The United States has a first use nuclear policy. We don't just plan on fighting wars with nuclear weapons, we plan on winning them. So don't worry, you won't be nuked, our enemies will. And if they are foolish enough to commit to the Treaty on Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, too bad for them. Bush thinks we should make smaller nuclear weapons, so their use will become more "thinkable" as opposed to unthinkable. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...y13,1,1690465.story?coll=la-home-todays-times NEWS ANALYSIS Bush Is Seeking Newer, Smaller Nuclear Bombs Cold War-era devices are too big to be a believable deterrent, and the U.S. needs options to confront current threats, proponents say. By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- A dozen years after the Cold War's close raised hopes for an end to the nuclear threat, the Bush administration is embarking on a quest for a new generation of nuclear bombs that are smaller, less powerful — and that the Pentagon might actually use in battle. In the administration's view, the frightening size of Cold War strategic nuclear weapons diminishes their deterrent value today: No one believes that the United States would use them against a smaller foe. As a result, they argue, the United States needs the option of smaller nuclear weapons to deter the terrorist groups and rogue states, such as North Korea, that are today's foremost dangers. Although officials insist that they have no present plans to build such bombs, recent steps make it clear that they want to fully explore their options, and get the deteriorating U.S. nuclear weapons complex in shape so they could move to quickly develop and test such arms, if the order comes. This month, the administration is taking a step toward a new generation of weapons as Congress moves to repeal a 10-year-old ban on the development of small nuclear arms. Over the protests of outnumbered arms control advocates, the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday voted 15 to 10 to lift the ban; the repeal language is expected to survive as the defense authorization bill moves through the full House and Senate this month. In the same bill, the Senate committee approved $15.5 million to conduct further research on a huge nuclear weapon, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, that would be used to destroy deeply buried targets such as weapons stockpiles or enemy leadership sites. . . . Spending on the nuclear complex averaged $4.2 billion a year during the Cold War, and bottomed out at $3 billion in 1995. This year, the administration is proposing to raise spending to $6.4 billion on the complex, which has about 100,000 employees. Included is spending to refurbish various labs and facilities, to buy new plutonium cores for nuclear warheads, and to restart production of tritium, a gas that increases the force of thermonuclear explosions. "There are upgrades all across the complex," said Stephen I. Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Opponents can try to stop any new bomb-making program by holding up appropriations for research, development and manufacture. But arms control advocates acknowledge that's harder than it seems. Since many lawmakers see nothing wrong with research and development, and once a weapons program is big enough to provide large numbers of jobs, it gains broad political support.
I think everyone here is missing the point. A country on planet earth has developed lazer guns! We've been dreaming about this since we were children! Yay! We finally made it to the future!
I didn't say we'd given up. I said we were sending home the team responsible for looking and that we'd virtually given up. The article where I heard it's at the top of this thread, which is still on the front page. http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57159
When has Iraq? How was Iraq any more of a threat to the US than NK? NK is on the State Department list of terrorist sponsoring nations. They have nuclear weapons and god knows what other fun nasty little weapons. They've tested missiles straight over Japan. They've threatened to sell nuclear fuel if we don't meet demands. They've threatened war if sanctions are imposed. They could blow Japan off the map tomorrow and the US would be at war immediately, throwing the world into complete chaos in the process. Don't fool yourself about the differences between Iraq and North Korea. Iraq was a puppy dog compared to North Korea. You can talk about the potential for attack from NK being less than that from Iraq but that conflicts directly with what the CIA said about Iraq, that Saddam's weapons were for prestige/regional power and that he would not attack the US unless provoked militarily.
The US actually does have a laser gun, and it is actually for blowing things up, not causing blindness (incidentally it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions to blind someone with a laser, but not to fry them... go figure.) The device is the Airborne Laser and it is for theater missle defense. The "deformable mirror" technology is really cool and has been used on a number of newer telescopes. Also, we have a big @ss microwave oven mounted on a truck, which isn't really much of a future weapon, but still comes in handy at those large tailgating parties after we invade someone. They also have made military particle beam weapons and xray lasers in labs but have yet to create an afordable way to make them useful.
