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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (54459)	10/23/2001 10:51:27 AM
From: willcousa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT War and Nukes Before I got to your post I was framing one myself. I think the questions you have raised - essentially what conditions would lead us to use nukes - are questions that need to be answered. Are we willing to have many americans die at home from a nuke blast that also leaves one of our great cities a nuclear wasteland? Are we willing to preempt if nukes are the only answer? Are nukes ever the only answer given the improvement in conventional weapons? Are there conventional weapons that are worse than nukes? These questions become even more relevant if you accept that at one level we are engaged in a battle for the future of the planet. I raised this in the context of neutron weapons as they are different from conventional nukes and I wondered whether they have a special utility that makes them effective given the nature of the enemy and the terrain he is in. For instance, could you detonate a neutron bomb outside a city, kill the populace but preserve the infrastructure without residual radiation of any long term duration so that the afghans could reoccupy the city after peace is restored? There are some who have an irrational fear of radiation as many have an irrational fear of guns. The Russians have reoccupied Chernobal. Japanese live at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasacki.