Friday, August 25, 2006

our national detour into CRAZY!town

From Walter Williams (c/o Glenn Greenwald):
Does the United States have the power to eliminate terrorists and the states that support them? In terms of capacity, as opposed to will, the answer is a clear yes.

Think about it. Currently, the U.S. has an arsenal of 18 Ohio class submarines. Just one submarine is loaded with 24 Trident nuclear missiles. Each Trident missile has eight nuclear warheads capable of being independently targeted. That means the U.S. alone has the capacity to wipe out Iran, Syria or any other state that supports terrorist groups or engages in terrorism -- without risking the life of a single soldier.

Terrorist supporters know we have this capacity, but because of worldwide public opinion, which often appears to be on their side, coupled with our weak will, we'll never use it. Today's Americans are vastly different from those of my generation who fought the life-and-death struggle of World War II. Any attempt to annihilate our Middle East enemies would create all sorts of handwringing about the innocent lives lost, so-called collateral damage.

Such an argument would have fallen on deaf ears during World War II when we firebombed cities in Germany and Japan. The loss of lives through saturation bombing far exceeded those lost through the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This is why the elections matter. This is why the Democrats have to win. Neoconservatives like Williams are currently running the Republican party. They comprise most of the senior staff in the Executive branch, up to (and including, in my opinion) the guy sitting in the Oval Office.

This is what they want. This is what they believe in. The nuclear annihilation of other countries that have not even attacked us, nor is there any tangible evidence that they plan to.

Preemptive. Nuclear. War.

So Williams is among the first to actually say it. Plenty of others, however, have hinted at it, as Greenwald shows. You really think there's no possibility of neocons in the government wanting this as well, or at least something similar? How much are you willing to bet on it?

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