I am almost afraid to bring this up

but these fucks are so dispicable. Could they be stirring up this whole unwinnable nightmare in Iraq so that the "only" option left to settle things will be the nuclear option?

What would happen if the US dropped a couple nukes?

There is no way the insurgency in any foreseeable future could grow to the point that it would be an option. And I know, don't put anything past them, but I just don't see this as any realistic possibility.

able to use smaller tactical, and/or dirty, nuclear weapons, especially since the political consequences of a draft will exclude the draft as a solution to being "stretched too thin".

and Pakistan's nukes would be handed out to any group willing to use them.

That having been said, I think the nuclear option is a stretch at this point.

like a ton of bricks.
China would call in their debt for starters.

Not that "we" seem to give much of a damn what the rest of the planet thinks about anything - this one would probably cause the ultimate us vs. them scenario - and (hopefully) even these jackasses can see that.

I also believe there is nothing that these people would not do
to get what they want & keep what they have.

because France had nuclear capability 1954, but not the political decision to implement weapons. They took the decision after Dien Bien Phu and the Suez crisis because they felt (with the British) they couldn't always rely on the US.

France asked Eisenhower for air support in Vietnam, but didn't get it.

Stefan Marc Brooks review of Lloyd Gardner's
"Approaching Vietnam: From World War II Through Dien Bien Phu,"
1988.

http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/gardner.htm

As it became clearer that DienBienPhu was doomed, the Eisenhower Administration considered intervening to forestall a French defeat.
Dubbed "Operation Vulture," Admiral Radford proposed using strategic air power-B-29 bombers from the Philippines--to save the French. It is a matter of dispute according to Lloyd Gardner whether the use of atomic bombs was ever contemplated for "Operation Vulture" (201). In any case, the Join Chiefs of Staff were divided on the merits of American intervention to save DienBienPhu. "In fact the service chiefs were unanimously opposed when the question was put to them directly. It was only Admiral Radford, the chairman, who stood out in favor" (203).

Washington gradually came to realize that the best way to get the French successfully out of Vietnam was to let DienBienPhu fall. "More and more, Americans were reaching the conclusion that the French military effort in Indochina had to be separated from American policy" (205). Paris meanwhile continued to waiver between calling for American intervention and hoping for a miracle out of this disgrace. Controversy surrounds the issue of whether the United States proposed "giving" France several atomic weapons for use at DienBienPhu (201; 235). John Foster Dulles denied having ever made such a proposal while George Bidault says differently. In any case, according to Bidault, he shunned the idea out of concern that their use would cause just as many French casualties and might provoke Chinese intervention.

...Here's another:
http://www.hawaii.edu/cseas/pubs/explore/v1/v1n2-art2.html

...on 8 April, the day Washington communicated news of its objection to Paris, American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles offered French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault two atomic bombs to save the outpost.52 The French government rejected the offer.53

...and a third ...
http://grunt.space.swri.edu/jeffviet.htm

By this time, two American aircraft carriers equipped with atomic weapons had been ordered into the Gulf of Tonkin, in the north of Vietnam, and Dulles is said to have offered his French counterpart, Georges Bidault, atomic bombs to save Dienbienphu. Bidault was obliged to point out to Dulles that the use of atomic weapons in such close conflict would destroy the French troops as well as the Vietminh.(33)

http://www.afa.org/magazine/aug2004/0804dien.asp

according to this there was indeed a "limited" US intervention, but the use of nukes was ruled out for political and military reasons. If the article is right, it shows that the conventional US/French attack on the Vietminh artillery didn't work more than it did 20 years later even when massive.

It tells a lot about the limits of air power against conventional guerillas, it was a lesson for the future. It didn't help inVietnam, it won't help in Iraq.

"The French tried to hit back with artillery and airpower. Already in action were some 30 US C-119 Flying Boxcars modified to drop napalm on the Viet Minh artillery. According to Ambrose, Eisenhower believed that napalm would “burn out a considerable area and help to reveal enemy artillery positions.”

Most of the aircrews flying these C-119s were American employees of Civil Air Transport (CAT), the contract airline founded by Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, the head of the World War II “Flying Tigers.” More than a few aircrew members included US pilots from the Military Assistance Advisory Group, stated Simpson.

The first napalm strike was carried out March 24. It targeted revetted gun positions about one-half mile outside Dien Bien Phu. According to Simpson, Viet Minh Gen. Tran Do credited the strikes as being somewhat effective. Do later said: “Under the enemy napalm bombs, even stone and earth took fire.” Yet the Viet Minh “held on,” according to Do, and continued with the artillery fire."

"In the end, Eisenhower was not willing to step all the way into Vietnam. He ruled out unilateral US intervention at an April 27 press conference. He later declared, “Airpower might be temporarily beneficial to French morale, but I had no intention of using United States forces in any limited action when the force employed would probably not be decisively effective.”"

I really don't. Iraq is too close to Israel. The fallout, literal and figurative would be way too much to handle.

What if "we" got Israel to do it????!!!! Then they would have achieved Armegeddon right there in the place where all the religious crap started!

this thugs conscience. When you put up Israels survival up against the profits to be made from the global conflict that would result I'm not sure at all.

to murder and exhult in greed, to destroy.....but mainly, to get people talking about something once removed from the big issue: bush's criminality, his illegal power seizure in 2k, and the crooks who're trying to help him (including some democrats, like that lie berman)

"these fucks" want to stop or fix the problems there. I believe you are wrong...their best profits are made in chaos (in the contemporary sense of the word rather than the mathematical sense, as in the mathematical sense there is no profit to be made by ANYBODY during a state of chaos)

aren't going to stand for this chaotic status quo, as it were, for much longer - I think they are going to have to make some changes in SOMETHING....

It is much easier to extract oil out from beneath sand than out from beneath radioactive glass.

secondly, every arab and muslim government that was even remotely friendly to our government would either be openly hostile to us or be overthrown and replaced by a government that was openly hostile to us. The EU would speed up consolidation with renewed support so they could be a counterweight to us globally, perhaps with pacts with China and India. there would be so much domestic dissent and bush's popularity would plummet into the teens. There would be a very unpopular draft since we would be fighting insurrections across the globe. Every nation in which we have bases would be forced by domestic dissent to demand that we pack up and leave. it would be bad, even bush and co. knows its not an option.

Haliburton could probably make (even more of) a profit - after all that would provide be R & D for new equipment and procedures. Plus bombing a city or two probably won't have much effect on the main oilfields.

Goodby world economy. They will have to pull the troops out first though - I would think. Would * not pull them out so as to suprise everyone else?

They can bomb the heck out of a place with conventionals and chemicals - white phosphorous/napalm. So it seems like the main thing about nukes is the scare factor.

If they were to use them - it's like a parent who used the punishment that they had been holding back as a deterrent - and it would no longer be effective to do that.

And the whole world would be really pissed.

:nuke:

barred.

I think you might be thinking about this too much.

of bush's blustering cowboy act was to intimidate the world with the uncertainty of what he is capable of - like N. Korea - if there is a crazy nut in charge who knows what he might do? Better not cross him, you know?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5488799

The size of California? Fighting a city and losing? What are we doing there?

The oil really is the key to the whole quagmire. We would never have invaded at all if it wasn't for that.

on the US.

then i fear there is a 'good' chance nukes will be used, eventually, since that is the course the neoCONs have put us on, though it could be argued they just accelerated the existing course we've been on since 1945.

the neoCONs + the talibornagain = :nuke:

peace

or Syria . . . my gut tells me that Cheney is just itching to use tactical nukes somewhere to project an American willingness to "do whatever it takes" in the phoney war on terror . . . and these maniacs are capable of absolutely anything . . . witness 9/11 . . .

and that's a no-win scenario.

I'm certainly not an expert on nukes OR even middle east geography, but I think the place is big enough to nuke a couple population centers and not affect underground oil.

The neo-cons see Iraq as Capital. If they destroy it, they can't profit from it. Don't forget that their grand plan is not destruction, but making money.

One reason why I suspect they would prefer Israel to nuke Iran...

But even then it would take Iran's neighbors to figure out who's behind Iran in, what, 2 seconds?

I don't thinks nukes will be used. And nobody would believe * was so stupid he accidentally pressed the button; no matter how much of an idiot he's perceived to be right now...

OOPS! God I hate these fucks - it is just SO embarrassing.