Thursday, January 24, 2008

WTF, Over?

Ummmm, try swallowing this without choking:

A chilling report prepared by a group of top military commanders from the US and its NATO allies declares that the alliance must be prepared to launch a preemptive nuclear first strike because of “asymmetric threats and global challenges” posed to the West.

“The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, in order to avoid truly existential dangers,” declares the report, which is titled “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.”


Captain Patrick Ramsey: "Attention on deck. Von Clauswitz will now tell us who the true enemy is."

Lieutenant Commander Hunter: "In my humble opinion, sir, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."


--Crimson Tide, 1995

WOPR: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

--Wargames, 1983

The more countries and coalitions that profess to having the "right" to a first strike option when it comes to the use of Nuclear weapons, the closer the world comes to the vision of Robert Oppenheimer upon seeing the first successful test of an Atom Bomb in New Mexico in 1945:

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

--Interview about the Trinity explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, produced by Fred Freed, NBC White Paper, 1965

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of this world must unite or they will perish.

--Acceptance Speech, Army-Navy "Excellence" Award, November 16, 1945