Tuesday, February 21, 2006

PAT BUCHANAN nuclear math: 10,000 US + 200 Israeli nukes= no Iran threat

In 1992, I listened to Pat Buchanan's speech to the GOP convention as I drove from LA to Portland, and he scared the shit out of me. He came close to calling for an open civil war between conservatives and the rest of us. Fortunately, Papa Bush was embarassed by the excess and lost anyway.

Buchanan has not changed, but the Republicans have moved so far right that he has more in common with the left, largely because he refuses to ignore what he knows about history and math for the sake of agreeing the party.

The basic math on Iran is roughly the same as it was on Iraq:
  • We have 10,000 nuclear warheads

  • Israel has 200

  • Iran has none (maybe a handful in a few years to a decade)

  • If Iran uses one on us or Israel, either of us could nuke Iran out of existence and still have plenty to spare.

Back in the Cold War, neither we nor the Soviets launched our nukes because of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It seems hard to believe a smaller country would commit suicide, knowing that at best they injured us, but couldn't take us with them. This should be called a corollary of MAD: OSH-OSAD (One Side Hurt-One Side Assured Destruction).

We have the most powerful military on earth, but are continually being persuaded that some flea on our ass is going to eat us alive. imagine you had a neighbor who collected machine guns and occasionally shot the other neighbors dogs. Would you ever steal his newspaper off the driveway? Or sleep with his wife? Or pick a fight with him?

If you prefer we skip this war, sign this petition that Howard Zinn, Harold Pinter, and George Galloway have already put their names on:

http://stopwaroniran.org/statement.shtml

KEY EXCERPTS:



Churchill, Hitler, and Newt

By Patrick J. Buchanan

02/20/06 "WND"

But are the comparisons of Ahmadinejad with Hitler and Iran with the Third Reich, let alone Newt with Churchill, instructive? Or are they ludicrous? Again, a few facts.

In 1942, Hitler's armies dominated Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals. Ahmadinejad is the president of a nation whose air and naval forces would be toasted in hours by the United States. Iran has missiles that can hit Israel, but no nuclear warheads. Israel could put scores of atom bombs on Iran. The United States, without losing a plane, could make the country uninhabitable with one B-2 flyover and a few MX and Trident missiles.

Why would Ayatollah Khameinei, who has far more power than Ahmadinejad, permit him to ignite a war that could mean the end of their revolution and country? And if we were not intimidated by a USSR with thousands of nuclear warheads targeted on us, why should Ahmadinejad cause Newt to break out in cold sweats at night?

Currently, the "nuclear program" of Iran consists of trying to run uranium hexafluoride gas through a few centrifuges. There is no hard evidence Iran is within three years of producing enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb.

FULL TEXT:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11991.htm



No comments: