Liberty or Death

What President Bush wants for Christmas?

I have posted 3 Comments from below. My reply is at bottom of the three.

1. Liberal Percy has left a new comment on your post "12/04/2006 03:40:00 AM":
What is ridiculous, Mr. Death, is the idea that all problems would be solved if we just offed a few leaders - including elected ones like Chavez. Would the US go away if OBL succeeded in offing the top 5-10 US leaders?

And you think something like this could be kept quiet? Asteroids? Not even Rush Limbaugh could hawk that one with a straight face - and he makes a living lying.

Consequences? War in Korea, a target on every American overseas, war with half the world and complete disgust from the rest. Bush would be confirming everyone's worst fears about Amercia - and the rest of the world would be right in condemning us.

Sorry, everyone. Mr. Death here isn't on any drugs we could obtain for our pleasure. He's just gone insane all by his little deranged self.

2. Farkington has left a new comment on your post "12/04/2006 03:40:00 AM":
Are you kidding? The Navy is never going to deploy non-nuclear submarine fired missiles that are comparable in size to outgoing strategic weapons.

Why?

Because they aren't stupid. A non-nuclear cruise missile looks just like a nuclear one. The Navy is quite aware of this, now you are too.

The Russians would freak out if they spotted a submarine launch, as would many other nuclear powers. Mostly because submarines are second strike weapons, not toys in your personal videogame.

If you want to shove depleted uranium up the collective assholes of everyone on your "do not like" list, that's fine, use surface ships. Just don't suggest a course of action that is absolutely braindead.

You want to know what would destablize South America? Killing all the drug cartel leaders. You know what would destabilize the Middle East? Killing all the Wahhabi clerics & Iranian revolutionary guard leaders.

Creating power vaccuums is a terribly way to conduct foreign policy. Overt acts of war are even worse.

3. Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "12/04/2006 03:40:00 AM": I realize you like the big toys but do you really think it would be a good idea for Mossad to be the brain for our brawn. Israel may be an ally but our nations' international interests come nowhere near overlapping 100% let alone 50%.

Liberty or Death response
OK guys you caught me at a poor attempt at humor. Santa Claus and asteroids are ridiculous. My list of leaders is just a list; my choices were to elicit response. Pick your own list or none at all. I would not kill Kim IL. His worst enemy is himself. When its time to marginalize Korea, the way to do it is to eliminate Kim’s access to foreign cash and goods. If he stops buying off his key supporters, his own generals will do the job and we won’t be to blame. Liberal Percy, the one bunch I would definitely want gone are the Iranian thugs who hijacked a whole country in 1979 and are using its wealth to further personal ambitions that include “wiping Israel of the map”, and “Death to America.” They rule by violence and torture of their own people. They have 200,000 Revolutionary Guards to protect them from their own people and the Army. They are racist. The murders and other abuses they are inflicting on the million Arabs that live along their west coast is a human rights disgrace. The Persians hold all the power, but they are only 51% of the 69M Iranians. The minorities hate the Persians and are punished for it. The Persians have a significant number of young people who don’t remember the Shaw, who use the internet and see how the rest of the world lives and they reject living in the 7th century. Eliminating these theocratic thugs would allow the people of Iran to take their country back.

There are two kernels in my post that I was trying to convey; killing leaders where it would make a difference and the need for a device that is both lethal and has minimal collateral damage. Pick your method; I chose a hypothetical one. The missile obviously does not exist today and there may be more effective ways to do it.

On the other hand you provided some thoughts that are worth debating. I will begin the debate. I don’t believe there is one right answer in human discourse. Also I will let you present your ideas unedited to the readers.

1. Liberal Percy, running around killing all the bad guy leaders whole sale. No. I would be very selective. It would have to make a difference. Your analogy to America or any other free democratic society is weak because leaders in a free society are easily replaced with little disruption and by a process that the people support. There are cases where the leaders rule by force, abuse their own people and those people have no say in their replacements. If they disappeared, the country would be better off. Iran is the best case at the moment.

2. Farkington. Pick your own weapons and methods as long as it arrives within 30 second warning and does very little collateral damage I will use yours. But the use of mothballed SSBNS to launch kinetic missiles is not as far fetched as you say. ICBMs look a likes are launched all the time. The shuttle, satellite launches. Large boosters that use non-air breathing engines have unique thermal signatures that are picked up by spy satellites. Lots of countries launch these boosters on a frequent basis. What keeps the nuclear powers from freaking out, as you say, is handled by protocols established when nuclear missile testing was common place on both sides. In my case, we just notify Putin when there is no time left for him to warn our target. Between the Russians and Americans one missile is not going to freak out anyone. I was careless and implied a simultaneous massive launch. Your right; that would be reckless.

SSBNs vs. surface ships. Not a good trade off. Do SSBN launched missiles and surface launched missiles look different to thermal spy satellites? You can’t launch a 130,000 lb missile from a surface ship unless you built a special ship for it. The SSBNs already exist with nothing to do in mothballs. They are already designed for Tridents. Even though I was musing, I was trying to practical.

I need to separate your concept of destabilizing countries and your examples; they are two different thoughts. There are conditions where destabilization is desirable. Let me start with an obvious extreme. Germany under Hitler was a very stable country before 1 Sept 1939. He pulled his country from depression to prosperity. He eliminated the worst oppressions of the World War I treaty. I will forget the human rights violations against his own people and the use of violence to achieve power. But after Sep of 39 there was no doubt that this very stable country was a serious threat to world peace. Destabilizing 1939 Germany would have been a highly desirable thing to do. Offing the drug cartels would cause no destabilization because when there is billions to be had there is an unlimited supply of thugs to take their place. Wasted effort. But help me to understand how the drug cartels are a stabilizing force? Just because they bring money into their country and hire a bunch of out of work locals? They also bring large-scale crime and corruption of the government. What is the life expectancy of an honest government official in these countries? Less than a year. Is this a desirable stability? Let the government take over the drug trade and eliminate the crime. That would be a more desirable stability for them. I don’t blame other countries for our drug problems. It is our fault.

