Should the United States bomb Iraq with nuclear weapons?

Answer 1

As this is a "should question" you will likely get differing perspectives.

Answer 1

"Good idea if you don't mind millions of 'collateral' deaths.

Bad idea if you care about humanity, the Earth, and your dignity".

Answer 2

In response to Answer 1, remember 9/11 what's stopping those terrorists from striking again. Nothing. We have to strike before American soil is hit again. The Middle East has no abundance of wildlife and it's a massive desert biome. It really won't matter if we bomb Iraq with a nuclear device. Also, what does dignity have to do with this. Nothing, wrong again. Also, what about American troops dying everyday to unimaginable circumstances. Those troops have a future out of the army and can come out of the army and make a difference in the world by help curing disease, being doctors, and teachers. Those soldiers, are collateral lives. So your basically stating that it's right to kill hundreds of American soldiers who can make a difference in the world, but it's wrong to kill people who have been living by using outdated methods of survival and most likely won't move out of Iraq to contribute to the world. Those aren't "collateral" lives. You are simply staing it's okay to slaughter Americans but is not okay to kill people from Iraq that are living among a massive threat to the coalition forces. This is not correct in any way. We should Bomb Iraq with a nuclear device before we suffer the consequences.

Answer 3

In response to Answer 2 and in support of Answer 1, it is wholly unacceptable to advocate the use of a nuclear weapon, ever. For those who believe that it is smart or desirable to use nuclear bombs, I strongly urge you to visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki and to read about the heart-rending pain that hundreds of thousands of people suffered as they died from the atomic bombs used and the millions hurt from the emotional pain.

In the Japan-situation, you had a hostile nation that the United States was actively at war with and proposed invasions of the main Japanese islands would have resulted in tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of casualties. Japan had 4 million reservists and the US invasion force is estimated to have been 2.5 million persons. Additionally, it is likely that Japanese civilians would also have joined the fight against the American invaders. The atomic bombing managed to prevent the invasion of the main Japanese islands and end the war more quickly. The debate in the Japanese case is whether the result of using nuclear weapons outweighed the costs. I personally, find that argument unconvincing, but I can see how someone might disagree with me.

However, the Iraq case is far less tenable than the Japan case. In the Iraqi case, the Iraqi people and Iraqi government were not hostile enemies in war; the US chose to invade Iraq. Answer 2 also mentions the long-debunked connection between al-Qaeda and September the 11th on the one-hand and Iraq on the other. To attack al-Qaeda by using a nuclear bomb is an unconscionable form of violence even if Iraq was complicit in supporting them as Afghanistan was. It would be like justifying dropping an atomic bomb on New York City to stop the Italian mafia. It is neither acceptable, because of the amount and percentage of civilian casualties, nor successful in completing the objective, since Italian mafiosos don't only live in New York. Like the New York example, the best way to deal with al-Qaeda is through law enforcement and targeted arrests of the organized crime and terrorist networks.

Additionally, using a nuclear device in Iraq would further strengthen Islamic Fundamentalists like al-Qaeda. One of the strongest deterrents for many Muslims from joining al-Qaeda and similar organizations is the belief that Islam and the West can coexist peacefully and that violent resistance to the West is not in Islam's nature. By performing something as heinous as firing a nuclear weapon in an Islamic country, you would vastly weaken the appeal of both of those arguments and therefore make Islamic Fundamentalism become more mainstream. It is critical to avoid letting the fudnamentalists define the narrative.