On Jun 15, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Robin van Spaandonk wrote:
And your point regarding occupation is?
I only asked what it meant, I didn't say you were wrong. I don't
disagree with
you that it would have that result. I do however disagree with the
ethics, the
legality, and with the original premise that any form of occupation
is necessary
to begin with.
My point was not about ethics at all though, merely that pursuit of
nuclear weapons capability is a *stupid* strategy for a country like
Iran. My only intended involvement here was to predict possible
scenarios, not consider ethics. Ethical or not, when any state
starts an unlimited war then that war is unlimited. A small power
has great disadvantages in such a war. Asymmetric conventional wars
are more sensible for small power war mongers that insist on having
their wars, and of course no war at all is way better.
[snip]
(This already happened once before - see Ur). Furthermore, the jet
stream
will carry the fallout around the planet, and millions of your own
population
will also die of radiation poisoning and cancer. Perhaps needless
to say, the
perpetrators could well be among them.
This is possibly not necessarily true. It is only necessarily true
for lots of massive air blast weapons. Growing up I lived for years
in the path of fallout from nuclear testing. Sure, lots of people
probably have died from cancer from the tests, but the world goes
on. Few think of it today.
This sort of reasoning leads to total annihilation of the human race.
Sure the World may go on, but then again it also may not. There is a
considerable difference between a few nuclear tests, and all out
nuclear war.
And even if a few hardy souls do manage to survive, what sort of a
hell are they
condemned to live in? Is this really such an inviting picture that
we should
invite it by casual use of weapons of mass destruction?
Of course not. But any use or seriously threatened use of such a
weapon is almost certain to evoke an extreme response. That seems to
me to be an obvious fact. Making such threats, or even positioning
to make such threats, thus seems to me to be a stupid strategy.
The infrastructure of a country the size of Iran can probably be
knocked out using a few 20 megaton bombs and lots of underground
burst weapons followed up with periodic neutron bombs and
conventional weapons.
Why would it even be desirable to do this?
Maybe to avoid the need to occupy? Maybe a perceived need to make an
example of the folly of the use of such an arsenal? A perceived need
to defend in a circumstance where there are no longer any rules. A
perceived need to stop the evil at any cost. The need to do what
ever can be done to make sure it doesn't happen again for a very long
time. What were the Romans thinking when they sacked Carthage? A
nuclear response to a nuclear attack seems to me to be inevitable.
What is it exactly about little Iran
that has America so terrified?
Maybe it's the lack of trade?
Surely you are no longer sucked in by the words
of a President that has already proven that much of what he says is
pure
propaganda designed to mislead his own people?
BTW if you are implying that an "underground burst weapon" is safer
than an
ordinary nuke, then consider that all weapons designed to do this
have to enter
through a hole in the surface, and the nuclear explosion itself is
going to
enlarge this hole and spew radioactivity into the air.
Yes, you are right, it is. Radioactivity will also be emitted from
ground fractures for years, and any water tables polluted as well.
But there is a big difference between Bikini and Chernoble when it
comes to air pollution. Underground nukes would not be thermonuclear.
Regards,
Horace Heffner
