Clinton offers mutally assured destruction
Jason Locke - May 1st, 2008Last week, Hillary Clinton stated that she would retaliate against Iran with nuclear strikes if the Iranians launched a nuclear attack against Israel.
This ought to sound pretty familiar if anyone remembers the good ol’ MAD doctrine that was a staple of the Cold War. Yes, Mutually Assured Destruction is back, though I thought it went away when the Russian flag gained white and blue stripes.
I guess not. “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” as the old saying goes.
American hypocrisy has steadily increased over the last decade. Love each other and do no wrong, but we’re allowed to torture. Get rid of your nukes, but we’ll throw around vague and pathological threats of nuclear annihilation.
America, as a rule and in rhetoric, has always claimed to stand for justice, sanity and protection against the barbarian hordes of the world.
Yet certain politicians tend to forget such things when trying to clamor for votes and end up saying things that run contrary to the “moral pillar” ideals of American thought.
Senator Clinton also doesn’t seem to grasp the inherent gravity of nuclear warfare or its far-ranging impacts. A nuclear detonation, even a small one, carries with it consequences that don’t adhere to imaginary lines on maps and don’t distinguish between military and civilian targets.
The woman must be insane to even suggest that the United States of America ought to throw megatons around, even if she believes it’s justified, because lets face it, wantonly killing millions of civilians out of revenge is barbaric, no matter the reasons.
If the United States were to be nuked tomorrow afternoon (if it happens, I had nothing to do with it) what would be the point of retaliation? Hell, let us assume that the entire country was about to be turned into nuclear ash by incoming missiles, what would be the point of launching our own?
So we can say “Well, we got ‘em back, at least” right before being incinerated or dying of radiation poisoning?
I am not saying that there should be no response to a catastrophic event like this, but not an all-out, indiscriminate nuclear assault. Conventional means work.
Conventional tactics based on good strategy and hesitance to cause harm to civilians work even better.
If Israel were to be nuked by Iran, I’d be all for Operation Iranian Freedom, but I would still be against Operation Iranian Wasteland.