Re: CCD against "bombing Iran back to the dark ages"
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Posted by Al Gordon on 08:28:50 2007/06/08
In Reply to:
Re: The smug satisfaction of moral equivalency! posted by CL
If you notice, no member of the executive of CCD has ever advocated "bombing Iran back to the dark ages". This is a public forum, and almost all the commentary presented is the opinion of individuals. CCD believes the idea of "bombing Iran back to the dark ages" is as twisted and misguided as some of the other ideas posted to our forum, such as Israel being a "racist Apartheid state", Hezbollah being "freedom fighters", and Heather Reisman being a "supporter of terrorism".
So if you are not saying that CCD stands for the elimination of Israel and supports Hezbollah, then you cannot say that CCD stands for "bombing Iran back to the dark ages".
Having said that, I realize that your posting does not paint such an unfairly broad swath.
So what is CCD's approach to the Iranian nuclear threat? Imagine that nothing is done to destroy Iran's ability to acquire nuclear weapons. Now imagine that Iran manages to strike a US city with one of the nuclear weapons whose construction we failed to prevent (the weapon being delivered by truck or shipping container). The US could easily suffer 500,000 dead, millions horribly injured, more millions dying of cancer and genetic abnormalities, and one or more cites uninhabitable for decades. Should that happen, it is a given that the US would launch an all-out nuclear attack on Iran, likely obliterating its major cities and killing tens of millions of innocent people. Iran would, effectively, cease to exist as a nation. The US would have no choice but to deliver a consequence so irrecoverable that no other rogue nation, however demented its leadership, would ever consider such an action again.
Now let's look at history. Had Britain listened to Churchill in 1937, a preemptive attack on Germany could possibly have destroyed the Nazi's fledgling Luftwaffe and infrastructure to the point where Hitler's subsequent adventurism would not have been possible. Churchill would have vilified for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Germans, but would likely have prevented the deaths of 45 million and the destruction of much of Europe, especially Germany.
Such grotesque calculations are forced on democratic nations by apocalyptic madmen such as Hitler and Ahmadinejad. Of course, the West would prefer to have Iran as an ally, but the Hitlerian ravings of its chief theocrat and the implicit approval of other Iranian political leaders, leaves us with only two options, neither desirable, but one infinitely worse than the other.
Any attack on Iran should be both minimalist and as precise as humanly possible using conventional weapons.
The ugly choices we face are (1) a surgical strike to destroy Iran's nuclear weapon capability, or (2) wait until Iran uses its newfound nuclear weapons, and then "bombing Iran back to the dark ages". I am sure you are not advocating the latter.
Al
PS: If there are more choices, please feel free to present them.
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