re: Today's Tribune Op-Ed cartoon pretty much sums up our COIC*

IB Freeman, there is a difference between having strength and having the knowledge and wisdom to know when to use that strength appropriately.

People don't fear the US because we lack the will to use all the weapons in our arsenal (and I'm not talking just about military hardware).

LC

You think threatening Russia with a nuclear weapon would be believable. Putin would laugh.

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Are you really this out of touch with the reality of the last 65 years of conflicts in the world and why we maintain a nuclear arsenal?

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I think he is ouut of touch with alot of things especially this. It sounds to me like he is one of those isolationist that didn't learn from WWII. I do agree that we don't need to be all John McCain and attack everybody for everything though.

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I think we should encourage the full militarization of Japan

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Why do you think Japan wants your advice? A nation with a birth rate below replacement levels, with an aging population fascinated by Hello Kitty and uninterested in sex isn't going to have a military like they had 70 years ago, pull your head out of the 1930's.

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we should seriously consider withdrawing from NATO.

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Why?

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We should never again lead a UN military effort like the Korean war.

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Dumb arse, we co-opted the UN into supporting us we weren't dragged into Korea by the UN.

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Looking at that graph, we should have China building our tanks, planes, ships, drones and missiles. We could save a bundle!

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Except they wouldn't work. Maybe we could have the Germans build stuff for us, I'll get in a Porsche and go 140 mph on a dirt road before I would get in a Chinese-designed & built aircraft and taxi down the runway at Moisant.

PS: if you even suspect I am flying a plane, that's your cue to make your peace with God.

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Today's Tribune Op-Ed cartoon pretty much sums up our COIC*

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Point to the world tyrant attempting to conquer the world

Al Qaeda comes to mind....

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Have you booked those tickets to Kiev yet?

The Russians are coming...and you are hot to defend Ukraine. Put your arse where your keyboard is.

Unless this is just another excuse to bash Obama...as it appears to be your only reason for caring about what happens to those poor people of the Ukraine.

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No, they didn't. Some of them (but not all) used the threat of nuclear RETALIATION if attacked by other countries' nuclear weapons. None of them used the threat of a first strike during a conventional-weapons war.

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BS.

Eisehower privately out and out threatened to bomb both North Korea and China to end the Korean war. He contemplated using them on other occasions such as when the Chinese blockaded the Taiwan straits. LINK

Kennedy made it clear during the Cuban missiles crises he would use first strike options available including the missiles in Turkey which he quietly withdrew.

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"navigation in international waters and air space" constituted "an act of aggression propelling human kind into the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war"

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Nixon considered using nuclear weapons in Viet Nam. LINK

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"I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam does not have a breaking point," Kissinger confessed. "It shall be the assignment of this group to examine the option of a savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam. You start without any preconceptions at all." The president, he told them, wanted a "military plan designed for maximum impact on the enemy's military capability" in order to "force a rapid conclusion" to the war. (Note 4)

According to an early secondhand account of the planning process by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, one staffer asked Kissinger whether nuclear weapons should be considered. Kissinger replied that it was "the policy of this administration not to use nuclear weapons." He did not exclude, however, the use of "a nuclear device" to block a key railroad pass to the People's Republic of China (PRC) if that should prove the only way of doing it. Roger Morris, a member of the September Group, later reported that he had been shown plans that targeted at least two sites in North Vietnam for nuclear air bursts. Special Counsel to the President Charles Colson--who was not a member of the contingency group but who asked Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman in 1970 about contingency planning in 1969--claimed that Haldeman said "Kissinger had lobbied for nuclear options in the spring and fall of 1969." One Kissinger aide, Winston Lord, expressed incredulity to one of the present writers: "It's beyond my comprehension that they would even think of doing that." But he allowed for the possibility that the Vietnamese might worry about nuclear weapons and that, consistent with Nixon's "madman theory . . , we wouldn't go out of our way to allay their fears about that." (Note 5)

Firsthand documentation on the highly secret Duck Hook planning finally surfaced in mid-November 2005, when the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the U.S. National Archives made one of its annual declassification releases. Among the files on the Vietnam War were two documents that explicitly raise the question of nuclear weapons use in connection with military operations against North Vietnam.

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I am quite sure nuclear weapons were considered a very large tool in the arsenal 41 had at his disposal when Baker did these things:

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“God forbid . . . chemical or biological weapons are used against our forces—the American people would demand revenge.” “This is not a threat,” Baker continued, “but a pledge that if there is any use of such weapons, our objective would not be only the liberation of Kuwait, but also the toppling of the present regime.” Baker later explained that he “purposely left the impression that the use of chemical or biological agents by Iraq would invite tactical nuclear retaliation.” The letter listed three “sorts” of “unconscionable actions” by Iraq that would demand the “strongest possible response”: use of chemical or biological weapons; support of any kind of terrorist action; and the destruction of Kuwait’s oil fields and installations.

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We all remember Bush said to the world that all options were on the table when he started bombing Afghanstan.

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Maybe not conquer the world but Iran would love to have islamist governments all over the middle east and that would leave the US's energy supply (or a key part of it) in the hands of ppl that don't exactly like us. NK would love to conquer our ally SK and expand their influence. Al Queda would love to destroy the US.

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All the more reason the Saudi's have been shopping for atomic weapons as they should. Where have you read anything about plans for Iran to conquer the world and install Islamic governments? Have you read about how the CIA installed the Shah of Iran in 1953 to protect US and British oil interest?

BTW Persians and Arabs hate each other and have for centuries. The pragmatic Bush (1) understood this and left Hussein in power. Iran has too many enemies in the Middle East to be concerned about attacking the US.

Al Queda wants the US out of the Middle East and they too are hated by many countries there.

There are consequences to being involved in other people's business and Al Queda is one of them.

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Unless this is just another excuse to bash Obama

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Ah, you're another one just like trackfan. Y'all even use the same phrasing. I guess talking points came along with those paychecks from organizing for action, huh?