Originally Posted by
Dachshynddawg
Today, the US has a range of Tactical (small-yield) Nuclear warheads that it could use to make surgical strikes on political and military targets in Iran, and targets like its three oil refineries. These Tactical Nuclear warheads would cause maximal destruction of their targets and minimal collateral damage in terms of civilian deaths, etc.
I cannot see the point of putting any American combat troops on the ground in Iran or Iraq if a serious conflict begins as a result of Soleimani's assassination, because it is inevitable that there would be casualties. But why risk ONE American life ? Why risk ONE American life when the enemy can be taken out by pushing some buttons in an air-conditioned room in the Pentagon (or wherever). Iran is a bad nation. Iran is a crazy nation of Muslims whose political leadership think that the world should by converted to Islam by force. Iran hates America and all American values. Iran is in the process of trying to develop nuclear weapons, if they are not stopped they will eventually succeed. (And) they would not hesitate one microsecond in launching nuclear ICBMs against the United States if they had them. These are some of the reasons that I think Trump should take out Iran immediately with Tactical nuclear strikes against its oil refineries, military infrastructure, political leadership, industrial bases. The people of Iran would recover soon enough. I mean, the are basically peasant who live their lives according to the dictates of a 7th century religion document (Sharia Law) that is very simple. They could resume a medieval way of life as farmers, pasturalists, craftsman, tradesmen, artisans and so on. They do not need access to advanced modern technology from the West, after all most of them are illiterate. So, after they have been taught a lesson about not engaging in terrorism or using violence and threats to alter the course of world politics by having their whole S**T-hole razed to the ground, why not just leave them in peace to do their primitive, medieval thing. They can pray to Allah all they like; they can treat their women like S**T and they can throw queers off the top of cliffs, and amputate the hands of thieves, if that's what Mohammed tells them to do ! After all, that's THAT'S THEIR BUSINESS, not the business of America. Let them carry on like monkeys if that's what they absolutely insist on doing -WHO CARES ? WHO GIVES A F**K ? - so long as they do it in their OWN back yard. They only thing they will absolutely not be allowed to do is develop nuclear weapons.
As far as radiation poisoning is concerned, if you consider the Japanese Fukishima Nuclear that was destroyed (pretty much) by a tsunami (that was generated by an earthquake) in 2011. Despite the media panic at the time, it turned there has only been one (1) officially recorded death due to radiation from the incident at the Fukishima plant to date.
When the Chernobyl Reactor meltdown happened in the former USSR in 1986, only a small number of persons died as a result of direct exposure to radiation. It was the release into the atmosphere and subsequent dispersal of the radiation released by the broken reactor was the major concern. This radiation would predictably contaminate the residential areas the surrounding the plant and these regions, of course, were immediately evacuated. But the cloud of radiation released from the meltdown at Chernobyl could very well disperse a considerable distance, and drift into the atmospheres of other more distant areas of Russia or proximate regions of Europe. I think that the official figure to date for the number of individuals who are known( for certain) to have died AS A CONSEQUENCE OF DIRECT RESULT of exposure to high doses of radiation at Chernobyl is about 60. This figure includes people who were inside, or in the close vicinity of the Chernobyl plant, when the meltdown occurred and died from, for example, some form of cancer, relatively soon (1 to 2 years, etc) after.
People who are exposure to the kind of radiation that was released by the meltdown at Chernobyl can develop fatal cancers (and other diseases) , like thyroid cancer, years or decades after they have come into contact with this radiation. There is some an official body, I think it is called the UNITED NATIONS SELECTIVE COMMITTEE on the EFFECTS of RADIATION, or something like that (I'm not 100% sure). This body was asked for an estimate of the total number of people who might eventually die due to the radiation that was released from the Chernobyl Reactor meltdown in 1986, and they came up with a figure of about 4,000. They worked this out using a Mathematical (statistical) model that is highly contentious; so contentious that the figure of 4,000 is basically just speculation as it is impossible to accurately predict how many people in the future will develop cancer in the years and decades after the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. The reasons for this are many, for instance, suppose that two 30 - year -old- men were living in a certain village 200 miles from Chernobyl on the day the nuclear meltdown occurred. The nuclear radiation from the Chernobyl reactor was released into the atmosphere above and then spread out. A strong air current in the atmosphere carried some of the radiation that escaped from the reactor to the village where our young two men were living, and both of them came into contact with equal doses radiation because they were having a drink together after work in the village pub. One of these men developed a lethal thyroid cancer 25 years later and died (and I going to imagine that we developed the medical technology to be able to confirm beyond doubt, that this cancer WAS caused by nuclear radiation), the other man, however, lived a long and healthy life and passed away at the age of 97 from natural causes. Human beings are all different in terms of their physical body and its physiology, biochemistry, etc. An amount of radiation that might kill one person in 5 years, will in many cases have no effect on other individuals of the same sex, age, ethnicity/race, etc - it's impossible to predict, there are too many variables.
BTW, I'm not saying that of the Japanese people who were on the ground at Hiroshima and managed to survive the actual thermonuclear explosion of the H- bomb when it was dropped in 1945, thousands didn't died relatively shortly after due to radiation poisoning - they did. I'm saying that in my view if a nation like the US or the old USSR is carrying out nuclear tests in some isolated desert or in the middle of some vast ocean, miles and miles away from any form of human civilisation than, really, its improbable, IMO, that any people are going to be made ill or die from radiation poisoning. When America was testing the first H-Bomb in a desert in 1945, the military personnel, scientists and press corps who were there to observe the event (there were quite a lot of people all up) - the first successful detonation of a nuclear device, were all placed well away from where the H- Bomb itself was located, but not so far that they couldn't hear the tremendous roar of the explosion and see everything around them bathed in an intense, super-brilliant white light when it exploded. None of these people have ever been reported to have suffered any kind of illness from related to exposure to radiation.
Dachshund
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