Indiana congressman supports using nuclear devices

[jehh]

http://www.msnbc.com/local/wthr/m105001.asp

What can I say, it speaks for itself...

?I would support the use of a limited precision tactical nuclear device. What does that mean? It means that when there are these hardened caves that go back almost a half a mile in Afghanistan, don't send special forces in there to sweep. We'd be naive to think biotoxins are not in there. Put in tactical nuclear devices and close these caves for a thousand years.?

While his is the first voice, I wonder if anyone will join him...

What do you guys think?

Jason

PS. He does have the smarts to say this, "There is a huge difference, though, between a strategic nuclear device and a tactical munition that is limited in its size and used for a specific purpose." He at least knows what he is talking about...

 

[Soulflare]

I think all hell would break loose if they did, even if it was low-yield. Whatever little
support exists for the US in the Middle East would vanish, real fast.

There should be plenty of convential weapons capable of sealing those caves, and
suffocation would be one of the more unpleasant manners to dispose of terrorists.

 

[jehh]

<< I think all hell would break loose if they did, even if it was low-yield. Whatever little
support exists for the US in the Middle East would vanish, real fast.
>>



It might...

Or...

It might make that support much stronger... There is something to be said for scaring the sh|t out of your enemies...

But I get your point...

Most people wouldn't support it, unless they felt it was needed to stop some kind of WMD attack against the US... Then again, we ARE being attacked with Anthrax... Not very well of course, but it doesn't change the fact that they are using bio weapons against us...

Jason

 

[reitz]

He's not all wrong. I think the US needs to accept that we're in this for the long haul, and if it comes to it we'll do what it takes to win. I hope (and nothing really suggests otherwise) that the US is considering just using nukes to win quick 'n easy, and damn the consequences. Hopefully nuclear weapons will not be used unless they're the only affective option.

 

[erikiksaz]

<<suffocation would be one of the more unpleasant manners to dispose of terrorists.>>

i thought everyone else believed that a terrorist should die a terrorists' death? i think suffocation would be a nice way to eliminate those umm, bastards.

 

[isekii]

I say.. smoke'm out...

use napalm...

 

[Soulflare]

I meant unpleasant, from their perspective.

 

[JellyBaby]

It makes no sense to spend all this time, money an effort to take out the terrorists in Afgan. without making it permanent. Sealing the terrorist caves sounds like a good idea but I'm against using any nuclear weapons to do it (overkill, bigtime). Nukes, if ever we use them, must be defensively employed or only as the very last resort in a pickle.

 

[jehh]

<< It makes no sense to spend all this time, money an effort to take out the terrorists in Afgan. without making it permanent. Sealing the terrorist caves sounds like a good idea but I'm against using any nuclear weapons to do it (overkill, bigtime). Nukes, if ever we use them, must be defensively employed or only as the very last resort in a pickle. >>



Very well put, I think most of America agrees with you...

The only problem is, by the time you're in that "last resort" situation, it is already too late...

Jason

 

[coloumb]

I think it's a good idea - use a small tactical nuke, specifically one that can penetrate deep into the cave [to reduce the amount of damage to the surrounding environment], and then detonate in such a manner that seals the cave [thus causing suffocation].

Face it - countries other than the U.S. and Russia either have nukes or are capable of producing them. And if the leader of that particular country decide they want to use them for their own justifications, they WILL use them at the expense of possibly angering the rest of the world.

Quite honestly, I think most of the world is sick and tired of terrorism and would make an exception in this case.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< The only problem is, by the time you're in that "last resort" situation, it is already too late... >>

With Bush's crew I doubt we'll find ourselves in that position. So no worries for now. But you can never fully predict what the enemy will do. The negatives associated with even tactical use of nuclear devices far outweighs the plusess. Besides, I doubt we need them at all -- you don't kill a fly with a flamethrower.

 

[atom]

I would think that using a small yield nuke inside a deep cave would probably one of the safer places (fallout wise) to set a nuke off, wouldn't it? But then I really don't know much about nukes.

Anyways, I don't think the situation he is talking about is nothing that can't be done with conventional explosives.

 

[Soybomb]

I think thats one of the dumbest things I've heard today. Nothing has even come remotely close to justifying the use of any sort of nuclear weapon. No matter how large or small, if you use it, you've just escelated things to an incredibly high level.

 

[jehh]

<<

<< The only problem is, by the time you're in that "last resort" situation, it is already too late... >>

With Bush's crew I doubt we'll find ourselves in that position. So no worries for now. But you can never fully predict what the enemy will do. The negatives associated with even tactical use of nuclear devices far outweighs the plusess. Besides, I doubt we need them at all -- you don't kill a fly with a flamethrower. >>



Unless you need to kill a thousand flies...

But your point is made...

I think the point the Congressman was trying to make is this, "do we really want to wait until WMD are used against us before we use them ourselves?"

Jason

 

[JellyBaby]

<< Unless you need to kill a thousand flies... >>

Heh.

<< , "do we really want to wait until WMD are used against us before we use them ourselves?" >>

If they had them they would have used them by now. I hope the mere fact the west was so agressive in responding to Sept. 11 is putting fear into the other Talibans of the world. Harbor the bad guys and lose your harbor is the message.

Anyway, the congressman is an idiot and only trying to make headlines.

 

[jehh]

<< If they had them they would have used them by now. I hope the mere fact the west was so agressive in responding to Sept. 11 is putting fear into the other Talibans of the world. Harbor the bad guys and lose your harbor is the message.

Anyway, the congressman is an idiot and only trying to make headlines. >>



Perhaps he is...

But...

Then what the heck is all this Anthrax stuff?