Well I personally think this all started with the failed attempt to get UN support. Early on, the majority of American citizens didn't want action taken without UN support. The only way we could get UN support was to show WMD in Iraq. I still believe that there were and perhaps still are WMD in Iraq yet to be found, but in the end, WMD doesn't really matter to me as much as just getting rid of a loose cannon dictator that tortures his people on a daily basis. Perhaps the US thought they needed to magnify the WMD issue to gain support from other countries, in the end it didn't work. At the time, it seemed that UN support would be a great thing to have, but as time went on, more and more people didn't care about UN support. This is most evident in the fact that the majority of Americans don't care if WMD are found at all anymore...
Cold War-era devices are too big to be a believable deterrent, The only thing that was sane about the whole nuclear arms thing was they were too dangerous to use by sensible people. I guess after the whole fall of the Berlin Wall people were starting to feel safer from nuclear war, but it was just too much for these guys. What a great idea by the Bush gang to make it so much more appealing to use nuclear weapons, even for first strike preemptive type attacks. This is guaranteed to just make more countries want nuclear weapons. As they just demonstrated to the world, with Iraq and N. Korea, the only way to oppose US foreign policy is to acquire nukes. Not sure why it should be so hard to see that the whole world doesn't want to be dominated by them and will race to acquire nukes if that is the only option.. The necons are so unwilling to give up their idea of dominating the world militarily that they futher risk nuclear war. Can someone tell me that this policy actually makes them feel safer?
Good article. *********** ................In its latest bid to frighten the planet into a constant state of shock and awe, our government is accelerating its own leading-edge weapons-of-mass-destruction program: President Bush's allies on the Senate Armed Services Committee have approved ending a decade-old ban on developing atomic battlefield weapons and endorsed moving ahead with creating a nuclear "bunker-buster" bomb. They also rubber-stamped the administration's request for funds to prepare for a quick resumption of nuclear weapons testing. What's going on here? Having failed to stop a gang of marauders armed with nothing more intimidating than box cutters, the U.S. is now using the "war on terror" to pursue a long-held hawkish Republican dream of a "winnable nuclear war," as the president's father memorably described it to me in a 1980 Times interview. In such a scenario, nukes can be preemptively used against a much weaker enemy — millions of dead civilians, widespread environmental devastation and centuries of political blowback be damned. ..............................more
This is highly offensive to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. Would you say this to the families of the people aboard the hijacked planes? This is beyond inappropriate. This is nothing but Muslim fundamentalist propaganda, a genre of fiction that you are quite fond of, glynch.
Actually what's offensive is Bush thinking that we don't have enough nukes. What's offensive is using 9/11 for political reasons and to persuade people to follow a hawkish unrelated agenda. If I had lost someone in one of those planes I would be angry as hell that a real tragedy is spread paper thin to weaken our constitution and justify wars that aren't related. I hate that the Bush administration and John Ashcroft use 9/11 to try and put through patriot acts that are an attack on our nations framework.
Jorge, you constantly try to use use the suffering of the 9/11 folks as an attack weapon to advocate your viewpoints and to silence your opponents.. You should feel ashamed of yourself for such unfeeling disregard for their suffering that you view it mainly as a vehicle for advancing your own ego.
Franchiseblade, good to see you alsocalling Jorge on his dishonest using of 9/11. Sadly he is just following Bush/Rumsfeld on this.
