SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the it's-"talk-softly-and-CARRY-a-big-stick" dept.
Oder Aderet reports at Haaretz that the United States considered using nuclear weapons against Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attack according to Michael Steiner, who served as a political advisor to then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, as reported in Der Spiegel. "The papers were written," Steiner said when asked whether the U.S. had considered using nuclear weapons in response to the attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden, in which almost 3,000 people were killed. "They had really played through all possibilities." Steiner added that Schröder feared that the US, which was in a state of shock following the attacks, would overreact. "After Sept. 11, the entire administration positively dug in. We no longer had access to Rice, much less to the president. It wasn't just our experience, but also that of the French and British as well. Of course that made us enormously worried."
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:16PM
"We don't want to start a nuclear war unless we really have to, do we?"
The distinct impression I get from the US military types is that they really are planning to fight and win World War III. A nuclear first strike would certainly trigger something like that: Pakistan would probably be obligated to respond with a nuclear strike of their own on India, which means India responds by nuking Pakistan. Meanwhile, China would go after the US for mucking up their neighborhood, and the US would have to launch at China, and of course North Korea would launch whatever they had at South Korea. The UK and France would have to go to bat for their NATO ally the US, which means Russia and their former satellite states would go after Europe, so whatever's left of NATO would go after Russia. Oh, and Israel would probably see this as a great time to use their nukes on Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and anyone else they felt like presented an annoyance to them.
That we would have even considered this option suggests how dangerously incompetent the Bush administration was. As it is, they probably only got a million or so people killed (about 11,000 Americans - 3,000 in New York, 2,000 in New Orleans, and 6,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan - 800,000 Iraqis and Afghans, and the remainder being Pakistanis, Yemenis, and other assorted faraway nations).
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:58PM
You should watch Jack Black's The Brink. [imdb.com]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 01 2015, @06:21PM
That is a sweet earth, you might say.
WRONG! [youtube.com]
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:21PM
Pakistan would probably be obligated to respond with a nuclear strike of their own on India, which means India responds by nuking Pakistan.
on the bright side, we'd have more tech jobs here.
on the downside, "bob" is taking an overly long time to solve my phone-support problem...
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:38PM
Pakistan would probably be obligated to respond with a nuclear strike of their own on India, which means India responds by nuking Pakistan. Meanwhile...
What makes you think everybody is even 10% as crazy as the U.S ?
By the way U.S is doing someone else's bidding.