Hillary and the BOMB

[IndianaGreen]

Many of these articles were posted and discussed in DU at the time.

Published on Thursday, April 12, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack, John… and Whitewash
by Norman Solomon

The Pentagon’s most likely next target is Iran. Hillary Clinton says “no option can be taken off the table.”

<snip>

A year ago, writing in The New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported: “One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.”

For a presidential candidate to proclaim that all “options” should be on the table while dealing with Iran is a horrific statement. It signals willingness to threaten — and possibly follow through with — first use of nuclear weapons. This raises no eyebrows among Washington’s policymakers and media elites because it is in keeping with longstanding U.S. foreign-policy doctrine.

<snip>

Earlier this year, David Rieff noted in The New York Times Magazine on March 25, “Vice President Cheney insisted that the administration had not ‘taken any options off the table’ as Iran continued to defy United Nations calls for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The response from Democrats was not long in coming. Senator Clinton helped lead the charge, reminding the president that he did not have the authority to go to war with Iran on the basis of the Senate’s authorization of the use of force in Iraq in 2002.

“But what Senator Clinton did not say was at least as interesting as what she did say. And what she did not say was that she opposed the use of force in Iran. To the contrary, Senator Clinton used virtually the same formulation as Vice President Cheney. When dealing with Iran, she insisted, ‘no option can be taken off the table.’”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/12/467/

Published on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 by the Bangor Daily News (Maine)

Terrorism and the Forgotten Threat
by John Buell

If a decision is made to launch nuclear strikes from U.S. bases using B-52s, it can be done without any telltale unusual movements of assets. A single B-52H can put over 6 megatons of nuclear power on target anywhere on the planet within 30 hours from the time the order is received.”

<snip>

Even Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton seeks to establish her tough image by refusing to rule out nuclear strikes.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/17/4645/

Published on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 by The Progressive

Hillary Clinton and the Woman Thing
by Ruth Conniff

Could a woman win a Presidential election in this country and be personally appealing and progressive enough to excite people like me? Any woman who is going to hold her own against those big male egos in our bizarre political culture is likely to come off as cold and overbearing. If she were warmer, she would no doubt be criticized as soft. If she were not so pro-military, we’d have to endure all the questions about whether a woman could find the strength to drop bombs on America’s enemies. Remember, during the Reagan years, when you heard people argue that a woman couldn’t be President because she would not be able to bring herself to “push the button” and start a nuclear war?

No one suggests that Hillary wouldn’t push the button.

You could say that’s evidence of how far women have come . . . I guess.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/27/2129/

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. I'm sure I'm not the only one...

...who finds the idea of using nuclear weapons to deter someone else from getting nuclear weapons disturbingly ironic, especially since the talk is coming from the only country ever to use them on people.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Using nukes, particularly the bunker buster variants, will spread radiation

all across the globe. It won't just be non-Christian and non-whites that will die from its long term effects. America's nuclear chickens will come home to roost!

Anyone that advocates a US nuclear first strike is too reckless and insane to be allowed anywhere near the nuclear button.