printHERE’S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AMERICAN “CONSERVATISM”: Obama, who seldom does anything good, is “revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.”
The only country to ever nuke hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians is committing to not repeat that shame. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Not if you’re a fire-breathing GOPier or conservative.
They object to the following policy outline, which seems to me more than reasonable:
“For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack. [Nuke a country for hacking into the state’s computers?! Are these people serious?]
Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with ‘a series of graded options,’ a combination of old and new conventional weapons. ‘I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,’ he said in the interview in the Oval Office.
White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.”
Today’s GOP is too dim to double check their lust for blood against what their oracle Ronald Reagan would have preached. This via Andrew Sullivan:
“A Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the Weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when Nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.”
– Ronald Reagan , 1984, in China.
The neocon crowd was angry at Reagan in his second term for trying to reduce nukes with Gorby. They also consider his withdrawing our troops from Lebanon (a sensible correction to the idiotic idea of sending them there in the first place) to be a sin comparable to Adam and the apple.
I don’t consider myself a “neocon”, whatever that is, but I do have an opinion about nukes. We should never let anyone think we would hesitate to use them if we need them. No, I don’t think we should nuke someone for a cyber attack but if we start picking and choosing to the world one of them might try us out just to see where we draw the line. To unilaterally state that we wouldn’t use nukes for any reason is a mistake as it leads the world to think we are timid. [You misrepresent BO’s position. Bad form.] They didn’t like us because we were a bunch of trigger happy cowboys. Good. That’s just what they need to think. Of course there’s not much danger of anybody thinking Obama is one. Cowboys don’t go around dropping their pants and bending over for dictators.
Ilana – I just e-mailed you some photos contrasting modern day Hiroshima and modern day Detroit. Feel free to post them. Perhaps we can get someone to nuke us and force us to give up on our dreams of Global Empire …. Myron
Nuclear doctrine is very complicated and part of the deterrence is based on keeping potential enemies uncertain as to how we would react to a variety of possible attacks. By removing some of that uncertainty Obama has weakened us. Reagan was not speaking doctrine, he was being a political leader.
The innocents killed in Japan were no different than the innocents killed in the massive bombing of Germany by the allies. I cannot see any moral superiority in killing a hundred thousand by conventional means rather than one atomic bomb. [Agreed. Who said the one mass killing was better than the other? Not me. Wrong inference.]
Israel is a prime example of vague doctrine. They don’t even admit to having nukes. No one knows what their doctrine is, but I can guarantee that should their nation be threatened with destruction or wholesale slaughter, there would be a ring of nuclear destruction around Israel.
It’s American global hegemony.
Or I should be specific and say the hegemony of an elite class.
Interesting that Mexico has mounted a series of “dirty bomb” (illegal aliens) on the populace of the Republic, but nothing has been done to seal the borders.
But you cannot have hegemony unless you eliminate the nation state.
Either with nukes.
Or by invasion.