X-Message-Number: 17571 From: "George Smith" <> References: <> Subject: The nuclear option and the future. Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 16:17:19 -0700 In Message #17552 John Grigg wrote in part: > George, your belief that a nuclear strike is the way to go not only scares > me, but also deeply offends me. What nonsense. My assessment is that a low yield tactical nuclear strike is very likely given the political climate and the depleted conventional American strategic resources. You might as well be offended that I believe the sun will rise in the east. Both appear to me to be inevitable within just a few more hours. However if you are offended that I would be completely willing to see millions of people die who wish to kill me and those I love, then go ahead and be offended. This has been my family's value system for as long as I can remember. (My cat agrees as do the vast majority of US citizens ... now). I am very glad you are not the U.S. > president, or one of his key counselors. I cannot get over your lack of > judgement here. You have obviously swallowed the popular belief that nuclear war will destroy all of humanity. MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) was always a fantasy and still is. It would be horrific and highly destructive but humanity would survive. There was much ignorant propaganda produced over the years on this topic with major motion pictures from "Dr Strangelove" to "Planet of the Apes" portraying nuclear war destroying all human life on earth, etc. For those willing to study the actual facts a different picture has always emerged. Military strategists and tacticians are well aware of these facts. I say this as a friend who sees a gulf between us on the > matter. This gulf is borne from a lack of understanding regarding the facts of this issue. In any case, the actions taken will be from another Gulf and will be taken without regard to either of our opinions on these matters. > I am enraged over the death of at least five-thousand American citizens, but > I still do not feel it warrants a nuclear strike at this point. Then you are not "enraged enough" and do not understand the psychology of the people with whom we are dealing. And by the way TENS of thousands died already. The World Trade Center commonly holds 50,000 people. If that matters. (And it does matter very, very much). Not when we > have varied options with covert ops, conventional air and ground forces, and > diplomatic and economic pressuring. Which the American public, being substantially more "enraged" than you seem to be, will not wait the months required to take place. This must be accomplished to both shock the true enemies of civilization (the masses of anti-West Islamic poor) with devastating violence and to appease the need for vengeance from the American public. I simply do not see how this can be accomplished with conventional armaments we no longer have at this time. Waving a magic wand will not replace the cruise missiles and conventional warheads which were used but not replaced over the last 8 years. Our military conventional armament was gutted and not restored. (Would that it were not so!) I also doubt that a repeat of the Gulf War style bombings and troop movements would be (1) shocking enough nor (2) effective enough especially in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union couldn't do it. There are historical precedents prior to their failure as well. Vietnam was a cakewalk in comparison. These are simply the tactical and logistical facts of the matter. Wishing them away will do nothing. The very fact that people feel as you do, that nuclear weapons are so terrifying, is precisely why a nuclear strike would be so very useful at this time. Terror must meet terrorism to defeat it. Otherwise the message sent to the East is one of weakness. We must behave as a Bull Ape to intimidate the other apes. If we do not, civilization will be destroyed. Utterly and completely. Mike Darwin has this precisely correct. A nuclear strike would terrorize the terrorists. If would fight fire with fire. If we have other fire I am unaware of now is the time to use it. Later may be too late. > > You may ask me just how many Americans must die before I say use a nuclear > strike. Well, I just don't know. Maybe one million, but that is just an > arbitrary number. Unless nuked first, or with hundreds of thousands dying > and dead from a biological weapon, I just don't see why the power of the > atom should be unleashed. The United States already dropped 2 nuclear weapons on Japan. The "power of the atom" was "unleashed" twice before you were born. The reason given then was to shorten the end of the war but there is some evidence it was also done at that time to send a message to the Soviet Union that we had the will to do so, as well as the capability. Hiroshima was for Japan. Nagasaki may have been in part for the Soviet Union. In other words, the United States has already used nuclear weapons first to defeat a fanatical enemy. It worked. Like it or not, civilization is at war with those opposed to civilization. A nuclear strike would deliver the message that we still possess the will and the capability. Let me be even clearer here. If the United States indicates by its actions that if the US is attacked we will make a nuclear strike on a city in the identified harboring nation, the other governments of the world would themselves root out the potential threat to their survival by fighting against the terrorists they formerly tolerated or assisted. The key is to be utterly ruthless and implacable. This requires an act of political will. Even the militant and suicidal warriors and leaders of World War Two Japan succumbed to overwhelming nuclear destruction. Until now the United States has been a "paper tiger." I think that time is over. > Even after what happened, to use a nuclear strike at even a terrorist > sponsoring nation would be a big mistake. Simply because a nuke was not > first used on us. We would be giving terrorists the absolute excuse(in > their own twisted minds) to nuke one or several of our largest cities. And > by boat, plane or truck they would. And terrorist sponsoring nations like > Libya and Iraq would see it as their duty to make the funding, equipment, > and knowledge available to them. Do you see the downward spiral here? The EQUIVALENT of a nuke WAS used on us. A quarter kiloton strategic nuclear warhead airburst at an altitude of approximately 3,000 feet would have produced only a slightly larger impact on New York than the two aircraft produced by destroying the twin towers by impact on Tuesday. There would have been fires and direct radiation but no fallout. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were detonated as airbursts for the same reason - no fallout but maximum structural damage and fire. I am sorry John, but you are still caught up with a viewpoints made extinct by the realities of last Tuesday. These people do not need "excuses". Tip toeing around their fanaticism will not make them friendly. Your "downward spiral" has already happened years ago when this attack was planned for execution. These people are intent on destroying our technological civilization just as we are on the brink of physical immortality and space migration. They are the enemies of humanity and the future. Like it or not, it's them or us. 100%. If we do NOT swat them down HARD this will be viewed BY them as further evidence of their assessment that we are morally weak and cause further terrorist efforts to be heightened and intensified to "finish the job." (There are many historical precedents to support this conclusion). If the US leadership does NOT respond with overwhelming force, it will be because terrorism has accomplished its aim - intimidation. We must terrorize the terrorists. We must be more "suicidal" than they are. It must be civilization or nothing. I feel confident it will be civilization. > I do feel we need to deploy covert special ops teams on a scale never before > seen. But, even that must be done very wisely. The success of Israeli > teams may have been a contributing factor in the American attack. Unlike > Clinton, Bush did not pressure Israel to be restrained in this practice. > So, the U.S. was made to look like a contributor to the violence, and so a > target to be hit. What happened to growing terrorism from Libya following Ronald Reagan's bombing of Libya? It was capped. What happened to growing terrorism in Israel following the hard line approach that nation's government took following Entebbe? It was capped. "Kill the head and the body dies." Decapitation works. It takes time to organize effective large scale terrorist attacks whether using conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. When you assassinate the leadership it meaningfully delays terrorism. This is a strategic fact which has been demonstrated repeatedly. Appeasement will not buy time, only our destruction. Chamberlain was wrong. Churchill was right. Regardless of HOW it happened, millions of militant Islamics have come to view the West as the "Great Satan." The FACT of the matter is that they DO have this perspective. Now they must learn that they cannot successfully ACT on this view without being destroyed. The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to be taught again to a new enemy. The CAUSE of the attack on the United States on Tuesday was your use of the internet, automobiles, television, microwave ovens, telephones, air conditioning, processed foods, washing machines, electricity, and all the elements which make for the technological superiority of Western civilization. This causes us to be "The Great Satan" in the eyes of our enemies. The enemies of humanity this time are the total Luddites. They killed tens of thousands of innocent people last Tuesday because our way of life is EVIL by their definition. Therefore we must turn the tables and invoke complete terror upon THEM. Terrorists are not cloned in laboratories. They have families, friends and a culture. When these are threatened with total extinction the terrorists will be defeated. It has been proven to work before if we will learn from history. Tony Blair is precisely correct. (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001321452,00.html) More will come and it won't be pretty. It WILL be chemical, biological and nuclear if it isn't stopped now. > I realize there are no easy answers. Even the partial solutions will be > costly in money and American human lives. I wish my national leaders luck > in finding the right path. > > sincerely, > > John I will assume that the leaders of the United States will not misunderstand the complete meaning of Tuesday's attack. For the first time in over 8 years the true experts on terrorism have the undivided attention of those leaders. I will also assume that as we still lack the armament to sustain a conventional war, and that the choice will most probably be made to execute at least one nuclear strike against at least one carefully selected target in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Unless someone knows how to create vast amounts of conventional armaments which as of last week we did not have, I doubt that a conventional response will be feasible in the short term. But every day that passes without a devastating, momentous and (in the minds of many) "insanely impossible and immoral" military response, leads us to encourage the would be destroyers of civilization and the overall efforts of cryonics to bypass these dark ages to reach a true civilization yet to be created from our preliminary efforts of the last 400 years. I have complete confidence that the political leaders of the West will not fail to understand that there are no rational alternatives here. I would not be the least surprised if by the time this posting is read by you the nuclear option has been exercised. We need to buy time to pursue the necessary long term answer of covert assassination teams which Israel has used successfully for years. At heart our enemies believe that "Might is right." We must satisfy their need for the absolute proof of this. We must be willing to be "right" by their definition. I am optimistic that this will be what will happen and civilization will survive and the enemy contained. The children's children of today's terrorists will embrace a successful Western civilization and the current crisis will be just another chapter in history. George Smith Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17571