Nuke Iraq, Why not? Less Would Die.

So I've been doing some thinking, which is never a good thing. I did some googling to confirm the whole thing and oddly enough I was right. Let me explain.

I had this crazy Idea back in the early days of the Iraq/Afghanistan war, when we thought Osama was bedded up, cuddling with Saddam.

Why not just nuke em?

Harsh as it may sound I had a plan to the whole thing. The idea was plop a fence up around the country. Surely if we're going to do it with Mexico, we could do it with some silly little county called Iraq. Then advise everyone in the country we were going to nuke them and tell them they had X amount of time to leave. They'd all pass through checkpoints, and since Osama didn't want to get nuked, we'd capture him dressed as a schoolgirl trying to sneak pass security. If he didn't leave, we'd drop the nuke and the problem would be solved.

While they're are numerous problems with my solution as in "that would be one damn large fence" & the radioactivity of the area would probably leave the place uninhabitable for awhile...

http://www.greensboring.com/upimages/reg/images/5033nuclearbombtest.jpg

But here's where my thinking gets me a little cocked eyed: kinda like the RCA victor dog. This scenario while "unthinkable" to many people, would not be as crazy as it sounds upon a few changes. Lets make the Nuclear bomb, an Atomic Bomb. Lets use Hiroshima as an example. The estimated number of individuals that died from America dropping the Hiroshima bomb was a staggering 90,000.

The number of American Military casualties in Iraq during this current war? 20,000-48,000. Notice that doesn't include civilian casualties, which adds another 45,000-49,000. Then add in soldiers from other countries, oh and lets not forget this doesn't even include Afghanistan, and we could have easily dropped a Hiroshima like bomb and killed less people in Iraq. But lets take it one step further. Since Hiroshima is a densely populated area and Iraq is more spread out, perhaps we could have drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq and have killed less people then by the convention means we chose to pursue?

I mean why not?

Correct me if I'm wrong here but aren't you comparing the number killed in Hiroshima with the number of casualties in Iraq? You do know that casualties does not mean killed don't you?
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"Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurs to God?"

We didn't have any interest in Japan except ending the war.

There's assets in Iraq the the world, not just the U.S., needs access to. Stability in that region is key.

Also, it was pretty easy to predict what it would take to invade Japan. Easy to estimate how many would die.

I don't think anyone understood what it would take in Iraq.

Besides, there's much, MUCH, more to dropping a nuke than just blast and radiation. It would open the door to too many other countries who are nuclear.

In WWII, we were the only country who had the bomb.
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Procrastinate now, don't wait until later.

I have to agree with Matt on this one. There are far too many far-reacing consequences to dropping a nuke. The bombs dropped in WWII were fire-crackers compared to the devasting power of contemporary versions. I don't have any specific figures off-hand, but I'd guess current models to be at least a 1000X more devasting than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The only viable reason I can imagine using a nuke is if someone else attacks us with one first, and I think that's probably the only way you'd ever see an American president authorize one. That scenario ever comes to pass, I'd guess the jig is up for the entire world.

Ironic part is that we supposedly stopped developing chemical/biological weapons back when Nixon was in office, because they're considered too "inhumane". Go figure. Humans are some illogical, wretched creatures when you stop to think.

My thoughts on writing what I did was to compare the stigma of hiroshima, which for most of us is almost incomprehensiable... to the numbers dead from this war.

It's funny for most of us a nuclear bomb being dropped is "the end" in most of our minds, and although I lack statistical information, I wonder exactly what a 5 megaton nuke would actually kill in Baghdad? Surely we could kill 500,000 but how long does the war have to go till we kill that many in the war?

This brings up some questions for me.

Does the US still have atomic weapons? If we wanted to stick a lower blow to someone then a nuke?

And 2 how would the US respond if Osama all of a sudden detonated a nuke in LA, DC, or NY? I'm not talking dirty nuke, I'm talking "boom", Shockwave, Radiation???

Would we not respond with a nuclear attack since we're buddy, buddy with Mr Oil over there?

respond to who? No country claims to have him.

Wow... all this liberalism is making my head spin.

atomic bombs are nuclear weapons.

you don't seem to understand the casualty numbers you are using.

i get it, you are trying to be provocative, but this is just dumb.

What's dumb about it Ed?

Maybe I don't understand nuclear, or atomic weapons, or numbers and casualities, but how many have died from this war?

How many died from the atomic bomb?

Are my numbers, that off?

While we're off fighting our oil crusade, we could be stopping countless deaths from genocide....

When will we use our powers for Good rather then Greed?