Jim Yanik wrote in message ...
"Blair Maynard" wrote in
:

If "[t]he current administration seems to have little qualms about
using them [nukes] to bully other parties into compliance...," why are
US soldiers dieing in Iraq and Afghanistan while no nukes have been
used?

If you are correct in your judgment on the "current administration,"
surely it would have just nuked Iraq in the first place and not lost
so many of its soldier's lives.

Show us, with logic, that you aren't just full of ****.

Intimidation does not require mushroom clouds all over the place.
Even though I hold the current US administration in very low regard,
even they are not stupid enough to nuke a country out of existence
without extreme provocation. Doing so would turn the US into a global
outcast, which would be very bad for business.


Seems to me that since so many countries have proceeded with their WMD
programs DESPITE the long US possession of nuclear weapons and our triad of
effective worldwide delivery systems,that US nuclear inventory was NOT used
to "bully" anyone into compliance with the Non-Proliferation treaty.
(we certainly have not nuked anyone since Japan in WW2)

And for just how many of those long years has the current
administration been in power? Even compared to the very limited period
of time we're talking about here, not very long. 3 years out of 60, if
memory serves. Also note that for most of those 60 years, there was a
factor counterbalancing US power and pressure. Also note that threat
of power does not require use of power, so the absense of nukes used
in anger is meaningless. As for noone having been nuked since WWII,
that too is not strictly correct, as testing of these systems has left
large areas uninhabitable, and killed considerable numbers of people,
not to mention other living beings.

Only since our recent willingness to use CONVENTIONAL military force have
some nations begun complying with the treaty they signed.

Which has nothing to do with what I said earlier. The US have never
been shy about throwing their conventional weight around before, only
the agenda has changed.

The reality is the exact opposite of what Mr.Van Riel has claimed.

Maybe, but that is far from established. Certainly it has not been
contradicted so far.

Rob