As part of the global yearning for utopian peace, much ado has been made about nuclear weapons since July, 1945. Much of that ado has been hogwash, driven by Luddites with a collectivist agenda.To those disagree, answer this:
Is someone who is killed or maimed by the effects of a nuclear weapon detonation (i.e., blast, heat, immediate radiation, residual radiation) any less dead or maimed than someone who is shot, burnt by incendiaries, shattered by concussion, or poisoned by war-contaminated water?
The answer is "no".
Man, as a species, is a dangerous combination of savage heart, opposable thumbs, and large brain. Add largely-situational ethical frameworks, and you have a being who has used every single weapon ever invented to murder countless millions of his fellow creatures.
Fail to account for that reality, and your policy prescription, however well-intentioned, is essentially bunk.
Jennifer III walks us through related logic in the following trilogy:
Exercise In Futilty
The Iron Law & The Monopoly On Force
To The Extreme
On the subject of WMD's, I still get a kick out of hearing the rant-Boosh lied & people died. Back in Gulf War 1, in March 1991 one of Saddam's ammo dumps at Khamisiyah was destroyed. Do a GOOGLE search for the word Khamisiyah and you will learn about the Sarin nerve agent that was in rockets destroyed at that ammo dump. It was estimated that 100,000 to 150,000 of our troops were in the area and exposed to the nerve agent. I learned about it from a neighbor (2 doors away) who was in our local National Guard unit which had a convoy of 24 trucks passing thru the area when the Sarin rockets were blown up. Half of that group of local guardsmen in now dead, 10 from brain cancer & 2 from young age heart attacks. Of the surviving 12 guardsmen, I know 2 personally and both are sick with early stage brain cancer. There was a funeral service on May 11, 2010 for a 45 year old former Army helicopter pilot who had 8 brain tumors (cancer) who had flown over what looked like a bunch of dead animals in the desert 19 years before.
ReplyDeleteThe Sarin chemical weapon is really nasty and if it doesn't kill you right away, it will still kill you in a slow and painful way. I live near the Bluegrass Army Depot where there are some 25 tons of the stuff left over from WWII that is yet to be destroyed. That can't happen soon enough for me. Take care and pray that this sort of weapon is never used.
Nuclear weapons bring economy of scale to the battle space...why drop thousands when one will do?
ReplyDeleteI'm just against war led by States. Can't trust 'em. Ever. I wouldn't mind a nuke in the hands of a Mother Teresa. She'd never use them. A State would. Not to give them souls, but I don't trust any weapons being in the hands of the State's functionaries. I trust them in the hands of my neighbors.
ReplyDeleteI'm all right with any peaceable citizen owning an M1A2 Abrams.Show me a moral, and legitimate defensive use for a weapon that slaughters millions, and I'd be OK with that, too.
But States are the only ones with nukes. No defensive scenario could ever merit a high yield nuke.
Not to be a pinko who says, "guns are designed for killing," but what on earth is a megaton nuke good for but destroying an entire city?
And again, I'm all in favor of anyone who is not behind bars owning an M240 or M249, SMAWs, or M1A2s.
The best argument for individual nuke possession is that they work, and hence have profound deterrent effect.
ReplyDeleteThink Heinlein's "armed society" in the context of <10 kiloton driveable devices.
:-)
I'm with Concerned on this one. The problem is that no modern statist society will allow its members to have equal firepower to their enforcers.
ReplyDeleteEven the Swiss with their militia rules of combat weapon ownership don't allow them to have tanks/APCs.
While I applaud the idea. It won't happen in our lifetime.