Here is an excerpt from the latest Republican Presidential debate:
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BLITZER: If it came down to a preemptive U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facility if necessary, would you authorize as president the use of tactical nuclear weapons?
HUNTER: I would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was no other way to preempt those particular centrifuges.
When the Osirak reactor was hit in ’86, when the six F-18s came over the horizon and knocked that out, they didn’t need anything but conventional weapons.
Probably it’s going to take a little more than that. I don’t think it’s going to take tactical nukes.
BLITZER: What do you think, Mayor? Do you think, if you were president of the United States and it came down to Iran having a nuclear bomb, which you say is unacceptable, you would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons?
GIULIANI: Part of the premise of talking to Iran has to be that they have to know very clearly that it is unacceptable to the United States that they have nuclear power. I think it could be done with conventional weapons, but you can’t rule out anything and you shouldn’t take any option off the table.
And during the debate the other night, the Democrats seemed to be back in the 1990s. They don’t seem to have gotten beyond the Cold War. Iran is a threat, a nuclear threat, not just because they can deliver a nuclear warhead with missiles. They’re a nuclear threat because they are the biggest state sponsor of terrorism and they can hand nuclear materials to terrorists.
And we just saw it just last week in New York, an attempt by Islamist terrorists to attack JFK airport; three weeks ago, an attempt to attack Fort Dix.
These are real problems. This war is not a bumper sticker. This war is a real war.
BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: Let me bring Governor Gilmore in.
What do you say about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons if that’s what it takes to go deep underground and destroy those Iraqi facilities?
GILMORE: One of the central problems of the Middle East is the desire for Iran to dominate that portion of the world, because of what they are doing. And that is why I believe that they are seeking this kind of nuclear capacity. That is one of the reasons why we are, in fact, in Iraq.
And that’s why our soldiers, when they fight and die there, are in fact serving the interests of the United States. Nobody ought to have any doubt about that.
With respect to Iran, the policy I would follow would be dual.
Number one, we need to work with our European allies in order to put in appropriate sanctions. We need to communicate directly with the Iranians that we are going to offer them an opportunity to work with us.
But we are also going to say that having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable; they need to understand it. And all options are on the table by the United States in that instance.
BLITZER: All right. Thank you, Governor.
Governor Romney, I want to get you on the record. Do you agree with the mayor, the governor, others here, that the use of tactical nuclear weapons, potentially, would be possible if that were the only way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb?
ROMNEY: You don’t take options off the table, but what you do is stand back and say, “What’s going on here?” You see what’s happening in Sudan and Afghanistan, in Iraq and Iran. All over the world, we’re seeing the same thing happening, and that is people are testing the United States of America. And we have to make sure they understand that we’re not arrogant; we have resolve. And we have the strength to protect our interests and to protect people who love liberty.
For that to happen, we’re going to have to not just attack each one of these problems one by one, but say, how do we help move the world of Islam so that the moderate Muslims can reject the extreme?
And for that to happen, we’re going to have to have a strong military and an effort to combine with our allies in such a way, we combine for an effort to help move Islam toward modernity.
That’s what we’re going to have to do, instead of looking at each theater one by one and saying, “We’ll bomb here, we’ll attack here, we’ll go to Sudan.”
I watched the Democrats…
BLITZER: Thank you.
ROMNEY: … they don’t think there’s a war on terror.
BLITZER: Thank you.
ROMNEY: There’s a war going on, and we need a broad response to make sure that these people have a different vision.
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: Thank you, Governor.
(…)
BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.
(APPLAUSE)
Congressman Paul, what is the most pressing moral issue in the United States right now?
PAUL: I think it is the acceptance just recently that we now promote preemptive war. I do not believe that’s part of the American tradition.
We, in the past, have always declared war in defense of our liberties or go to aid somebody. But now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the just war theory of Christianity.
And now, tonight, we hear that we’re not even willing to remove from the table a preemptive nuclear strike against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security.
I mean, we have to come to our senses about this issue of war and preemption and go back to traditions and our Constitution and defend our liberties and defend our rights, but not to think that we can change the world by force of arms and to start wars.
(APPLAUSE)
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So at least four Republicans are weighing in on the side of the “crazies”: Hunter, Gilmore, Giuliani, and Romney. The only one clearly opposed to such madness is Ron Paul.
My guess is that among Democrats at least Hillary and Obama would be willing to use nukes.
Here is how the American public opinion reacted to this: CNN viewers had Ron Paul winning the debate in all categories except for “the snappiest dress” (remember: this is corporate media asking the questions) which went to Mitt Romney.
By the way, the worst performance on the debate was, again according the the public, Guiliani’s. The “official” talking heads of the US Nomenklatura hired by CNN came to diametrically opposed conclusions and declared that the best performance was, I am not kidding, Giuliani, Romney and McCain. See the full poll results here.
