Nagasaki's claim...give me a break

In one of my e-mail discussion groups is a fella by the name of Pete. Generally the things he produces is not fit for public display.

He came across this article where the Nagasaki remembrance was marred with vacuous comments.

"We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9-11 terrorist attacks," he said. "Yet, is your security enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new `mini' nuclear weapons?"

Uh, you dummy, YES. The Cold War ended because of the nuclear arsenal's growth in the 1980s. The Nuclear War that we all feared never happened because of our nuclear arsenal.

Itoh also urged Japan to get out from under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella." About 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed throughout Japan under a post World War II mutual security pact.

Soon after, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a staunch supporter of the U.S. presence, placed a wreath before the monument to the dead. He vowed to advocate a nuclear ban, but kept his comments brief.

Never, ever, ever should the United States agree to something so assinine. Why are China, our next enemy, and the truly evil nations (Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc) not trying to attack? Why are they just beating their chests? Why have they not taken advantage of the U.S. for the past 4 years? Because we have nukes and we have a leader with the wisdom to know that you are only as strong as the strongest weapon you are willing to use. Bush is willing to use the nukes, we thus have the effectiveness of having them in our arsenal. Carter (the most incompetent President ever) was not willing and every enemy took advantage of him. We had the nukes but our "leader" was not willing to use them. Thus we were only as strong as our conventional weapons against the USSR's nukes. Same thing exists today.

But I digress. Pete's comments on this were wonderful and will be reposted when I get permission from him. Look for those.