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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!thorntn
From: thorntn@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Duncan Peter G. Thornton)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,trial.talk.politics.peace,alt.conspiracy,alt.desert-storm
Subject: Re: The Nuclear Option
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.174432.904@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 12 Feb 91 17:44:32 GMT
References: <1991Feb7.025838.13793@panix.uucp> 	<1991Feb9.075438.17779@alembic.acs.com> 	<1991Feb11.023449.17583@ddsw1.MCS.COM> 	<1991Feb11.172446.7039@engin.umich.edu> 	<1991Feb11.204302.27201@meteor.wisc.edu> <JMC.91Feb11182258@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: talk
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Lines: 27

In <JMC.91Feb11182258@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU> jmc@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

>I think George Bush will correctly decide that avoiding the use of
>tactical nuclear weapons is worth letting a rather large number of
>American soldiers die.  His project of freeing Kuwait, preventing Iraq
>from being able to do it again, and making sure than conquest is
>unfashionable faces enough political difficulties as is.

>Truman was in a quite different political position.  If he had
>let American soldiers die because of failure to use the bomb,
>his political chances would have been nil.

I would like to give Truman the benefit of the doubt here, 
and assume that he did not drop both bombs because he was
worried about re-election, but because he sincerely believed
it would save lives (and not just American soldiers' lives).

I could be wrong, but I'd like to give him the benefit of
the doubt.  In any case, as the existence of the bomb was
a secret, who among the electorate would have blamed him for
not using it?  

- Duncan


Duncan Thornton          | When an idea is too weak to stand the test of simple
thorntn@ccu.umanitoba.ca | expression, it should be dropped. - Vauvenargues