To think saying you would never push the button is moral cowardice?

[VeryEarlyDays]

If corbyn is anti nuclear and for disarmament then those are the colours he should nail his mast.
Today he seemed to say I will not oppose trident because that would loose votes so I'll let millions of pounds be spent on something but then say personal I wouldn't use it. Just seems cowardly..

I saw a documentary about when we had nuclear bombers (planes) - the crews were saying they knew that once they'd dropped the bombs, they'd be heading home to a small island full of vaporised buildings and dead and dying people.

Unlikely we'd ever press the button first, and once we've been nuked there's not a lot of point to it.

I read your second post, OP.

I think taking about nuclear disarmament can be quite dry. I think talking about pressing red buttons engages the public more and shifts the debates towards morality and further away from finances. So, I think it is a useful tool to talk about red buttons and not moral cowardice.

I, too, trust that we would never hit the button 1st - but that isn't what Trident is about in any case, and it makes his comments reasonably irrelevant.

Trident is our end-game, a 2nd strike system that, reasonably uniquely, cannot be stopped with a hit to our command and control chain.

It makes his comment that he 'wouldn't hit the button' in relation to Trident a little bit daft, because in the scenario that Trident is designed to tackle, London is already likely to be a radioactive ruin, he is likely to be dead and the Submarine Captain's will be acting from the Letter's of Last Resort which they are already carrying. It won't be his button to push.

It is not to be underestimated what effect that has - effectively, we can be turned to a radioactive slag, but whoever does it, WILL get hit back. That's a far bigger threat, £ for £ than any number of conventional Nukes.

Trident aside, though, I actually admire him for being willing to stand by his personal convictions, albeit I would be very wary of wanting him now as our Leader.

Then again, I was wary of him on an International stage anyway. I just can't see how he sits at a table with some of the people he would need to and gets taken seriously.

Then again, I was wary of him on an International stage anyway. I just can't see how he sits at a table with some of the people he would need to and gets taken seriously

Which is a sad reflection of the people he is sitting round the table with. Most of them have no real or moral principles,..and these are the people who are leading the world.
We have to start somewhere getting a decent person amongst the psychopaths who run everything.

On the international stage, he'd be sitting next to people who are currently making dodgy profit-led decisions about dealing with repressive regimes in the Middle East (eg Saudi), who were wrong about Iraq, wrong about Syria, and going further back even wrong about South Africa/ Nelson Mandela.

One thing you cannot say about Corbyn is that he is naive about foreign policy. He has been proven right (and the government of the day wrong) on an alarming number of occasions.

Then again, I was wary of him on an International stage anyway. I just can't see how he sits at a table with some of the people he would need to and gets taken seriously.

As if some of our past incumbents have been much cop. I agree with Gottagetmoving.

As for the concept of our "Submarine Captain's [sic]...Letter's [sic] of Last Resort" There's nothing in that that is in any way justifiable for any reason - it's just vindictive and pointless. We do not and would not face a serious threat from traditional cold war sources.

hmmm so trident is 4 subs with 16 nuclear weapons on each...

yep I can see how Putin will be bricking it, sat as he is on a stockpile of around 7500 nuclear weapons.

How much of Russia could you even take out with 16 strikes?

I actually thing Corbyn's strategy is very good....'keep them if you must but I will make them useless'

I would put some Money on Cameron also not being willing to use them..I mean what are you going to say? "If North Korea wipes out the UK government then yeah wipe them all off the map! The men, the women...the children - nuke them all!"

I just don't see it.

YABVU. For the myriad of reasons explained so well by PPs.

Slight digression, but is anyone else irritated by watching journalists trying to back Corbyn into a corner and contradict himself? I know they need to do that when a politician is being evasive, but FFS when someone has given you a straight answer, could you PLEASE maybe notice that that is what has happened.

Purely in bbc land I think Evan is getting the hang of the new normal and will probably be sporting socks and sandals next week. Laura and Alegra are starting to look like head girl wannabes who were moved school at the wrong moment and Emily is starting to look like worried mother of wayward teenagers. That makes Andrew N disapproving grumpy Gramps. Andrew and Kevin on Sky doing the newspaper review starts to look like reasoned journalistic debate in comparison. As you can see I am now way beyond irritation

No wonder the politicians are starting to sound so sensible.

I would put some Money on Cameron also not being willing to use them..I mean what are you going to say? "If North Korea wipes out the UK government then yeah wipe them all off the map! The men, the women...the children - nuke them all!"

It's interesting to see some of the views like this, I served in Coldwar Germany where the entire role of the British Army in the event of a Soviet invasion was to hold out for 3 days to give the politicians time to try and negotiate before initiating Mutually Assured Destruction.

If you honestly believe that the PM, or any of his deputies, Generals etc would not retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

I'd want and expect them to.

Agree I can barely watch BBC political tv journalists right now. The only one I would like to hear interview Corbyn is John Pienaar on the radio.

I'd want and expect them to.

So after you and everyone you love has been been burnt to a crisp, it's important to you to know that the same was being done to everyone else on the planet in order to make sure we taught ourselves a lesson by exterminating everyone? What for?

So after you and everyone you love has been been burnt to a crisp, it's important to you to know that the same was being done to everyone else on the planet in order to make sure we taught ourselves a lesson by exterminating everyone? What for?

Yes, not everyone, just the country responsible for nuking us.

I'd rather do that than let them kill us all and carry on as normal....

In fact, that's slightly wrong - what I'd rather happened is that the country that couldn't fight back got nuked and we got left alone because we had a deterrence...

I think he's just being honest.

Incidentally, which party has made the most cuts in defence over the last forty or more years? Tories- decimating the Navy in the 1980s, ending many traditional army regiments in the 1990s, and then the most recent cuts.

I'd rather do that than let them kill us all and carry on as normal

A bit sadistic. Just like you and I have no control over what a current government does, neither do civilians in other countries. I would gain no satisfaction from men, women & children in another country being blown to smithereens just because we had been.

we got left alone because we had a deterrence... I've got a great Jeremy Hardy tweet for you -

"Deterrence" operates in the US where anyone can own an assault rifle and use it on schoolchildren.

Realistically, who is going to nuke us? For what?

Okay well I have a new definition of moral cowardice thanks to Iknow

Moral cowardice: acting to increase the chances that someone else gets nuked.

Actively wanting to nuke anyone with the misfortune to live in a country that contained one person willing to nuke the UK is not so much moral cowardice as total moral bankruptcy.

In fact while we are at it let me be very clear.

David Cameron - you do not have my permission to fire nuclear weapons ever under any circumstances. I do not care if me and mine are dead or dying, it is impossible to use a nuclear weapon without endangering innocent men women and children and I will not have it done in my name.

David Cameron - you do not have my permission to fire nuclear weapons ever under any circumstances. I do not care if me and mine are dead or dying, it is impossible to use a nuclear weapon without endangering innocent men women and children and I will not have it done in my name.

You do make me larf.....

"Dear Dave,

Nuke the bastards for me......"

Now we've cancelled each other out.......

hardly...

If the world was perfect nobody would still have these evil devices after seeing what the people of Hiroshima went through. But the world isn't perfect. For them to be resigned to the past, someone has to lead by example. Nobody wants to be without their radioactive penis extension first though. Corbyn has been honest. We're all creeped out because we're not used to answers from politicians. We're used to white noise waffle that lasts 20 minutes but says fuck all.