I don't know if I said it, but the reason we dealt with Iraq first because IT WAS A THREAT WE COULD DEAL WITH. We cannot deal with North Korea militarily without really pissing off people in the region, who are also some of the most powerful nations in the world, especially China. The Middle East lacks those world powers, and we were also in Iraq from the Gulf War. We are not already present in North Korea trying to enforce no-fly zones, weapons inspections, and such, like we were in Iraq. I don't know which crowd you are in, but I honestly believe the administration felt their stats on the amount of unaccounted for WMDs was correct. I don't feel like they were lying and just using it as an excuse to take out Saddam. Either way, the U.S. was able to eliminate what it felt was a significant terror threat, because of these circumstances surrounding Iraq. I agree that Saddam firing off a nuke at America is not a potential threat like it is in North Korea, but Saddam funded terrorism and we believe he was continuing to try to develop WMDs. That was a no-no especially considering we were already in Iraq. North Korea is developing much more dangerous things and has the potential to deliver them, however we can't do anything about it militarily. North Korea has done nothing to provoke us militarily except its usual schizophrenic/Napoleon complex/Dr. Evil language. Their military is not made for regional domination. You cannot forget that. It is made to take over South Korea. The long range missiles are developed more for a show of power than for actual use. Can you disagree with me there? I hope that made sense, because I don't really know if it did since I am half awake.
GLYNCH....you know it is only one line in this piece of **** article that really pisses me off and discredits the whole entire f***in thing for me. Its pretty tough to really offend me, but this does... "What's going on here? Having failed to stop a gang of marauders armed with nothing more intimidating than box cutters, the U.S. is now using the "war on terror" to pursue a long-held hawkish Republican dream of a "winnable nuclear war," as the president's father memorably described it to me in a 1980 Times interview." What the f***?? That just completely trivializes the terrorist attacks. This jackass basically is saying everyone on those flights were a bunch of pu$$ies for not fighting back against some thugs with boxcutters. You are a complete f***in ass if you support what this guy is saying and post it here saying "Good Article". Anything he says has no f***ing value after that one line. It is the single most ignorant thing I have ever f***ing heard. JUST SHUT THE F*** UP!
More of the same lunacy from you, glynch. 9/11 was a *real tragedy* in which *real human lives* were lost. It is not a political tool, nor should it be. Republicans consistently reference 9/11 not out of political convenience, but because it has been the single most influential day of the Bush Administration. It has caused the need for dramatic changes in policy and much legislation. Of course it will be mentioned frequently. For you and the liberal lunatic fringe to refer to it as a 'weapon' just proves what level of desparate measures you will stoop to in an effort to slander the party in power. You, sir, should feel ashamed at yourself for using 9/11 as weapon, not me. You continue to disgust me.
I wonder why we don't hear more about the US arsenal of Neutron bombs? I believe they are still classified, but they are basically radiation/heat mini nukes. They destroy organic matter while leaving structures intact, scary stuff.
I think TJ makes a good point here...I mentioned to Batman the other day....can you imagine the weight that must have been on Bush's shoulders that morning as he learned of this? Watching those images from our perspectives was painful...but what if you were president of the united states at the time? It's your job to protect those people...and this got through. How could that not change you on a very fundamental level? How would that not become the focus point of your administration...the focus point of your life's work? I don't think we can trivialize the impact of 9/11...economically...socially...psychologically. The country changed that day, whether we like it or not.
Immediately after the action and for the next month or so, I thought Bush did a great job on leading after 9/11. I thought the way he handled going into Afghanistan was great, and prior to 9/11 I wouldn't have thought him capable. But since that time, I think he's moved on and brought up 9/11 to justify things that aren't related. The Republicans have also used it to label anyone who would criticize the president as unpatriotic, and push through the Iraq agenda. During that one press conference by Bush every question about Iraq, he kept bringing 9/11 even though it had nothing do with the reporter's questions about Iraq. He was clearly trying to link the two and in that way he was belittling a real tragedy. 9/11 also justified to the administration coming up with the Patriot acts. These things are discredit to real tragedy that happened and a truly heroic response that followed by Bush and many Americans. I remember New York being totally different after that happened. It was kind of amazing. I do agree that it should be revered and it's something that should always be remembered and those who died, who had anything to do with the rescue attempts, should be given all honor. It should be held as a sacred and serious day in our history, not brought out and waved around every time a new military action needs to be justified. If Bush wanted to attack Iraq in order to liberate the Iraqis, he should have just said so. Since then 9/11 has been used to justify anything that would otherwise be unpopular with anyone but Wolfowitz clones. That is what's shameful. People who try keep the day remembered in reverence and not tainted by careless use for political purposes.