“Creating a power vacuum is a terrible way to conduct foreign policy”. Maybe not desirable, but in what way is it terrible foreign policy? There are cases when a vacuum and instability would be far preferable. If national leaders are committed to the destruction of other people for their own selfish motives, then by all means disrupt them before they act. Iran has been conducting an undeclared war against Israel through Hezbollah. The rockets that hit Israel and the Israeli ship were provided free of charge from the Iranians. Russia was a supplier as well. Iran is openly arming and training Hamas with the same effective weapons. What has Israel done to Iran, nothing. Do you think that the Iranian leaders are a more stabilizing world force alive or dead? I prefer dead before these wacos have serious nukes.

3. Anonymous. Of course you are correct. But the Semitic Israelis can melt into the Arab populations like no other nation can. I would use them in these circumstances. All we would be asking for is observation and a phone call. Nothing covert. They are doing this already.

I will admit that this post was over the top. The hyperbole was intentional. It began a healthy debate, which was my goal. For the record, I am not a reckless warmonger. I also do not believe in imposing democracy wherever we go. I am a nationalist, but I am a strong believer in non-interference. Leave me alone; I will leave you alone. But when you are a threat to the life and liberty of America I believe in pre-emption. I also believe using the military should be a last option. But when it is the only thing left, use it with overwhelming force and get out. No nation building. Remove or marginalize the threat to America and get out. I have zero imperialistic goals for America. I have zero interest in meddling at all. We do far too much meddling today, and it is by partisan. I would never have attacked Iraq. I would have wacked the Taliban, but I would have pulled all troops out within 6 months. I would pull our entire overseas troops home. Last week a Marine was convicted of rape in Okinawa. Do you think the people of Okinawa like America more because we have troops there?

I welcome your replies.
Liberty or Death


What President Bush wants for Christmas?

A new missile. What you say, we have lots of missiles? Not like this one. Let’s call it the super cruise missile or maybe the decapitator. It will have the same footprint as the Trident II D5 see below:


Trident II D-5 Fleet Ballistic Missile

6,000nm (6,900mi; 11,000km)
Greater than 4,000 nautical miles (4,600 statute miles, or 7,360 km)

1st and 2nd stage burn times are 65 seconds each
3rd stage burn time is 40 seconds

44 feet (13.41 meters)

130,000 pounds (58,500 kg)

This missile will have the flight characteristics of a supersonic cruise, stealth, a new GPS guidance system with 3 foot accuracy, a pop up terminal phase where it goes up to 70-100 thousand feet and come straight down at very high mach. You could swap some of the fuel for warhead mass. We don’t need even half the range. What type of warhead? Certainly not a nuke, not even an explosive warhead at all, but a rod of depleted uranium like our tank rounds. A kinetic round of say 20,000 lbs, maybe 10,000 lbs. I’ll leave it to Santa Claus to pick the right size. Could come in multiple sizes to suit the target. The super cruise would launch from a SSBN (missile submarine) which were designed and do carry the Trident II today. No mods to the subs required. What you say, these SSBNs are needed for our nuclear deterrence? We have treaties with the Russians to limit our fleet! Well Santa knows all, and is aware we are decommissioning 4 SSBNs as we speak, so they have nothing else to do. Since our warhead is kinetic, no boom, no treaty violation. Picture a rod of depleted uranium coming straight down at very high mach and hitting your target with a 3-foot error. Gosh, it would look like and behave just like an asteroid. Only better because depleted uranium is far denser than an iron asteroid. The important thing is that it would be detectable for only 20-30 seconds. Not enough time to escape even if you knew exactly what it was. What would it do to the target? Remember the movie Armageddon? Coming straight down with no explosion it would have minimal collateral damage but could go through hundreds of feet of concrete or rock with devastating results.

What would Bush do with 4 SSBNs loaded with these missiles? Our Islamic enemies are blessed with very charismatic leaders that their loyal followers believe are invincible. These targets, oops I mean leaders have to be somewhere at all times. Who knows where these guys are at any given time. Certainly not the CIA, they did not know where the Chinese embassy was in Yugoslavia when it was on a street map. The Mossad knows. When any of our friends are in their government building or sleeping in their residences the Mossad could give us real time notice. The subs would be parked off shore in international waters, but still be very close to any person in the Middle East. The first salvo would take out the leaders (top 5 –10 guys) of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Korea, the leader of Darfor, and a very special guy named Hugo Chavez. Since none of these guys believe in Santa Claus the must think these missiles are punishment from God. Bush could act dumb, almost no acting required. He would offer the vast resources of the US to determine where these asteroids were coming from. Of course Putin and the Chinese would know. We want them to. But why Hugo? First he is a thug who is destroying his country and destabilizing the South America, second we would want all leaders in the world to know that Bush really is a cowboy and no person on earth is safe.

Oh I forgot to tell you the SSBNs could be cleaned up and reloaded. Who is next? Nuclear bomb making facilities, Wahhabi clerics, drug cartel leaders, Iranian revolutionary guard leaders. Pakistani and Chinese nuclear missile silos. The dead leader’s replacements. With two years left on Bush’s term it could be a very long list that Santa could deliver a lump of coal to.

Merry Christmas, not a creature was stirring not even a rat.

Liberty or Death