blog @ xanatos.ca

The Path to Insanity

I recently stumbled upon a video that I found interesting (in a depressing way.) It's a snippet of a speech by Scott Ritter. Ritter is a well-known critic of the US war in Iraq, as well as the former Chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq. In this video, he describes what he thinks will happen if the US goes ahead with an invasion of Iran:

If you're not into middle eastern politics or military jargon, here are a few explanations that make the video a little clearer:

1. The US government does indeed seem to be looking for a reason to invade Iran. They've been talking about it and making veiled threats for over a year.

2. There are a significant number of people in America who believe (very wrongly, I think) that Iran is a threat to the US, and that invading Iran would be a good idea. It would not.

3. In this video, Ritter talks about the joint chiefs of staff "eliminating nuclear weapons in the first phase of an operation." What he means is that he believes the American military won't be using nukes at the beginning of an invasion of Iran.

4. Ritter also mentions "usable nukes", which are a new kind of small, low-yield nuclear weapon that was recently developed by the US military. Usable nukes are meant to be deployed against troops in the field or against fortified military installations (they are sometimes called "bunker busters.") This is different than normal nuclear weapons, which are mostly supposed to be used on cities.

5. Some people (myself and Ritter included) think that any use of these smaller nukes will just cause other countries to make their own "usable nukes", which will then lead to everyone having and using bigger and bigger nukes. This is one part of the "nuclear genie" that Ritter mentions.

6. When Ritter refers to "boots on the ground", he's describing a true military invasion, i.e. a strategy that involves land-based troops. The typical US strategy when attacking another country is to just bomb the hell out of it from the air, because there are way fewer American casualties that way. But when that doesn't work, sometimes they have to send in the ground troops.

7. Ritter believes that if you have a lot of US soldiers invading Iran with their "boots on the ground", you'll end up with all those troops surrounded and in a lot of danger. (As Ritter puts it, they'll be "in harm's way", which is just a technical military term that means, "about to be killed by the enemy.") And if the troops end up in harm's way, then that will be sufficient justification for the Americans to start using their new "usable nukes".