Saturday, August 28, 2010

Either Nuke 'em or Back Off

Well, it looks like Iran is well on its way to creating nuclear power. John Bolton, that tool picked by the Bush Administration to be the UN ambassador, said that weIsrael had 8 days to stop a nuclear Iran. Like there was going to be some big apocalyptic event that would destroy civilization as we know it. Sorry, but that honor is reserved to the banksters and the toolbag politicians who like their feet in reverence.

The problem with our foreign policy is that it is the most insane and stupid plan I've ever seen. You think that the United States' domestic policies were annoying, try applying them overseas with military force. Here we just have to put with the police if we go against the government, which in some ways is pretty bad, but overseas, they have to put up with the military which is always armed and has bigger guns than the police (although that gap is rapidly becoming smaller).

For some reason, following a series of total wars, our political class decided that we needed to police the rest of the world in order to fix things. This foreign policy is what many call interventionism and it crept into the conservative movement because of a nuclear bomb scare (thank you Julius Rosenburg) and William F. Buckley, Jr. Yes, the conservative icon of the 1950s would rather see the Soviet nuked than the policies of FDR revoked. And many social conservative politicians were all too willing to accept his help. A politician will love you so long as you provide ideas that expand their power. That's why Keynesian is still in vogue in DC.

The problem is that there is ultimately only one thing that will make other nations fear us enough to obey our every whim. The American people and the political class, however, are both unwilling to do this because they all do not wish such a horror to be unleashed on even the Devil himself. I speak, of course, of using nuclear weapons against our enemies.

Understand that I have no desire to see nuclear weapons used against anyone, anymore than I'd like to see 'conventional' bombings, guns, knives, swords, or rubber chickens inflicted on other people. I am a man of peace. But I'm also not a fool who plays games. If we are going to continue to insist on fighting people, we must be willing to use every weapon at our disposal. To do otherwise is, well, quite stupid and makes us look like pussies.

Because we are unwilling to use nuclear weapons, in other words go all out, in our foreign wars, 'rogue' nations will continue to act in defiance to us and build up their own arsenals to be used against us should we cross them in the future. If our central planners really wanted to stop Iran, they could have years ago and no one would have been able to do anything against it. They managed to bail out the banks, after all, and didn't suffer any real consequences.

All you warhawks, listen up: if you continue to insist on winning the 'wars' we are fighting overseas and don't call for nuclear bombings, then you are a coward and a fool. It's all or nothing, there is no in-between when it comes to war. Or rather, when there is a war not being fought to fullest, then you are just wasting the lives of soldiers. This is what Obama is doing right now with our troops overseas and this is what Bush was doing during his final term.

To my shame, I was a warhawk myself, like so many others. But now I've come to my senses and realized that I was wrong. It's a hard thing for people to admit they're wrong, but when the lives of literally millions of people are at stake, you'd better be right. And this time, you aren't.

Unfortunately, I doubt things will change for better because most people are selfish idiots. Not that there is anything wrong with either trait on its own (being blissfully ignorant has its benefits after all), but when combined, they make for a volatile cocktail of unpredictable nightmares. When you push that to a global stage, billions of lives are now hanging in the balance because of a few assholes who think they know better.

9 comments:

  1. You're absolutely right. It always annoyed me to see Americans go to war and then get all ghey and not go for the kill. With all that military hardware and software, America should have wiped its ass with Vietnam.

    Macchiavelli once said, in his most under rated Art of War, if you are not ruthless in war (like the Romans) you will lose. Either you're in or you're out.

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  2. Why are Christians so big on killing lots of innocent people with wars and nuclear weapons? Is your God hungry?

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  3. The "Christians are the only ones who want to start wars" thingy bugs me. Holy Fifth Crusade Bat-man, it's not the only one that does!

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  4. I didn't say that. I'm saying you're both theists, but Nikk and I are atheists who don't believe in stupid wars. I just find it odd.

    I must have missed those parts of the gospel where Jesus supports nationalistic patriotism and war mongering. I don't remember him being such a huge fan of Rome... and we all know how faithfully Rome adopted Christianity, just as Jesus intended...

    If you get "Christians start all wars" from that, I can't say I'm surprised by your reading of the Bible.

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  5. Where the f did I say what you said? All I said was "if" you're going to start a war finish it to the death and go for victory. I didn't say I support wars.

    Shit. I'm a theists and I didn't know it!

    Quit labelling will ya?

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  6. In the 6th century B.C.E., Sun Tzu wrote:

    Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

    There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.


    Therefore, it's all or nothing. Wars should be quick and decisive affairs, not perpetual.

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  7. Obviously Sun Tzu was unfamiliar with the military industrial complex.

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  8. OK, I don't think I was all too clear in my post here.

    The metric the United States should use before entering into any armed conflict should be whether or not we are willing to use nuclear arms against our foes for any reason. If we are not, then we shouldn't go to war at all.

    In essence, we'll never go to war because no one is willing to use nuclear arms against their opponents except for a few crazies. I am not pro-war here, I am pointing out the sheer madness of modern warfare. It's merely a game to the warhawks.

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  9. I think you made the point clearly. We can apply your assertion to both Mac's and Tzu's theory of entering war to win at all costs. In this case, using nuclear weapons is an advantage to the U.S. to defeat an enemy - quickly.

    If Americans don't want to stomach then don't go to war and get involved in a fabricated protracted war. Which can lead to, among other things, a nation internally divided.

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