Leading By Bad Example

Lots in the news these days about bullys. Teens are hanging themselves in the closet in response to incessant bullying. What's the scoop?

Is bullying new? Not exactly. The scope of the bullying might be pushing new frontiers with a generation steeped in World Wrestling on the one side and New-Age pacifism on the other. But the solution to a bully remains what it has always been, Teddy Roosevelt's. "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Nothing straightens out a bully faster than a firm foot to the groin, or a punch to the nose, or for the really serious bully, a meeting with the business end of a legally caried concealed self-defense weapon.

Now here is the a prime example of poor bully response:

Never Mind My Defense Department or the Threat, "No Nukes is Good Nukes."

Is it possible that a Harvard graduate could have missed the entire Cold War period and the concept of nuclear deterrence which kept the genie in the bottle for sixty years?

Instead, threats could be dealt with by "a series of graded options," he said, combining old and new conventional weapons.

Hey, Bamster, would you take a minute to review the American experience with gradual application of force in Vietnam? I watched people disappear daily during the summer of 1966 in Rolling Thunder. Twenty-five pilots at the morning briefing for the Hanoi raid each day and an average of one less every night for six months. Some days two or three and a few days none, but the average held. Gradual escalation sucks. Kill them all and get it done with!

The White House hopes to overcome Russia's expressed reluctance to move beyond START, especially if it means cutting Moscow's arsenal of tactical, or short-range nuclear arms.

What is it that Russia seems to understand that you can't get through your supposedly enlightened head, Mr. President? Could it be that we don't live in a world in which our disarmament will discourage emerging powers from seeking their own nuclear weapons. Other people can build gadgets even if we discontinue our production. We don't hold the exclusive book of knowledge on this.

We'll Respond to WMD With Something Really, Really Bad Maybe

The US unilaterally established a policy some time ago that we would not continue development of two out of the three legs of the triumvirate which is classic WMD. We would not develop or resort to chemical or biological weapons. They are indiscriminate and imprecise. They are crude and difficult to control. They are serious threats but we would voluntarily not use them because we could respond to them with nuclear response which would be certain and decisive.

That is a reasonable position. Now to remove the third leg of the package in the belief that somehow this is going to provide an "example" which the world will emulate seems beyond stupid.

For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

When five million people in New York are dying or dead after a nerve gas attack, or when an updated modern version of Captain Trips is spreading across the nation, the Messiah will never resort to nuclear response if the attacker is in compliance with the NNPT? Gimme a break!

"Graded options"? What the hell are they?

Once again what he does is exactly the opposite of what he says. "I'm going to preserve all the tools that are necessary..." but that doesn't include reasonable nuclear weapons and modernization of the existing arsenal.

This may be treason.