Eric Cordian wrote:
cpaul writes:
THE US 'ANNOUNCED' THEIR INTENTION TO USE B61-11 BUNKER BUSTERS ON LAST NIGHT'S NEWS BULLETINS (BUT SOMEHOW FORGOT TO REFER TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE CLASSIFIED AS TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS)
Yes, I noticed this as well. I wonder how many euphemisms we will now hear for the word "nuclear" until the American public is informed after the fact how wonderfully the weapons have worked.
Such games require quite a bit of collusion on the part of our supposedly free and independent press. One wonders what would happen to the press credentials of a reporter who said - "Scuse me, Ari. Are those the nuclear bunker busters we're talking about?"
I don't know if it's related, but there were reports earlier today that people were reporting seeing bright flashes of light and fireballs in the direction of Afghanistan.
It is hard to imagine the USA going anywhere near nukes in this war. The last thing any sane government would want is to lower the psychological threshold against first use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the vicinity of China or India. Even if Russia is on board. There has been speculation about a possible future Islamist Pakistan using nuclear weapons, and the US maybe trying to pre-empt that, but I don't think that is likely either. If someone took over Pakistan & actually used their nukes against India, I suspect that the Indian military would roll over the country in 2 weeks flat. If not one week. India would probably have total support from the US navy & airforce, & certainly from the British, if only because the USA would desperately want to make sure that they got to Islamabad before the Chinese did. A month after the war you'd have a theoretically UN but in practice Indian hegemony over what was left of Pakistan. There would be millions of Muslims expelled from Kashmir (& possibly Gujarat and other provinces as well), and a supposed disarmament and permanent occupation of the North-West Frontier districts probably including the Panshir valley & parts of what would by then be ex-Afghanistan as well. Chances are that the entire west of Pakistan and the south of Afghanistan would have been hived off into an semi-independent Baluchistan as a client state of Iran, which would probably have retaken Herat while no-one was looking. Islamabad would be all but dismantled and the rump of Pakistan ruled from Karachi, within easy reach of the aircraft carriers. Once upon a time that might have sparked off the 3rd world war with Russia and the USA taking different sides in a war between India and China. These days, I suspect they would all be in it together. A Pakistan that had actually used its nuclear weapons would be the 21st century equivalent of Bolivia or Paraguay in the 19th. And yes, it would be the final nail in the coffin of the Taliban and OBL - but at the expense of hundreds of thousands dead, if not millions. And no, it isn't worth it. Those nuclear weapons are useful to Pakistan only as long as they aren't used (the military equivalent of the British monarchy if you think about it). As soon as they are used, because there aren't enough of them to destroy Pakistan's enemies - which in this case would be India *and* China *and* Russia *and* Iran, none of which Pakistan would have the slightest hope of beating - it would all be up for Pakistan as an independent country. So what if you totally wiped out Delhi and Bombay. That just means that the other 900 million Indians would be very, very, angry indeed. And the rest of the world would be too shocked to stop them fighting back, even if they wanted to. Pakistan's nukes are intended as a deterrent against an Indian invasion. Once they are used, there is nothing to stop such an invasion (if the Indians wanted to do it of course, which right now they don't) But the whole situation is, as diplomats used to say, delicate. For the USA to use nukes first would possibly mess things up a lot. Of course I am assuming that the rulers of the USA and India are sane. Not very sane, but a little sane. Ken Brown