I am personally not too happy with the idea of us weakening ourselves by eliminating nuclear weapons first, especially during a time when Iran refuses to back down and is giving all the hints that they plan to get nukes even if they deny it and Russia is buddy buddies with them while still being friends with us only thru treaties and stuff. But I also tend to believe that with all the technology we have and the ones we don't know of that we have I have to believe we should be able to handle a war with any country or fanatical, radical sects of any kind without resorting to nuclear weapons regardless of the weapons they use except if it's a nuclear weapon.

To charge this Administration with treason? That would be one hell of a stretch as even the people of this country would not want to do that to our own President even if they didn't like him; that would make us look really, really bad. Not unless the proof is irrefutable and this Administrations real intentions was to harm this Nation.

I agree with you regarding first strike option. However if you read what President Obama committed us to, it also addressed removing retaliatory strikes from our response options. I can (unfortunately) conceive of a scenario where a nuclear retaliatory strike could be necessary. Release of a modified EBola virus in a major metropolitan area, VX in the water supply, etc. So essentially, he said, "Except for Korea and Iran, everybody else gets a free pass. You no longer have to fear long range nuclear retaliation." Where does that leave the groups that target us and know our reduced armed force strength is already stretched thin? With a heck of a lot more confidence in their ability to strike with relative impunity. That (to me) moves way beyond bad policy.

As CIC, Obama has the option of choosing what, if any response is to be made.  That is in the Constitution.  So it is not treason (stupid is arguable).  However, Obama can pledge to abide by any treaty he wants.  But unless the senate, with a 2/3 majority goes along, it is meaningless.  Obama has a bad habit of promising other countries a lot more than he can deliver, as the 2/3 limit is not debatable in the senate, but is a constitutional mandate.  So it does not matter if reid or Pelosi like it or not.  They cannot do a damn thing about it.

so a terroist group released Ebola in main land USA and the CIA thought that it probably came from Iran would you nuke the tens of thousands of innocent people to punish the leadership of iran?

That is unfortunately true.

What will the US do when skyscrapers in Tel Aviv start falling under missile fire?

Will the US react and help Israel? Or will the US join the condemnations of the Israeli reaction?

It's no longer clear and that is why such a war is now likely to happen.

Yes.

There is no moral excuse for watching tens of thousands of your own people die when you can act and prevent more deaths on your side.

For all the admiration I have for the Iranian people (and anyone who has read my postings knows that my admiration for Iran is almost fanaticism) they are NOT better than Americans. There is no reason to let Americans die in order to prevent Iranian deaths.

In war there are only two objective goals:

1. Limit the number of total deaths.

2. Limit the number of deaths on the attacked side.

The attacker decides whether people will die, the winner decided who will die.

And if the attacker holds his own people hostage as a human shield, it's on the attacker, not the defender.

Ultimately it wouldn't be the US who killed them but the Iranian regime.

If Obama is still in charge, he will condemn.  if he has been replaced, his successor will undoubtedly stand with Israel.

While the president is not "America", he does control the armed forces.  So to say that "America" will do something or nothing is a misnomer.  It is the president.  America's attitude towards Israel has not changed, just the president has.

No, that is war circa 21st century.  War, real war, not badminton, has but one goal.  The total destruction of the capability of your enemy to wage war and inflict damage to you.  Period.

If Ebola was loosed and it was traced back to Iran, Obama would not do anything, but again his successor would.  Afghanistan made clear that the US is not Israel, and we will not long tolerate sniping as they have.

That's where I question the nuke option as well. I don't see how releasing a bioweapon on us should be an excuse to drop a nuke on a country unless we can, without a shadow of a doubt, prove the Gov't of, say, Iran was responsible. And even then I would think a nice rain on MOABs would probably be just as effective without any of the nuclear fallout or the cost. I just can't see how using a nuke without the enemy using one first should even be considered by our Gov't unless their non-nuclear attack was devatsating enough to kill most of our population.

No, war in the 21st century is:

1. Limit the number of Arab or Muslim deaths.

2. Apologise for firing back when attacked.

I can see the point of regime change if Iran did this as it would prevent another attack and also let the rest of the worlds leadership know they will be removed from power if they do something.

I'm not sure dropping a nuke would have the same affect if the people in power survived.  It would also turn the vast majority of the world against the US as it is punishing the people of Iran not the government of Iran. 

Yeah right, because that has worked so well in the past.

Turns out the world unites against you if you try that. We just tried eight years of that policy.

I was totally for it, mind you. But there are just too many people world-wide, including in the west, who will do absolutely anything in their power to protect such tyrants.

Can you name an example of the world turning against a country because of its brutality?

History has shown that useless and exaggerated violence is the way to go if you want international support. But try doing only what's necessary and the world unites against you.

If a major attack happens in America and America kills tens of thousands because of it, the war will be OVER and nobody else will have to die. Nobody will speak up against a country that reacts like that.

I don't like it any more than you do, but the rational remove-the-dictator-from-power just isn't as accepted by the "international community" as the trick with the genocidal violence.

Note that for example Al-Bashir, the genocidal tyrant of Sudan is a respected leader in the Muslim world. And very few "peace activists" in the west bother to organise huge demonstrations against the genocide in Darfur. But they do organise huge demonstrations against your "regime change" proposal.

What you are talking about is indeed the best way to settle these issues. But "peace activists" and progressives have made it utterly impossible and the "international community" always condemns those who try to respect the rights of people and rewards and respects those who don't.

And they are not already?  Obama was partially elected on the premise that Bush had soured the world against us.  And what has he done?  Soured our allies against us.  Our enemies still hate our guts.

The only difference between Israel and the US is that they US does not have to defend itself daily from terrorists bombing us.  In that Israel is very restrained.  But if Iran were to ABC us, the American people (except a few loonies) would not give a damn what France or Russia thought.  They would want blood.  91% approval rating?  Bush post 9-11.

A ground war is long and costly.  ABC us, and the American people would not want their brothers or fathers (sisters or mothers) getting killed because of some PC crap in Paris.

Just becuase they want blood doesn't mean that they should have it.  Targetting and killing people who had nothing to do with the attack is nothing but spitefull.

The people who would die from the nuke would have had as much to be blamed for as the people who died in first attack.

Now you are changing the scenario.

The original question was "would you nuke the tens of thousands of innocent people to punish the leadership of iran?".

I said yes and qualified that I would do this if it ended the war and saved lives on my side.

Now you speak of _targeting_ innocent people. That's the usual dirty trick used by the left to protect dictators. The dictators use human shields, the human shields get killed hence they were "targeted".

So yes, I would nuke tens of thousands of innocent people to protect myself or my friends.

But no, I wouldn't "target" them. I would never target innocent people.

I made this clear during the Gaza conflict:

I have no moral problem with fighting the entire world to defend my friends. None at all.

http://web.mac.com/ajbrehm/Home/Blog/Entries/2009/1/18_Flag_Day.html

Again, saving lives is noble and good.  But you start saving lives once your own citizens are no longer in danger.  That is what people failed to realize about Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  They saved millions of lives, not only American, but Japanese as well.  But those lives could not have been saved until Japan ceased hostilities which the Bombs accomplished.

War is about killing.  And if only the ones that started wars were in the line of fire, you would have a hell of a boxing match.  But they put their citizens in the line of fire hoping to be protected by their mass of bodies so they can strike again.  Those mass of bodies are there because of the war mongers, not because of a bomb dropped on them by a defending nation.