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Bush Considered Using Nuclear Weapons Against Afghanistan After 9/11

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-"talk-softly-and-CARRY-a-big-stick" dept.

HughPickens.com writes:

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."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @10:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @10:46PM (#231014)

    I don't see the issue here really. The military of any country worth it's salt have plans for as many possible outcomes or scenarios they can think of -- EVERY type of scenario; even far fetched and ludicrous once. Forever prepared for every eventuality. They even have plans for how they would invade and kill of their current friends and neighbors. Just cause you have a plan doesn't mean it has to be executed. I'm sure there is even a Canadian bacon type plan for the US invading Canada. That said a nuke in Afghanistan was probably not an option cause it was a bit extreme as a response even after a surprise terror-attack.

    Yes, indeed. That is exactly right. In fact, I know a guy who does precisely this kind of planning (yes, even the zombie apocalypse scenario) when he is on reserve duty with the Air Force. Our DoD has plans for just about any contingency. It doesn't mean that anyone is actually imminently planning to implement these strategies.

    TL;DR: Relax, guys. There is a whole lot less than meets the eye here.