June 18, 2007
Brit Ambassador: We Joined Invasion to Keep Cowboy Bush from Nuking Afghanistan
Actually his words were "nuke the shit out of the place," but you get the drift:
Britain joined the United States' invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001 because it feared America would "nuke the shit" out of Afghanistan, the former British ambassador to Washington reportedly told a television documentary to be screened Saturday.In comments printed in advance in the Daily Mirror tabloid on Monday, Christopher Meyer said that fear explained why Prime Minister Tony Blair chose to stand with US President George W. Bush in his decision to invade Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- to temper his aggressive battle plans.
"Blair's real concern was that there would be quote unquote 'a knee-jerk reaction' by the Americans ... they would go thundering off and nuke the shit out of the place without thinking straight," Meyer reported told the documentary, according to the Mirror.
This makes perfect sense, of course, considering our history. We nuked Iraq after Abdul Rahman Yasin detonated a sodium cyanide-laced bomb in the first attack on the World Trade Center complex in 1993 and fled to that country, did we not? It was the first attempted WMD attack on the United States, and we responded accordingly. Didn't we?
Previously, we'd nuked Lebanon after the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing and Iran during the Hostage Crisis.
We're just a bunch of nuke-crazy fools!
Except that we aren't...
Frankly, this strikes me as the same kind of hyperventilating we heard over the self-debunking collection of seven British documents known as the "Downing Street Memos." Conspiracy theorists live citing the first, but shun mentioning that the David Manning Memo and the Iraqi Options Paper (PDF), two other documents in the series, indicate that a decision to invade was not the foregone conclusion they claimed.
You'll note that the British Christopher Meyer ambassador makes these claims, but at least in this account, doesn't seem to have any evidence to support his claim. How convenient.
The fact that Afghanistan's Taliban was not concentrated into an area where deploying a nuclear weapon would be a feasible option, that any fallout would potentially affect China, Pakistan and India, and that such a strike would fail to root out al Qaeda and Taliban elements somehow didn't factor into this article, or into Meyer's thinking.
I'd love to see what evidence Meyer can produce to show that we seriously considered using nuclear weapons against a largely mountainous, largely rural country in a dramatic over-response that would not likely produce the results of eliminating the Taliban and al Qaeda without also eliminating a much larger non-involved civilian population. I'd like to see documents supporting that we seriously considered what would be nothing less than visiting upon Afghanistan the kind of nuclear genocide Iranian President Mamoud Ahmadinejad keeps promising to deliver to the state of Israel. I suspect we won't get it.
Like the original Downing Street Memo that is the staple of Iraq War conspiracy theorists, this claim is likely the result of not "even fourth-hand" knowledge.
"... I'd like to see documents ..."
We don't need no stinkin' documents. If it paints; Bush, America, Americans in a bad light, that's enough for any wacko.
Posted by: DoorHold at June 18, 2007 09:49 AMThis sounds like an over statement. But after Bush has burned his own conservative base I am beginning to think that maybe other people saw something in the nut before we did.
Posted by: David Caskey at June 18, 2007 09:51 AMSure everythings on the table to prevent iran from obtaining NUKES said so yourself CY:
I would posit that both the Israeli and the U.S. military have munitions capable of destroying or severely damaging Iranian nuclear sites (even hardened underground bunkers), if those sites can be accurately identified.
lets not get COLD FEET
GIT ER DONE!!!
Posted by: Karl at June 18, 2007 10:12 AMYeah, but how did they know Bush was a bloodthirsty cowboy cowboy back in 2001? Did he nuke anyone while governor of Texas that I don't know about? Did he commit any warcrimes while in the Texas Air Guard?
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at June 18, 2007 10:45 AMI'm betting the ambassador was making a joke in hyperbole. I'm sure it was hilarious to all his "America is a bunch of A-holes" buddies.
As for Karl... this is unrelated to the post but I'm getting bored with the parody of a conservative that you've been playing at. You're posts are ridiculous. and it's spelled: "Git R' Done"
Posted by: K-Det at June 18, 2007 11:14 AMThere probably is a grain of truth to Christopher Meyer's thinking.
No doubt some concern that we might act rashly informed Blair's thinking, but just the normal or generic kind, not the apocalyptic kind. That's part of what friends are for in terrible circumstances and I have no problem with that. That doesn't mean the primary reason for Blair stepping forward was this and not that 9/11 was an act of barbarity which any person in their right mind would assist in countering in some way with great friends wanting to assist in ways that share every burden.
It seems to me, though, Meyer tells us more about Meyer than about Blair. It's quite possible that Meyer communicated this fear himself and thinks it was a direct influence on Blair's thinking.
It seems more likely these were Meyer's fears based on his view of the world and brought to Washington along with his other baggage. And I wouldn't surprised if they were reinforced by the fears communicated within the clique into which he glommed and circled as ambassador in Washington.
The US does not have a monopoly on self-preening egotistical fools at the ambassador level in foreign service.
Posted by: Dusty at June 18, 2007 11:37 AM"K-Det":::
EVERYBODY knows bunker busters are NUKES!!! dont play dumb
also you mean 'YOUR parody' not 'you're parody' learn the LANGUAGE!!!
Karl -
Norice the "laser guided conventional munition" part of the description.
I guess you're wrong again.
From "StrategyPage":
The Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) bomb is designed to penetrate hardened targets before exploding, capable of penetrating 100 feet of earth or 20 feet of concrete. The GBU-28 was initially developed in 1991 for penetrating hardened Iraqi command centers located deep underground. This "bunker buster" was required for special targets during the Desert Storm conflict and was designed, fabricated and loaded in record time. The GBU-28 is a laser-guided conventional munition that uses a modified Army artillery tube as the bomb body. They are fitted with GBU-27 LGB kits, 14.5 inches in diameter and almost 19 feet long. The operator illuminates a target with a laser designator and then the munition guides to a spot of laser energy reflected from the target.
Posted by: Actual at June 18, 2007 01:03 PMKarl, most "bunker busters" are not nuclear.
The B61 Mod 11 is the only active U.S. nuclear weapon I'm aware of designed to be a bunker buster. The overwhelming majority are more-or-less conventional weapons with hardened penetrator warheads, such as the BLU-109, BLU-113, and the BLU-116.
The BLU-118 themobaric weapon is a bunker-buster of a different stripe, and interestingly enough, I met a man who claims to be the Air Force ordnance tech who built the only one ever used, on a cave full of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Gardez Afghanistan, on March 3, 2002.
Once again, most bunker busters anre't nukes, there are several non-nuke types of bunker busters, and perhaps as important, both we and our allies are thought to have hundreds stockpiled.
Posted by: Confederaet Yankee at June 18, 2007 01:06 PMThe place was already pre-wrecked when we got there. There would be nothing left to bother nuking.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at June 18, 2007 07:01 PMI'm sure it was hilarious to all his "America is a bunch of A-holes" buddies.
Cripes, the minute one of our allies steps off the res, you guys throw them under the bus. This is Great Britain, remember? They're the ones who went along with Iraq.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at June 18, 2007 09:00 PMDoc, you are right, Great Britain is our ally, not Meyer or his "America is a bunch of a-holes" buddies. But I don't see K-Det throwing Great Britain under the bus.
Posted by: Dusty at June 18, 2007 09:43 PMI deeply respect Great Britain's commitment to the war on terror and to the mutual protection of the US and the UK. I also however, have many British friends from since childhood (I went to an international high school in Europe, being American was like being a mathlete or something) - and I've been hearing anti-american sentiment, whether in jest, serious, or a mixture of both from Britons as much as anyone else. So I have "America is a bunch of a-holes" friends myself... they exist.
P.S. I hope my term doesn't survive much longer, it takes way too much time to write.
Posted by: K-Det at June 19, 2007 12:41 AM
