Before I begin part 2 of the last post, I feel the need to comment on something I heard while listening to the Neil Boortz radio program yesterday.

Neil had a caller yesterday who said that our (the United States) problem (regarding fighting the war on terror) is an attitudinal one (meaning our attitude). The caller said that people generally say if our enemies “make us mad enough” we could just destroy them with a nuclear bomb if we wanted to. I don’t really know anyone personally who is saying that, but anyway, he went on to say that actually we won’t ever do that (he seemed to find that upsetting), suggesting this was a major hinderance to victory; that we now lack the tenacity to really wipe out our enemies. He suggested that the American people are still guilt-ridden from the bombs we dropped on Japan in World War II, and this prevents us from ever wanting to do such a thing again.

Neil then chimed in, saying, he also doubted the United States would ever drop a nuclear bomb again. He then said, in a very mocking babying tone, that this was because of civilian casualties; that the American people would rather live under “oppression” than take civilian lives from “the oppressors”.

This exchange really shouldn’t be all that surprising, but it is still deeply troubling. The first glaring problem to point out is how ridiculous it is that Neil can even suggest – with what I assume was a straight face – that the United States is being oppressed by any enemy. That idea cannot even be taken seriously. What I find most troubling, though, are the two ideas which seemed to be the undercurrent of their discussion. The first is the suggestion that there is somehow something unfortunate about Americans possibly being concerned enough about innocent civilians to never wish to use nuclear weapons against anyone. The second idea is that the United States should actually consider using nuclear weapons preemptively against its enemies – or at least could possibly be justified in doing so – to fully eliminate threats and problems.

It is an understatement to say these notions illustrate very poor and shameful thinking, but I believe they also reveal a great deal of frenzied hate and hypocrisy. These guys are not talking about deterrence or mutual assured destruction here; merely building up our arms as a deterrent with the assurance that if someone fires on us with nuclear power we will fire back with the same force. They seem to be seriously suggesting the United States reserve the right and option to drop nuclear bombs on their enemies – even while not being directly provoked to do so – as a tool not only for victory but total horrendous destruction.

Looking beyond the obvious humanitarian concern, certainly anyone can see the latent hypocrisy and absurd jingoism in such thinking. The United States has a habit of declaring certain specific nations should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons based on the assertion that they would set out to use them against their enemies. With such reasoning (or even without), how can it ever be justified then – outside of national prejudice and bias – that the United States ever use them themselves without being fired upon first?