"TIME TO USE THE NUCLEAR OPTION":
This Headline Should Send a Chill Down Your Spine
Amidst the unified sense of American support
for a war on terrorism, the debate about tactics has just begun. The
Washington Times, a conservative newspaper (owned by Rev. Moon) that both
influences and reflects Bush administration policy, ran an alarming
September 14th commentary calling for the use of tactical nuclear weapons
in America's "war on terrorism."
"The time has come for the United States to
make good on its past pledges that it will use all military capabilities
at its disposal to defend U.S. soil by delivering nuclear strikes against
the instigators and perpetrators of the attacks against the nation's
political capital and the nation's financial capital.
At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear
capabilities should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of
Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that
orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States
and the current administration.
To consider use of the nation's nuclear
forces, in the present circumstances, cannot be brushed aside as an overly
emotional response to the unknown face of terrorism. ."
Woodrow concludes his appeal to the Bush
Administration by declaring: "No, the bin Laden groups must be
exterminated completely before they become more powerful in their efforts
to exterminate us. We should use our nuclear capabilities to help achieve
this."
If you’re a BuzzFlash reader who has been eager to
give the Bush defense team a blank check to conduct our military
operations, take a deep breath and think again. It is in the nature of
initial patriotic feelings to support the nation's leadership in their
military plans as they confront a threat to Americans, but the devil, of
course, is in the details of how the "war'' is waged.
Given that several nations hostile to
the United States reportedly have access to nuclear weapons, it would be
fool hearty for America to launch a tactical nuclear strike unless it were
a last resort to saving our nation. A so-called "tactical
nuclear strike" would open the doors to initiating a nuclear or germ
warfare counterattack by terrorists or "rogue" nations against
the United States on American soil. It is one giant step toward abandoning
our moral authority in opposing the use of nuclear weapons.
The fact that the Bush administration has
been keen on abandoning the ABM treaty -- in order to pursue its
single-minded focus on a missile defense shield -- further increases the
likelihood that the U.S. will face a nuclear attack of some sort. It's
willingness to trade off the build-up of nuclear capabilities in China in
return for their support of a missile defense system is testament to an
obsessive focus on a star wars nuclear defense option that is rooted more
in Hollywood fantasy than science.
"Missile defense won't just fail to stop the
next big terrorist attack. It could hasten the next attack and make it
literally 100 times as lethal as Tuesday's….The more nuclear materials
there are floating around beyond American control, the worse things look.
And missile defense would probably raise that amount.
Both Russia and China have made noises about
escalating their nuclear programs in response to missile defense. In the
case of Russia, the threat rings hollow for fiscal reasons, but China has
the resources to deliver. In fact, it is modernizing its arsenal in any
event and can well afford to accelerate and expand the program in response
to missile defense. And most experts agree that, within the framework of
nuclear deterrence, doing so would be rational. In the more distant
future, rapid growth in the Chinese arsenal could spur growth in India's
arsenal, which could spur growth in Pakistan's arsenal, which could spur
more growth in India's arsenal, and so on—with each iteration upping the
chances of a little plutonium or uranium straying into the hands of
terrorists."
As noted in our Sunday BuzzFlash Editorial
Commentary (http://www.buzzflash.com/BuzzScripts/Buzz.dll/Content),
the New York Times reported in August that the Bush administration,
stretched to budgetary limits in its support of the missile defense system
and the tax cuts, was backing off financial support of a program to
neutralize plutonium that is currently in Russian nuclear warheads. The
Bush abandonment of this Clinton administration initiative will increase
the likelihood that terrorists and "rogue states" will be able
to obtain weapons grade plutonium on the Russian black market. In short,
the Bush administration may be indirectly facilitating potential terrorist
and rogue state procurement of the very nuclear material that could be
used in rockets or bombs transported by plane, train, boat or truck.
Wright notes further: "Bush also shrank a
program designed to keep Russian nuclear scientists gainfully employed, so
they won't need subsidies from Osama Bin Laden et. al."
It's a mind boggling illogical strategy, which
jeopardizes all of us. This administration, one critic noted awhile
back, only has one mode of thought: linear. It hasn't shown the ability to
be resilient and adaptive to changing circumstances. In fact, its nuclear
and missile defense policies are more rooted in the Dr. Strangelove
perspective of the 60's than the fluid realities of threats to Western
civilization posed in the new millennium. This may be, as Bush
declares, the first war of the 21st Century, but we have cold warriors
with a mid-20th Century military strategy at the helm.
In a September 16th Chicago Tribune commentary by
conservative columnist Steve Chapman, he describes, with alarm, a growing
phenomenon along the Turkish border:
"On Tuesday morning, The New York Times carried
a story from Istanbul that furnished cause for mild worry. Police in the
former Soviet republic of Georgia, just over the border, had recently
arrested four men with four pounds of enriched uranium--which could be
used in an atomic bomb. This incident, according to the Turkish
Atomic Energy Authority, was one of more than a hundred attempts to
smuggle nuclear material into Turkey in recent years. None is known to
have succeeded. But "the rising number of incidents and the strong
belief that only a fraction of shipments are intercepted," reported
the Times, "have raised the level of anxiety here."
Chapman went on to warn:
"Missile defense, if it can ever be made to
work, would address only the least plausible threat. It would also consume
vast amounts of money that could be used to combat more realistic
possibilities. That doesn't mean we should stop research on the program.
But it should come well down the list of priorities.
At the top should be preventing rogue states
and shadowy guerrilla organizations from obtaining the most destructive
weapons ever devised. This is one instance where failure cannot be an
option. What happened Tuesday was unimaginably horrific. What happens the
next time could be worse."
The implications of the September 14th column
in the Washington Times need to be taken seriously. Congress should make
clear in no uncertain terms that the use of nuclear weapons in the war on
terrorism could result in catastrophic retaliation against the United
States.
And no missile defense system will defend us from
nuclear weapons loaded onto hijacked planes, boats, trains, trucks or
cars.
When it comes to nuclear restraint, who will
restrain our Commander in Chief?