The 6 people infected don't bother me, the 42 people exposed don't bother me, it is that one of these fools will figure out how to put it into the HVAC system of a building...

My Mom cannot take anti-biotics, if she got infected, she would die most likely... That bothers me about this stuff...

Jason

 

[reitz]

JellyBaby,

I don't think it's going to be that "easy". We still need to deal with the fact that a lot of people in that area (justified or not, it really doesn't matter to those people) really hate the US. I don't see how intimidation alone will be enough to keep that hatred from blowing up and allowing someone like Bin Laden to strike us. I think the Middle East and South Asia aren't stable enough right now for us to really be safe from terrorism.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< Then what the heck is all this Anthrax stuff? >>

All psychological warfare. By targetting Dashel, and the media giants you guarantee constant, unabated news coverage for a long, long time. My guess is they want continous fear, around the clock, day and night. I don't see this working that way. People will continue to go about their lives and will harden-up to these threats.

reitz, we may never see a world without terrorism but we can contain it to such a degree as to make it damn expensive for them to commit it!

 

[reitz]

<< reitz, we may never see a world without terrorism but we can contain it to such a degree as to make it damn expensive for them to commit it! >>

I definitely agree, I want us to make it as difficult as possible for terrorists to hurt us, but I'll sleep a lot easier if we're able to stop people from becoming irrational fanatics in the first place.

 

[Soybomb]

<< I think the Middle East and South Asia aren't stable enough right now for us to really be safe from terrorism. >>


Bingo. Terrorism is always going to come from somewhere. By its very definatation we can't stop it. We can do our best to prevent it, but how would you totally eliminate it? Nuke the middle east, south asia, and what the hell....most of africa because they're politically unstable or dislike US policy? You can't eliminate it. We need to all accept that and just try to work on prevention. Tighten our security, not try to nuke them. Like roaches, you can try all you want but you'll never kill them all. You need to make it harder for them to get in and live in your house. Or something like that

 

[jehh]

Random thoughts....

On one hand he has a point, on the other hand...

Think about where Afganistain is... Right next to Pakistain, India, China, etc... All nuclear powers...

If the Anthrax attacks actually spread and start hitting thousands of people I'll change my mind, until then, I think it is overkill...

I do think it is something that might be supported later, but it would be too much now...

Both you and I know that a very low yield nuke is nothing but a dozen Daisy Cutters rolled into one, but it is the symbolic nature of it that is the real problem...

The risk we run is that Pakistain might decide to switch sides and hand over a few nukes to Bin Laden... That is perhaps one REALLY good reason to not use them...

I'll tell you what WOULD make me feel better... If we sent forces into all these countries and physically removed all WMD from them, take away all NBC weapons so they don't have them anymore... They would resist, but I sort of don't care... I don't want to drop nukes on innocent people (yes I know using them in mountain caves isn't innocent people, but you know what I mean), but I do believe we should make it a policy that any nation that isn't friendly to the US shouldn't be allowed to have such weapons...

Of course they would complain saying, "what right does the US have to make such a call", to which I would reply, "well gosh, we probably don't have the right, but by gosh we do have the biggest stick so we're gonna do it anyway..."

Then again, perhaps that is what got us here in the first place...

I have a headache now...

I'm 25, in all my adult and even teen life, nuclear weapons were always, "my father's problem", I never considered them a concern, I just saw them as something for history...

Now for the first time, I consider myself threatened by them... The CIA director stated publicly about two weeks ago that they knew as long ago as 1995 that Bin Laden has been trying to buy a nuclear bomb, they stopped him twice so far (and he has only tried twice so they say), but it concerns me that he might get one... I don't doubt for a second that he would use it either...

When it comes right down to it... This is a group of people who want to kill me and my family... I consider killing them simple self defense... The problem is to kill them may mean killing other innocent people... I would like to avoid that...

This being said, when it comes down to it, it is self-defense...

I've never been afraid of anything in my life before, but I am now... Not that some terrorist/boggieman is around the corner, but that there is a bad guy 13,000 miles away and can STILL hurt me and my family... The fact that he doesn't care if he dies in the process makes it all the more creapy, and he has proven that he has the means to make good on his threats...

The trick is, how do you stop him? The answer is, I don't know... I know that dropping a few nukes may stop him and create a dozen more just like him, so that doesn't solve anything, and I'm not yet prepared to nuke 1/3 of the planet to get rid of all Muslims... (I'm sort of kidding, but I have heard people say things like that seriouslly, most of them just uninformed and stupid, but then that is all it takes) ...even if that would solve the problem, it makes us terrorists as well... Which I could live with I guess, but it makes me sick to my stomach to even think about that... Which is why I guess I'm normal and human and I care about innocent Afgan's as much as I care about innocent New Yorkers...

My 3.2 cents... I have no idea how to really deal with the long term problem, killing them all is not a good solution, for one thing it is wrong... for another, it is wrong, and finally, well... it is wrong... Perhaps that is why we're good and they are evil, we know good from evil...

Jason

 

[Jejunum]

it would definately be wrong to use nukes

then we would have no moral superiority; ever country (like india, pakistan, china) could then use a nuclear device saying its no big deal because the US used one....

 

[Czar]

To most people a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon no matter how small or large it is. That means that if any nuclear weapon is used it will give others, in their mind, the right to use any nuclear weapon. We dont want that.

 

[hagbag]

what is really scary about this is that the use of nukes is now being discussed by people as a real option.

hagbag

 

[GTaudiophile]

I wonder if there is a way to somehow drill (or bomb) deep enough into the earth's core to create a volcanic eruption in those mountains. Burn them out naturally.