Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.” […] The letter was initiated by Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California , San Diego , who last fall put together a petition signed by more than 1,800 physicists that repudiated new U.S. nuclear weapons policies that include preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries (http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/). (more)
Those Californian physicists, always protesting something.
Fine. Then we just have to come up with some kind of megaton level non-nuclear weapons and use those instead.
“that include preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries”
Won’t be true for much longer. Iran will have a nuke soon and if they get stuck and need help I’m sure the scumbags in the Kremlin, who will sell weapons tech to anyone with money, will be happy to help out.
gc — this time around, CIA types are covering their butts in advance of invasions run by the Rummie-Rove-Bush axis. CIA spokesmen have made it clear Iran isn’t capable of offering up a nuclear weapon for another decade. Don’t mess your shorts quite yet.
And, Paul, dear Paul — trusting soul that you are. Why must you offer such religious trust to creeps who’ve demonstrated over and again their willingness to lie, cop out and deceive?
Even Microsoft tells the truth more often than Bush. Yet, you accept the oldest political ploy in the world — plausible deniability — coming from politicians who have established new lows in belief from an entire nation that still believes in the tooth fairy.
Yeah best thing to protect the world from Iran’s nu-clear energy is to blast it into the stratosphere with a couple of megatonnes of USA NUKES
Why think of the lives we can save by smearing Irans (Not India or Pakistans) A BOMB over the face of good old mudder erth.
Will they be angry with us? Hell no now they can wear Levis and drink coca cola, just like us ordinary folk
Shit, George W(Ancr) Bush could just use this to declare a third term
“We are at war, and un till suck tim as… GAWD BWESS AMEWICA”
While I don’t think we should use nuclear weapons premptively against anyone I don’t think we should make it known that we won’t. That is I don’t want the Iranian Government thinking we have taken the nuclear option off the table. I don’t think it is in our or anyone else’s best interest to stike them premptively (nuclear). I don’t have a problem with those physisists expressinve their view. That is one of the nice things about this country; people can express views without fear of reprisals.
Guys, I have to go with Paul on this one. If you think diplomacy is the best way to get Iran to not build a bomb then you DON”T take the POSSIBILITY of a preemptive nuclear strike off the table. Bush didn’t say he WAS going to do it. He said that he was NOT going to take any OPTIONS OFF the table. This is standard diplomatic stuff.
If the USA told the Iranian Government that we weren’t going to do anything except just ask nicely for them to not build nuclear weapons you would have to be pretty niave to think that would do anything but have the Iranian president rolling on the floor in laughter. (I am distinguishing between the Iranian Government and the people in Iran; I have nothing against the Iranian people and wish them no ill will.)
The fact is that Iran getting nukes is highly desirable from the wests point of view. That is if people actually think about it.
If Iran got nukes it would really annoy Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is and was supported by the Saudis to get their bomb. If the US were to as well, pull out of Iraq, which would mean Iran would start to move in, we’ll have Muslims threatening Muslims all over the place… and not us!
And please don’t give me that red herring about Iran nuking Israel. Iran doesn’t have a way to get the nukes to Israel (no they don’t, their missiles are primitive and nukes are a large engineering problem in terms of putting them on missiles, look it up) and even if they did they know they could expect a 5 to 1 retaliation. Israel’s retaliation would be sure to kill most of the Iranian leadership.
Sure oil might go up in price but the Muslim world has nothing else to sell so it won’t be cut off. Even if it was we’d get by. About time we started serious conservation anyway.
This whole Iran thing is because the Saudis don’t like it. Bush and Co. are bought and paid for by the Saudis. No not like “all politicians” they have an intimate relationship with the Saudis. Saudi wants nukes in the Muslims world as they are… the advantage on the Saudi side. The Saudis desperately want to prevent a Muslim MAD. We should be encouraging it.
this is a fact-free matter. the only fact is that these physicists are creating a petition based on a guess. that’s, well, silly.
These physicists are not creating a petition based upon a guess. They are creating a petition based upon a possibility.
there *may yet turn up some evidence that indeed the pentagon is planning on using bunker busting nukes against iran, if a whole cascade of scenarios plays out in the future*. if so, then there’d be a story.
