I think the US needs to look at military intervention to eliminate Pakistan's nuclear weapons and program. Not troops on the ground but if we can get fixed locations on their weapons we should look at taking them out. Pakistan has sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and now Saudi Arabia. They are a much greater threat to our safety.
Pakistan is on pace to having the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal in the world. At current pace, Pakistan is set to overtake even China in nuclear weapons in the next 5-10 years, Iran doesn't have a single nuke... yet. Pakistan's government has pretty iffy control over their nukes, a military coup or terrorist attack could cause them to lose control over some of their nukes, while Iran has a government that we do not agree with, they are more stable and have tighter control over their military. Currently there is little threat to the security of their nuclear program by outside radical groups. I don't want Iran to have nukes but I think we have to give the treaty a chance before considering military options. At the first hint that Pakistan has lost control of one of their nukes we have to take some sort of military action and take it immediately. I don't think invasion and occupation of either country is a realistic option.
So bomb the guys with the nukes. Makes way more sense than bombing the guys before they get nukes. I'm not getting the logic here, dog. How about we don't bomb either unless they use one?
I don't think we should wait until a nuke is detonated on American soil. Again, if Pakistan loses control over one of their nukes I believe we have to take immediate action. I'm against America being the world's police force but to just sit back and wait until a nuclear bomb is exploded here is just not an option or a risk I think we should take. But more importantly, these are the types of discussions we should be having. Not, "did you hear what the Ayatollah said?!?" :MARIS61: Right now, today, Iran is not a threat to the USA and since we seemed to be joined at the hip, Israel. Pakistan is far closer to being a threat. Far closer. While they are not spewing anti American rhetoric they have very loose control over the weapons that can hurt us.
Pakistan Carts Its Nukes Around In Delivery Van Pakistan is taking nuclear paranoia to a horrifying new low. And it’s making the world a vastly more dangerous place in the process. Freaked out about the insecurity of its nuclear arsenal, the Pakistani military’s Strategic Plans Division has begun carting the nukes around in clandestine ways. That might make some sense on the surface: no military wants to let others know exactly where its most powerful weapons are at any given moment. But Pakistan is going to an extreme. The nukes travel “in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic,” according to a blockbuster story on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship in The Atlantic. Marc Ambinder and Jeffrey Goldberg write that tactical nuclear weapons travel down the streets in “vans with a modest security profile.” Somewhere on a highway around, say, Karachi, is the world’s most dangerous 1-800-FLOWERS truck. ... Except that Pakistan isn’t trying to safeguard its nukes from them. It’s trying to safeguard its nukes from us. The Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden has made important Pakistani generals think that the U.S. military’s next target is Pakistani nukes. So off the vans go, along what Ambinder and Goldberg term “congested and dangerous roads,” trying to throw off the scent of the U.S., with little more than hope to protect them from an adventurous highwayman. The irony is that the U.S. isn’t planning to steal Pakistan’s nukes — but Pakistan’s cavalier attitude toward nuclear security is making the U.S. think twice about whether it should revise some worst-case-scenario contingency planning. Should any of the nukes go missing, an “Abbottabad redux” would likely occur, Ambinder and Goldberg report. An anonymous military official tells the pair that the Joint Special Operations Command “has units and aircraft and parachutes on alert in the region for nuclear issues, and regularly inserts units and equipment for prep.” Seizing Pakistani nukes during or after a military coup is a much harder mission, but the reporters consider it doable. “t’s wise for the U.S. to try to design a plan for seizing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in a low-risk manner,” Goldberg and Ambinder advise, placing a lot of rhetorical freight on the words “low-risk.” ... Which sinks the U.S. into the nadir of absurdity. It funds a terrorist-sponsoring state while conducting a massive undeclared war on part of that state’s territory. It wants that state’s assistance to end the Afghanistan war while that state’s soldiers help insurgents wage it. And seeking a world without nuclear weapons while its “Major Non-NATO Ally” drastically increases the probability that terrorists will acquire a the most dangerous weapon of all. http://www.wired.com/2011/11/pakistan-nukes-delivery-vans/
I find it interesting that one of the main arguments for attacking them, is that they are carting their weapons around because they are paranoid that we will attack them.
