Philosophy Now Forum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf-4X5WT ... ture=g-all

3:13 minutes long.

"British ex-Defense Minister, Lord Gilbert, has threatened militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan with a neutron bomb. The UK could create "cordons sanitaire along various borders where people are causing trouble", he said. "

omfg

at first i thought this has got to be a parody

i mean the guy looks like the way a parody maker would portray a british lord who drinks way too much scotch and is senile

but here it is from the horses mouth

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 2-0002.htm

its weird how no major news outlet is carrying this story

Russia Today may not be the best news-channel if you want a self-critical news company, as they are rather selective and politically scheming, but they do pick up on such things when others neglect. If you're seeking the truth about your own country, it's often good to head over to the next country and ask them what they think of it and why...

Peace when everybody is dead , Even Sadam Hussain wouldn't have made such declaration or suggestion!

Lets get real. Everybody was outraged at what the old codger said!

Imagine the conversation at his dinner table. Blaaah blaaaah blah.

what good is a big stick if you don't use it?

glow in the dark time...

-Imp

Kayla wrote:omfg

at first i thought this has got to be a parody

i mean the guy looks like the way a parody maker would portray a british lord who drinks way too much scotch and is senile

but here it is from the horses mouth

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 2-0002.htm

its weird how no major news outlet is carrying this story

That's because the Lords is not relevant to anyone or anything. This is where they put the old farts so they don't do anything dangerous like engage in politics. This particular fart is 85 and needs to be sent out to pasture.
The real work of the Lords happens in committee where only people of calibre are allowed to sit, thankfully.

The Voice of Time wrote:Russia Today may not be the best news-channel if you want a self-critical news company, as they are rather selective and politically scheming, but they do pick up on such things when others neglect. If you're seeking the truth about your own country, it's often good to head over to the next country and ask them what they think of it and why...

I agree, RT is a goos way to get a side-ways view, stuff the other news companies don't bother with.
It would, however, but a mistake to think this old fart was typical.

Kayla wrote:omfg

at first i thought this has got to be a parody

i mean the guy looks like the way a parody maker would portray a british lord who drinks way too much scotch and is senile

but here it is from the horses mouth

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 2-0002.htm

its weird how no major news outlet is carrying this story

It's called free speech - you might have heard of it as an American.

Just for the record, his speech in full..


3.42 pm

Lord Gilbert: My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Browne on getting this important subject debated in your Lordships' House, and I do not say that with tongue in cheek in any way, because I am fully in favour of intensifying discussions on multilateral nuclear disarmament. I have long been of the view that the size of nuclear inventories on both sides of the Cold War were grotesquely high. All the main participants could have unilaterally reduced their inventories by 80% without any loss of physical security.

Having said that, I should make it quite clear that I do not favour a nuclear-free world. I am absolutely delighted that nuclear weapons were invented when they were and I am delighted that, with our help, it was the Americans who invented them. If we think of a world in which they had not been invented, it is very easy indeed to see world war three starting on many occasions after 1945. One of the reasons I want nuclear weapons is that I never again want to see a battle of the Somme, Passchendaele or Verdun, of Okinawa, Kursk or Stalingrad. To take another piece of evidence, let us look at relations between India and China. They fought several wars, and I was at the MoD when they

22 Nov 2012 : Column 2001

both got nuclear weapons. We were supposed to be scandalised about it, but I was delighted. That proved, and it seems to me to have done so since, that nuclear weapons are as much a deterrent to gentlemen with brown skins as they are to those of us with white skins. I am glad that both of those countries have a nuclear capability.

I have always viewed the possession of nuclear weapons above all else as a deterrent. In many lonely years in my party, when I was one of the few people saying loud and clear that I wanted us to retain nuclear weapons, I never for one moment thought that we were going to be engaged in a strategic nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union or that there would be one between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Why, then, was I so insistent that we should have nuclear weapons? For a very simple reason: because I saw the possibility that I might be wrong. The cost of being wrong in a matter of this sort is absolutely incalculable, as your Lordships will know.

How far down we go is a very difficult question. I have personally been most impressed by the writings of the late, great Sir Michael Quinlan. He seemed to think that-if I read him with understanding-if anybody were to use nuclear weapons again, such would be the shock and horror that you would only need one or possibly two and that would be the end of exchanges. His proposition was that all anybody needed was two or three intercontinental ballistic missiles. It would be very difficult indeed to persuade the taxpaying populations of those countries who had that capability that they should invest in the platforms necessary to be able to dispose of those missiles.

I want to say one thing to your Lordships on the subject of deterrence. I believe in deterrence absolutely fundamentally. I believe it not only in nuclear weapons but I believe it in other weapons systems-some of which we have abandoned. I can remember once being at some seminar and a very distinguished, international civil servant-for the life of me I cannot remember who it was-saying that it was very difficult to explain to people the principle of deterrence. I said that it was very easy to explain the principle of deterrence. Every one of my constituents understood it. You only had to go around a council estate and see the sign on the side door: "Beware of the dog". This is what deterrence is all about.

However, there are various areas of deterrence where we have been very unimaginative up to now. If your Lordships will forgive a personal reminiscence, I shall never forget when, a few years ago, I sailed across the Straits of Magellan from north to south in a normal ferry towards the eastern end and, as one came up to the southern shore of the straits, there were slopes, not cliffs, and, on both sides of the ferry terminal, there was a big sign: "Illegal. Zona me Nada". Everybody knew what this meant. It was a very good deterrent, saying: "Don't come here. You're in danger of being killed". There were mines, which was excellent. You often see outside sensitive military establishments in America the words, "Do not enter. You might be killed" or "shot dead"-I forget the exact terms used-making it absolutely clear that, if you go where you should not go, you are liable to be shot.



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I am fully in favour of that sort of open deterrence where people know. It is a way of saving life rather than anything else. In this context I draw your Lordships' attention to what used to be called the neutron bomb. It is a very misleading description. It was not necessary a bomb. It was a warhead that could be attached to a torpedo or a missile. The main thing was that it was not a standard nuclear warhead. Its full title was the ERRB-enhanced radiation reduced blast weapon. I can think of many uses for it in this day and age. It is something that we could go and talk to the Chinese about. Building on the example that I just gave your Lordships about the Straits of Magellan, you could use an enhanced radiation reduced blast warhead to create cordons sanitaire along various borders where people are causing trouble.

I will give an example. Your Lordships may say that this is impractical, but nobody lives up in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan except for a few goats and a handful of people herding them. If you told them that some ERRB warheads were going to be dropped there and that it would be a very unpleasant place to go, they would not go there. You would greatly reduce your problem of protecting those borders from infiltration from one side or another. These things are not talked about, but they should be, because there are great possibilities for deterrence in using the weapons that we already have in that respect.

I have already taken up half my time, and that is probably quite enough today. I am very relieved to say that I do not have any fears whatever of being confronted with a nuclear-free world so long as we have the French, God bless them.