Bush threatens to use nukes.....again!

[Saen]

*Originally posted by il Topo *
A very significant problem (that I think should be made VERY public) is that the US military doesn’t do chemical or biological weapons well, either delivering them or receiving them. The US military is ill-equipped and ill-trained to handle any sort bio or chem attack, and even less well equipped to respond directly in kind (e.g., with bio or chem).

Just curious of where you get that from? I was under the impression that the US military is the best trained and equiped to withstand a chem or bio attack. At least that is what I heard Franks and Myers say, so it could be a bit biased. Even if the UK or small, advanced armies like Canada is ahead of us, I would still put us in the top five. We do have the chemicals and bio agents. ‘Supposedly’ so we could study a defense for them. That’s just my impressions of course. If you had data or something it would be cool to check it out.

[Sam_Stone]

That statement was not, “We’ll retaliate with nukes.” The specific wording Bush used has been around for a long time. The basic idea is that there are some attacks on a country that warrant a response of overwhelming force. In other words, the response is to smash your government and take control of your country. That’s exactly what the U.S. did in WWII, along with the other allies. And that’s what would happen now. And in a state of war, all weapons are in play. The U.S. is saying that IF Iraq were to do something deadly enough and the only way to stop them was to drop a nuke on something, the U.S. reserves that right.

It seems like a sensible policy to me.

[yojimbo]

*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic *
I’m not sure what you mean by WMD or by “national interest,” but let me say this. I would not respond to ANYTHING with nukes, not even other nukes. If China launched ICBM’s at America, well then, that’s it for America. Nuking China wouldn’t save us, it would only be petty revenge, and it would slaughter millions of MORE innocent people. The moral imperative of a president in such a situation should be the preservation of as much of the human race as possible. A nuclear response would be strategically useless and morally bankrupt.

Although I know that in the real world unfortunatly this is not the case I still agree 100%.

[Ryan_Liam]

Does anyone think they is by the media and overuse of the sentence Weapons of mass destruction?

[tracer]

Ryan_Liam:

Yes.

The words “Weapons of Mass Destruction” are a big scary-sounding phrase that can be applied to anything from hydrogen bombs all the way down to hand grenades and shotguns.

I preferred it in the good old days, when the media used phrases like “Chemical weapons” and “Biological weapons” and “Dirty bombs”. In the mind of the casual listener, saying “Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction” invokes images of a nuclear stockpile. This is misleading; if there really was evidence of a nuclear stockpile, the media would instead say “Saddam Hussein has Nuclear Weapons”, because that’s a lot scarier, and the media loves to use the most shocking terminology they can.