Is Bush Nuking Afghanistan Now?

[Ken Brown]

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