the nation for biological attack and if we suffer civilian casualties in the next few months, don't blame me... i've been posting here about this issue for a year now.

C. I doubt the war would be over that quickly if we're assuming the biological weapons are used from the start. I'm not one who sees another 72 hour ground campaign, although I would hope for one.

Regardless of how long the ground offensive takes, IDF involvement is not planned into the agenda. It would throw off our planning and logistics. Once we are in motion, Sharon should defend his nation by working to shoot down incoming threats, but he should stay out of our theatre of operations.

D. If the war was looking to be over in 3 days or so, I don't think the Israelis would retaliate with anything other then conventional munitions.

No, the reason I have been so vocal on this thread is that the Israeli gov't has already stated policy to do nuclear retalliation to use of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons. The Israeli gov't needs to stop painting itself in a corner. They've lost control of the situation. This situation is now being controlled by the US and the White House.

Althought I'm just a joe-6-pack citizen, the reality is that Sharon is not convincing me of his ability to create a longer term peace strategy in the mid-east.