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August 25, 2006

Wow

Just...wow.

He says he isn't suggesting we use our nuclear power, but I'm not sure how we deal with Iran if appeasement won't work. Do we wait for something so dreadful that it is necessary? All I know is that it did make me feel a bit better to read about our nuclear capacity. It's the gun in the closet at our home that we hope to never ever use. But if someone breaks in and tries to attack those we love, we are so very glad we have it.

Either I'm not so very right-leaning these days, or the right-wing has leaned clear off the edge of reason.

I believe nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent against an equally-armed and rational enemy state (e.g. MAD policy). I believe if attacked by a recognized state with nuclear weapons, we have an obligation to respond in kind.

But - in the age of smart bombs and a largely amorphous enemy - to compare the annihilation of tens of thousands of people in minutes to a shotgun in the closet is either (a) inadvertently one of the weakest metaphors I've ever seen or (b) demonstrative of a kind of callous flippancy and disregard for our common humanity that leaves me gobsmacked.

There's a legitimate debate regarding the moral calculus of our past use of nuclear weapons, of firebombing entire cities... but the march of progress has continued, and the means of conducting war are no exception. If Iran pursues an offensive nuclear program, as it will, I believe we have the means to cripple it without mushroom clouds over Tehran.

Our enemy seeks to obliterate soldier and civilian alike; we look for ways to spare innocent human lives in the necessary evil of warfare.

I have no desire to be like the enemy.

May your Republican God forgive you if you do.