If nuking Iran is a valid option, I'd like a moment of your time please. (graphic warning)

[Pacifist Patriot]

Nuclear weapons wreak havoc on infrastructure. It is true a nuclear bomb delivered to Iran would have a devastating affect on their buildings and probably render it difficult or impossible to retaliate against us.



However, these weapons kill. Which would be precisely the point, yes? They kill indiscriminately.






The lives of the survivors can be described as nothing less than hell on earth.






]

The affects are not immediate but continue.....



When I hear talk of seriously contemplating using nuclear weapons against our brothers and sisters I am really ashamed of being human. My anxiety and disgust at the thought knows no bounds. Have we learned nothing in 63 years other than how to build bigger, stronger and more devastating nuclear weapons?

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. Then you must agree that deterring Iran from nuking Israel first is a good idea n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. I would agree that deterring any country or group from using nuclear weapons...

is a good idea. But there are a great many ways to go about that. Why must violence be the default method?

[CK dexter]

5. No, you don't "deter" a non-existent intention to use a non-existent weapon

Once Iran has clear potential to produce nuclear weapons in the near future AND there's strong evidence of an intention to use them (e.g., say they started raving about "obliterating" it), THEN you can rationally talk about deterrence.

In the meantime, we have to deter Clinton and McCain.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. She was asked what she would do if Iran nuked Israel

If Iran never gets nukes Iran will never nuke Israel, so Iran would not get nuked either.

[CK dexter]

17. Exactly the point: "If" = "non-existent."

So Clinton's swaggering is make-believe deterrence against a make-believe threat. Even asking the damn question is delusional, much less giving the prompted response, much less sexing it up with "god sort em out" bravado.

Iran won't nuke Israel, so the MSM and Clinton should shut the hell up.

[Pacifist Patriot]

22. Fearmongering and opportunistic sadistic control of the masses.

I am just stunned this is even a topic in this campaign. What a load of useless shit when we have so many real problems in the world and our country to concentrate on solving.

[Pacifist Patriot]

20. No, that is not what you asked.

You asked if I agreed that deterring Iran from nuking Israel first is a good idea. That sentence construction smacks of pre-emptive nuclear strike. I think every country should be deterred from nuking any other. And that includes someone deterring us. Hopefully the concept of deterrence by peaceful dialogue and diplomacy rather than violence and military action.

[Tom Rinaldo]

23. My post above was in reply to another poster

I oppose pre-emptive nuclear strikes, and I agree that honest ernest efforts at conflict resolution are the best way to attempt to deter threats of any war.

But I honestly see a very bright silver lining in Clinton's statement. For the last few years leading American political figures have been hinting very broadly about launching pre-emptive strikes against Iran - possibly including use of tactical bunker busting nukes, to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. Implicit in Clinton's statement is an acknowledgment that the U.S. won't attack Iran to prevent it from gaining nukes - rather it will use threats of retaliation to prevent Iran from USING nukes.

[Pacifist Patriot]

25. Ah sorry. I thought the "she" was me. Didn't realize it was a reference to Clinton.

My apologies.

[jr7]

15. e.g., say they started raving about "obliterating" it)

Iran is and has been denying the Holocaust and talking about destroying Israel for a long time. And who do you think is training, funding, and arming Hamas?

Also the big worry is not that Iran will attack us or Israel, but they will hand a nuke off to Hamas or al-queda and they will launch the attack.

The longer we wait and the world wait to seriously deal with the Iranian issue the more likely it is that the Israelis will take matters into their own hands. That could definitely result in an Iranian counter strike. But from the Israeli point of view, that is better than being nuked.

[CK dexter]

16. "Iran is and has been denying the Holocaust and talking about destroying Israel"

So have a bunch of hicks in the deep woods of the US--hot air, and it's not gonna happen there either. Iran is a state; its interests are political and strategic, and it knows very well that an attack (even by proxy) on Israel would be the end of it.

It's not going to happen. It's a paranoid hypothetical being spread by Americans who want to provoke a war with Iran. Which means, again, that we need to deter the McCains and the Clintons, the ones who've repeatedly made viable threats, not Iran.

[guyanakoolaid]

7. It's no more a good idea than milking a unicorn

Both rely on healthy imagination.

Iran has no nuclear weapons, no desire to build them, no plans to build them. They have been open with inspectors. Anyone talking about Iranian nukes is a liar or misguided.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I am absolutely floored at the people at DU who are drinking from the administration's water cooler.

Speaking of learning nothing! Did you hear about those WMD in Iraq? Iran stores their nuclear weapons in the same place. Bush's dreams.

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. Fine. Then there is no issue.

I know Iran has no nukes. I am not as confident as you are that they have NO desire to build them. There are different forces inside Iran just as there are inside the U.S. What the U.S. officially "desires" will be effected by whether McCain wins or loses in November. Politics is not static inside any nation. The United States, under any President (yes even if Obama becomes President) has contengency plans for all possible scenarios. Either way, if Iran does not acquire nukes, or if Iran acquires them but does not use them against another nation, there will not be nuclear retaliation against them.

[eridani]

18. Yes, and we must deter the Easter Bunny from nuking the North Pole

Both possibilities are equally plausible.

[Catherina]

2. "the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being"

:cry:

we have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being – the gift of freedom.

Hillary Rodham Clinton 3/14/2008

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5120944

[Taxmyth]

4. Can't really argue the point you are trying to make

but I don't think with EITHER a President Clinton or a President Obama that it would be a first strike proposal like it was under President Truman.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Not saying that is the case. But I was surprised when I read...

a few responses to a thread last night that indicated some people really considered this a viable and perhaps advisable tactic.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. The threat of retaliation is a tactic used to prevent first use of nuclear wapons by an adversary

You started a thread that rightfully pointed out the horror of a nuclear attack. I found it unbalenced of you not to at least note that the entire discussion of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons was premised on a scenario in which Iran had already used nuclear weapons against another nation first. Would the horror be any less if that was a photo of Tel Aviv?

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. I'm not so sure. Some of the rhetoric I have seen has included the...

idea that we should consider launching a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Especially on the other side of the aisle, but not only there.

Would the horror be any less? I take it you did not read my final comments in the OP.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. Iran is 8 years away of producing a nuclear bomb

Pakistan has bombs. Israel has bombs.

Iran has oil.

[Pacifist Patriot]

21. Must confess I've been wondering who has been calculating the...

length of time before the fallout clears out and gives us direct access to the oil fields. Rhetoric smokescreen of mushroom cloud proportions?

[DangerousRhythm]

10. Horrors.

I really think everyone here should watch an HBO documentary called "White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". Powerful, disturbing, nightmarish stuff. It'd really open some eyes here.

[malta blue]

12. k&r

Thank you for this reminder.

I fear for our own existence when I see these images.

[windoe]

24. Threatening to obliterate another country is unconscionable

-should we be obliterated too for the war crimes of our leaders?

[Pacifist Patriot]

26. One of the aspects of this that saddens me is the number of people...

who think a nuclear response is just and righteous because it is a proportionate response to a nuclear attack by Iran on Israel. (Assuming the highly unlikely event this would happen in the first place.) Brings to mind two axioms.

Two wrongs don't make a right.
An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.

Iran is what, the size/population of Texas? Why wouldn't a strategic surgical military response with conventional weaponry be an acceptable response to an act of nuclear aggression rather than bringing on Armageddon?

This hypothetical evil wrought against Israel shouldn't serve as an impetus for us to abandon our humanity and do likewise.

All of this belligerent talk is just that. Imprudent chatter overcompensating for the fear of the perception a woman can't be Commander in Chief?