Was it all a hoax, Mr. Bush? Did the American people foot a $5 trillion bill in 1950s dollars for a deterrent system that isn't really a deterrent?
The above image is a scan of a piece of Trinitite. This is desert sand that was underneath the explosion of the world's first Atomic bomb in New Mexico as part of project TRINITY, hence the name Trinitite. The heat from that blast melted the sand into a green glass, not unlike the Fulgurites that result when lightning hits sandy soil.
Now, imagine an entire nation looking like the above sample, melted into green glass. Buried in the green glass are the charred remains of the people of that nation. It's not an idle fantasy. The US spent $5 trillion dollars (1950s dollars) building a nuclear deterrent capability that can actually do that; melt any nation and it's people into a giant slab of green glass. The USSR knew it, the world knows it, Saddam knew it. The government of Iran knows it.
Even if Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction (which we now know they did not), and even if Iraq had the long range ICBMs to reach across the Atlantic with (which we know they did not), Iraq would still not have been a threat to the US because any attack with a weapon of mass destruction would be national suicide.
Those that insist that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a threat that justified invasion are in essence claiming that the US Government took $5 trillion of your money (over $17,000 from each of you alive today) in a gigantic swindle, because the $5 trillion nuclear deterrent isn't a deterrent after all, that it doesn't work, that nobody is really afraid of it, because they all know it was just a hoax to soak the American taxpayer for another several thousand dollars. Was it all a hoax, Mr. Bush? Did the American people foot a $5 trillion bill in 1950s dollars for a deterrent system that isn't really a deterrent?
Either the deterrent works or it does not. If it doesn't, then the American taxpayers have been defrauded on a grand scale. But if the nuclear deterrent does work, then Iraq can have all the weapons of mass destruction they want, they just won't dare use them. Maybe they can put them in a museum or something. But they won't dare use them against the United States because they don't want to end up like that piece of green glass at the top of this article. There is no need to invade over the issue of weapons of mass destruction. There never was.
Now, imagine an entire nation looking like the above sample, melted into green glass. Buried in the green glass are the charred remains of the people of that nation. It's not an idle fantasy. The US spent $5 trillion dollars (1950s dollars) building a nuclear deterrent capability that can actually do that; melt any nation and it's people into a giant slab of green glass. The USSR knew it, the world knows it, Saddam knew it. The government of Iran knows it.
Even if Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction (which we now know they did not), and even if Iraq had the long range ICBMs to reach across the Atlantic with (which we know they did not), Iraq would still not have been a threat to the US because any attack with a weapon of mass destruction would be national suicide.
Those that insist that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a threat that justified invasion are in essence claiming that the US Government took $5 trillion of your money (over $17,000 from each of you alive today) in a gigantic swindle, because the $5 trillion nuclear deterrent isn't a deterrent after all, that it doesn't work, that nobody is really afraid of it, because they all know it was just a hoax to soak the American taxpayer for another several thousand dollars. Was it all a hoax, Mr. Bush? Did the American people foot a $5 trillion bill in 1950s dollars for a deterrent system that isn't really a deterrent?
Either the deterrent works or it does not. If it doesn't, then the American taxpayers have been defrauded on a grand scale. But if the nuclear deterrent does work, then Iraq can have all the weapons of mass destruction they want, they just won't dare use them. Maybe they can put them in a museum or something. But they won't dare use them against the United States because they don't want to end up like that piece of green glass at the top of this article. There is no need to invade over the issue of weapons of mass destruction. There never was.