In spite of this, Hillary and Giuliani (the worst warmongering Fascists in each camp) are still leading in their respective factions (of the single War Party, that is).
So it looks like the USA will not only get a Fascist President in 2008, but that this Fascist President will be willing to use nuclear weapons.
Scary.
If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran
By Paul Craig Roberts
06/06/07 “ICH ” — — The war in Iraq is lost. This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted occupation. Winning is no longer an option. Our best hope, Gen. Sanchez says, is “to stave off defeat,” and that requires more intelligence and leadership than Gen. Sanchez sees in the entirety of our national political leadership: “I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time.”
More evidence that the war is lost arrived June 4 with headlines reporting: “U.S.-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the military said on Monday.” After five years of war the US controls one-third of one city and nothing else.
A host of US commanding generals have said that the Iraq war is destroying the US military. A year ago Colin Powell said that the US Army is “about broken.” Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn says Bush has “piecemealed our force to death.” Gen. Barry McCafrey testified to the US Senate that “the Army will unravel.”
Col. Andy Bacevich, America’s foremost writer on military affairs, documents in the current issue of The American Conservative that Bush’s insane war has depleted and exhausted the US Army and Marine Corps:
“Only a third of the regular Army’s brigades qualify as combat-ready. In the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the units reaches Baghdad as part of the president’s strategy of escalation, the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve.”
“The stress of repeated combat tours is sapping the Army’s lifeblood. Especially worrying is the accelerating exodus of experienced leaders. The service is currently short 3,000 commissioned officers. By next year, the number is projected to grow to 3,500. The Guard and reserves are in even worse shape. There the shortage amounts to 7,500 officers. Young West Pointers are bailing out of the Army at a rate not seen in three decades. In an effort to staunch the losses, that service has begun offering a $20,000 bonus to newly promoted captains who agree to stay on for an additional three years. Meanwhile, as more and more officers want out, fewer and fewer want in: ROTC scholarships go unfilled for a lack of qualified applicants.”
Bush has taken every desperate measure. Enlistment ages have been pushed up from 35 to 42. The percentage of high school dropouts and the number of recruits scoring at the bottom end of tests have spiked. The US military is forced to recruit among drug users and convicted criminals. Bacevich reports that wavers “issued to convicted felons jumped by 30 percent.” Combat tours have been extended from 12 to 15 months, and the same troops are being deployed again and again.
There is no equipment for training. Bacevich reports that “some $212 billion worth has been destroyed, damaged, or just plain worn out.” What remains is in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Under these circumstances, “staying the course” means total defeat.
Even the neoconservative warmongers, who deceived Americans with the promise of a “cakewalk war” that would be over in six weeks, believe that the war is lost. But they have not given up. They have a last desperate plan: Bomb Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney is spear- heading the neocon plan, and Norman Podhoretz is the plan’s leading propagandist with his numerous pleas published in the Wall Street Journal and Commentary to bomb Iran. Podhoretz, like every neoconservative, is a total Islamophobe. Podhoretz has written that Islam must be deracinated and the religion destroyed, a genocide for the Muslim people.
The neocons think that by bombing Iran the US will provoke Iran to arm the Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing rocket propelled grenades and with surface to air missiles and unleash the militias against US troops. These weapons would neutralize US tanks and helicopter gunships and destroy the US military edge, leaving divided and isolated US forces subject to being cut off from supplies and retreat routes. With America on the verge of losing most of its troops in Iraq, the cry would go up to “save the troops” by nuking Iran.
Five years of unsuccessful war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel’s recent military defeat in Lebanon have convinced the neocons that America and Israel cannot establish hegemony over the Middle East with conventional forces alone. The neocons have changed US war doctrine, which now permits the US to preemptively strike with nuclear weapons a non-nuclear power. Neocons are forever heard saying, “what’s the use of having nuclear weapons if you can’t use them.”
Neocons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.
Many US military officers are horrified at what they think would be the worst ever orchestrated war crime. There are reports of threatened resignations. But Dick Cheney is resolute. He tells Bush that the plan will save him from the ignominy of losing the war and restore his popularity as the president who saved Americans from Iranian nuclear weapons. With the captive American media providing propaganda cover, the neoconservatives believe that their plan can pull their chestnuts out of the fire and rescue them from the failure that their delusion has wrought.
The American electorate decided last November that they must do something about the failed war and gave the Democrats control of both houses of Congress. However, the Democrats have decided that it is easier to be complicit in war crimes than to represent the wishes of the electorate and hold a rogue president accountable. If Cheney again prevails, America will supplant the Third Reich as the most reviled country in recorded history.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury’s Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell