[quote]JeffR wrote:
Quick questions: Are dirty nuclear weapons WMD?[/quote]
In my opinion, no. They’re weapons of terror. They scare a lot of people, but they don’t kill or destroy much.
Quick distribution of iodine pills will go a long way in preventing long term effects such as cancers.
It is fuel-grade uranium, for use in a reactor. When the Baghdad reactor was bombed by Israel, I’m pretty sure they didn’t land to clean up behind them.
Well maybe you should do that then.
You’ve used WMDs on Japan in 1945. Are you likely to use them again?
What a stupid question. Even from you.
If they’d voluntarily signed up for military duty, I’d expect them to perform that duty. I wouldn’t wish them harm, of course, but I wouldn’t ask for a country to be invaded so that they can have a safer tour of duty, no.
All evidence of those flights rests with only one man’s testimony.
Another thing about WMDs. Having had them at one time doesn’t mean you have them forever. Most of these weapons degrade over time and are complicated and expensive to maintain.
The Middle East is not exactly a high-tech bastion of advanced weapon technology. My guess is that most of their weapons, even if they have them, are borderline unusable because they either lack the know-how, the delivery technology or the courage to use them.
I’m pretty sure Syria doesn’t want to be the one to confirmt that Israel does, indeed, have nuclear weapons.
No. I’d be worried if it was weapons-grade uranium. What they had was not in a form suitable to make nuclear devices, and enriching that uranium with centrifuges is a complicated process that takes a long time (because so little of it is produced by each centrifuge).
I don’t worry much about high-tech weapons from near-medieval cultures.
Saddam’s best known weapon, the Scud missile, was crappy Soviet tech that was so imprecise that it made your near-useless Patriot missile look good in 1991.
Your tech has improved since; Soviet and Middle Eastern one, not so much.
Sometimes war is unavoidable. I think it really should be the last resort, though, which in Iraq is wasn’t.
I also don’t like the bullshit humane “media-friendly” wars that the modern West wages. If you go to war, go to war to win.
It’s nearly impossible to win against a guerilla if they have the local population’s support (which they almost always have); they can outwait you, fight dirty, and have nearly zero expenses. To win those wars, you have to be willing to remove their support, which means removing the local population.
If you don’t have cause to do that; or no stomach for it, then you have no business going to war.
As much as it deserves.