A different e-petition

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/trident/

Somewhat less publicised than the one whining about road pricing, but
rather more important.

 

Are you some kind of fucking peacenick? ;o)

TBF Trident is hopelessly outdated (and expensive) as an idea and
*stupidly* expensive to run. We are not facing a massive enemy like the
USSR any more. We need a global reach ICBM, land based on the UK and
long range air/sea launched cruise missle type capability.

We need to look at our warheads too. There isn't much demand for 20 MT
single/multiple weapons. We need cute little 250/500/1000 KT
thermonuclear devices. The Yanks have something similar for Cruise. We
need a nice new Tritium supply IIRC.

Finally, we need credibility. By that I mean be obviously willing to use
them, as we should have done on the Argie invasion fleet as it sailed to
the Falklands (for instance). Currently nobody believes we would use
them and we have a declared "no first strike" policy.

 

Your definition of 'need' must be very very different to mine.

Anyone with the willingness to use nuclear weapons should be allowed
nowhere near the button. Hell, there shouldn't be a button in the first
place.

You're trolling again, right?

 

Your definition of trolling is consistently wrong, and no.
I've been in this industry remember, indeed I can recall a concrete cave
containing gleaming plutonium slugs...

What makes them different from other weapons in a battlefield arena?

What I wouldn't fucking do, as unfortunately the Yanks did, is drop them
on civilian population centres.

 

I don't see that as anything to be proud of.

Avoiding the moral repugnance of some "other weapons" (eg. daisy
cutter), nukes have very little in common with most other weapons, not
least due to what they leave behind after use.

I can think of nothing which has the potential to escalate, not defuse,
a situation like the use of nukes. Once you start, where does it stop?
Any ally who failed to condemn such an action isn't someone I'd want as
an ally in the first place.

 

That is a moot point.

Given you support the idea in principle, are you in favour of Blur's
current intent to tie us into a system which the USA will control?

 

Me too, maybe we could start one of those e-petition things.

 

Then fence it off as a new prison, perhaps? Or just do that anyway.

 

I dunno, landmines are pretty nasty, months and years after setting.

 

Is that not NATO's official policy? Which is also followed by "but if you
do fire even one at us we'll give you back everything we've got"?

 

During the Cold War NATO refused to rule out a first strike - if we were
losing a conventional war we reserved the right to use tactical nuclear
weapons. The thought was that the Warsaw pact outnumbered NATO so
heavily they could have won and a NATO no first strike rule would be
more likely to encourage the Soviets. Present policy may have changed
since I left the mob some time ago.

 

God bless Princess Diana <sob>

 

You are Uncle Albert AICMFF long yarns.

 

On reading the subject, I really thought this was going to be a link to
the "Safe Speed" petition to scrap speed cameras and (in essence)
replace them with with traffic plod to target bad drivers rather than
fast drivers - http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapcam/

Of course, it'll never happen no matter how many people may agree with
it; cameras make money and coppers, with their pesky training, salary
and pension requirements, *cost* money. So it's a governmental no
brainer, really.

 

There'd by just that many more cons desperate to escape if you did that and
once they're out no-one ever finds them again, so I think that plan has a
downside.

Now a nuke induced split is another thing entirely.[1]

[1] Not that kind of split either.

--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Stick 'em on ebay. See how many bids you get from Iran.

--
platypus

"Merely corroborative detail, intended to
give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative.”

 

Yeah, that was sort of my understanding, though some of this came via
the grapevine: the forces (BAOR etc) were really just there to delay
and slow the invasion so that a diplomatic solution could be found
before either too much territory was lost or we resorted to nukes.

 

That'd be a system where we choose to use merkin weapons rather than
spend millions developing our own?

 

**** that. You're messing with my overtime you miserable little ****.

 

Look what happened at Greenham Common and Molesworth so see where
you'll get with your dreams of land based missile systems in this
country.

Submarine launch pads are the best way to deliver a missile where it's
going to hurt most and as long as this country uses merkin missile
systems we'll be able to maintain that capability.