BTW that nuke photo is the Castle Romeo shot, 3.8 Megatons if I remember right. The good old days when the USA was doing atmospheric tests in the marshall islands. The Marshall islanders weren’t too happy about the forced evictions though.

RE: NATO
The US has considered pulling all of its bases out of NATO on occasion. It would reduce our cost considerably. I believe that one reason it has not happened is due to resistance from the hosting countries. The bases generate quite a bit of local revenue.

It’s NATO we’re dealing with, they’re like the UN but without the whimsy. I’d just have them watch Dr. Strangelove, at least it might make them laugh.

However, while we’re at it….WHERE does it say anything about nuking Afghanistan??? The paper relaesed is talking about two different subjects relating to NATO: A) The half-assed ~my words~ management of NATO forces in Afghanistan with regard to the Taliban due to the way decision-making is handled within NATO (which allows those not contributing any forces to micro-manage/manipulate those operations); B) The reiteration that if it seems likely one of these outside threats looks to be gearing up to attack the West that NATO won’t hesitate to defend using a nuclear weapon.

There are major issues with NATO and how it’s run, especially since Germany and France decided a while back to create a second force outside of NATO with which to handle things—with the eventual aim of moving NATO out. Also, the aforementioned special rules that several countries like to place upon their own troops, etc…All in all it needs an overhaul.

As for the nuke, people are correct. Some radicals would *hope* to incur a nuclear war and point to it as the coming Apocolypse, or a sign of the Mahdi coming back, etc…or just incite more strife. True, but in some cases we just have to do what we must and weigh each option carefully.

If anything, the report shoudl serve notice to people on both sides of the Atlantic not to take anything for granted. The peacetime dividends people took after the fall of the Soviet Union are long gone.

It carries over into politics, and international politics, everywhere.

Consider how they refused to believe the Taliban actually was going to try to enforce strict Sharia law, until the Taliban moved in and started beating up people for smoking cigarettes, wearing the wrong kind of pants, trimming their beards, etc. The locals are so used to everyone lying that they just cannot believe the plain truth unless they see it with their own eyes. They are not going to believe that they are going to get blown up until the blast wave knocks them on their butts.

Actually, those “Arabs” remind me of the lefties. They believe what they feel like believing, until reality smacks them, and then they start screaming about insensitivity, Bushitler, etc.

This means the Saudis, Afganistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, etc need to realize that if they cannot prevent the extremists within their population from attacking the West, they will face total destruction.

Agreed, but what politician would have the balls to propose such a doctrine. None that I can see.

The West also had a policy known as mutually assured destruction (MAD) – which was that the response to an attack on the west with nuclear weapons would result in a massive, overwhelming counter-attack, inevitably leading to the total destruction of all sides.

The purpose of both policies was to deter the idea of any attack.

It seemed to work – in the sense that the proxy wars between the West and the Soviets remained limited to low-level conflicts using conventional weapons.

Against the “new” threat of religious extremists potentially armed with nuclear weapons, we need a similar policy. But the idea of destroying the world in a nuclear war seems to be attractive to the religious extremists. So, instead, the policy needs to be aimed at the “governments” which are supposed to limit the violent aims of their citizens.

This means the Saudis, Afganistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, etc need to realize that if they cannot prevent the extremists within their population from attacking the West, they will face total destruction.

18, only Democrats can get credit for reducing the chances of a nuclear war–Reagan only made the world more dangerous.

I hope your kidding. Here is a quote from Wikipedia on the matter

Reagan wrote in his diary that the film “left me greatly depressed.” and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a “nuclear war” [1] In 1987 during the era of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reforms, the film was shown on Soviet television. Upon signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at Reykjavik with Gorbachev, Meyer received a telegram from the Reagan Administration that said, ‘Don’t think your movie didn’t have any part of this, because it did.