They have plans already for invading Iran, including where to go in, what back-up they need, what to take out first, and what munitions they need. Are nukes included? I don’t know, they won’t let me in on their briefings. I am confident though that there are several officers with varying amount of stars on their shoulders already playing through all the possibilities.
I do agree with your whole contention about making a mountain out of a mole hill. But hey, wait until Congress gets back from vacation and into motion. The press have so little else to write about right now.
Can’t prove me wrong eh Paul.
BTW metaphors don’t have definitions.
Paul, I agree with your arguments on this one (not necessarily the Milo comments, though).
And after that letter, the bombs were developed and used which shortened the war and saved a lot more lives than were taken.
I hope somebody reviews the maps of the contamination spread from Chernobyl [is it really 20-years ago?] before blowing-up any nuclear facilities – using either conventional or nuclear waepons.
http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php?userhash=13421499&navID=2&lID=2
That way we won’t be blind-sided by all of the “down-winders'” complaints about fallout.
Paul et al:
1 Figures of speech are slang, not “real words” but even granted that the definition is proper, a red herring is:
“Something that draws attention away from the central issue.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=red%20herring
I was hoping not to waste any more time with this diversion from the topic but it’s actually the only argument Paul has made. The idea that Iran, after having spent vast amounts of resources it can ill afford, would nuke Israel, which would give Iran no benefit whatsoever, is brought up, by both Iran and many in the west, wittingly or not, to distract us from the immediate issue. That the US may invade and nuke Iran is the topic of the letter and the post on this blog.
Remember when Pakistan and India both got nukes? Everyone was wailing and tearing their hair over that. What has happened since? More progress on a lasting peace between those countries than has ever happened before. Now I suppose someone will want to say something again about how Iran’s president has said this that or the other thing about destroying Israel. Iran’s president has a PHD in civil engineering and knows what to say to whip up the yokels. In point of fact Iran is arguably the most democratic Muslim country in the world. In situations like this its helpful to know geography, a subject most Americans are retarded in.
Think about this like a strategist and you’ll see that Iran getting nukes would be the best thing that could happen to the west and Israel. America invading Iran will increase hostilities between the Muslim world and the non Muslim world to the point where we will be living our lives on a war footing… oh wait that gets republicans elected doesn’t it?
Smartalix that is absurd. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries on earth and one third of India’s population lives in desporate poverty. Furthermore the only country in history that has used nukes on an enemy is the richest one in the world… the US.
What kind of an argument is this anyway. “We hate those guys over there enough to nuke them and risk getting nuked in return… Oh wait, our standard of living went up 10%. Let’s all join hands and sing songs instead!”. Ridiculous!
Fine I will make predictions:
1 Iran will go nuke and the US won’t do squat except whine and impose some sanctions that won’t do anything since the US has already imposed just about all the sanctions it can on Iran.
2 Iran will never attack Israel in any direct way and Iran will never, directly or indirectly, use nukes on Israel.
Time will show that I’m right.
Of course we are not going to use nuclear weapons on Iran. However, that Nevada test scheduled for June is supposed to duplicate a 700-ton tnt blast — supposedly the yield a small, nuclear bunker-buster would have. But 700-tons tnt just happens to be equivalent to dropping a 5,000 pound object from 120 miles above the earth.
Hmm . . . 5,000 pounds just happens to be the payload capacity of the Air Force’s Delta IV rocket.
Nuclear? No. Kinetic? 🙂
Opps, I made a mistake. The Delta IV lifts more than 5,000 lbs. It could put up to ten such devices into LEO. (Uh, how many Iranian targets are there?)
In The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Thomas L. Friedman makes a very good case for supply-chain peace.
About 3/4 of the way through, myself. A good read. Depressing to read his descriptions of why we [in the US] should upgrade our job-skills, due to the inter-connectedness of the world.
The issue here is not about Iraq using nuclear against America and its allies, the issue that Bush wants you ninnies to buy is that we should bomb Iraq because we are AFRAID that they MIGHT use their weapons against us.
Well, you Americans bought the war on terror the first time, who’s to say that you’ll be less greedy and heartless this time around?