Another Corbyn Clanger

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyns-refusal-to-commit-to-defend-nato-allies-from-russia-attacked-by-labour-figures_uk_57b6cc64e4b0f78b2b493b35

I've got a tribal dislike of the Tory Party but this **** has me almost thinking about voting for them.

Its because Cobryn says one thing and the media claims he says another, and his followers consist partly of people who are sick of this pathetic media manipulation

It's interesting that we've been told by right wing Conservatives and UKIPers about how the UK could become like Switzerland if it left the EU, with Switzerland being this bastion of prosperity and the free world, but when Corbyn talks about things like not having Trident or being part of NATO collective security we get this mass panic about how it would leave the UK defenceless and isolated.

Switzerland seems to manage fine outside NATO and without wasting taxpayers money on nuclear defences, perhaps without blowing money on overseas conflicts and unnecessary defence spending that's how they are able to keep taxes low and maintain a good investment environment.

Within NATO, Erdogan can be provocative towards Putin knowing that British lives will be able to be sacrificed to fight for Turkey.

What I find staggering is how Theresa May was regarded as mainstream and centrist for happily declaring that she would press the nuclear button and kill millions of innocent civilians, whereas Jeremy Corbyn was regarded as a dangerous extremist for saying he would not kill millions of civilians.


I'm no Corbyn fan, but it is deeply worrying that being willing to kill millions of innocent civilians is seen as the new centre ground as politics.

I'm not sure you can say that she "happily" declared it. It also seems that, by default, every PM we've had since the 50s/60 would have used nuclear weapons if needed (even Harold Wilson, who pledged to remove the UK's deterrent was forced to backtrack due to Soviet expansion).
If a PM or potential PM publicly admits they wouldn't use nuclear weapons under any circumstances then the deterrent is rather pointless. So Theresa May has to say she'll use them in public, even if privately she has no intention to.
Anyways, none of us actually know what targets would be selected. You've got to expect that anyone with a conscience certainly wouldn't use them as part as a first strike strategy nor would deliberately target population centres. There is no denying that even modern nukes aren't exactly precision weapons but even a blunt instrument can be used with some accuracy if targeted correctly; IE there's a good chance that the missiles would be targeted at military installations rather than cities.

There's another circumstance to also consider - the possibility of an airliner being hijacked by terrorists over the UK & then targeted on a city such as London. I'd say this is a far more realistic prospect than a nuclear attack. The choice to shoot down an airliner, as far as I'm aware, rests of the shoulders of the PM. I know of at least one British PM who refused to take responsibility for potentially giving this order & passed it down to one of the Cabinet Ministers.
I do wonder if Corbyn would be willing to take responsibility to order an RAF Typhoon to shoot down a hijacked airliner that was being aimed at London judging by his past record.

If we used nuclear weapons first then they would not be a deterrent. If we used nuclear weapons in response to an attack then the deterrent would have failed.
Makes the case for having them weak.

Don't Belgium, Holland and Switzerland do just fine without trident? If they can manage without then why can't we?

The first two have been invaded successfully in the relatively recent past. As much as we like to think that Europe is stable & secure, much of the last thousand years has seen the European powers in some kind of conflict. It's only since 1945 that Europe has been relatively peaceful.
And it's worth adding that most of Europe is very much under the protection of NATO (which Corbyn & Trump for that matter also wants to tear up)
I could also point out Ukraine - it gave up its nukes after the Cold War, wasn't a part of an international alliance & then got invaded.

If we used nuclear weapons first then they would not be a deterrent. If we used nuclear weapons in response to an attack then the deterrent would have failed.
Makes the case for having them weak.

Don't Belgium, Holland and Switzerland do just fine without trident? If they can manage without then why can't we?

But we didn't get invaded and we didn't have nuclear weapons.

The big justifications for leaving the EU was that other countries manage fine and even better outside it, yet that same logic is not allowed for NATO and trident?

There is no evidence to suggest that Ukraine would have fended off Russia, knowing that even if it nuked them, that they would be destroyed in retaliation.

Again, if we were to use trident first it would not be a deterrent. If we were to use it in response to an attack it would have failed as a deterrent. So the deterrent justification defeats itself.

I'm not sure how you can say this defeats the point of having a deterrent - the whole point we're far less likely to get attacked by WMDs if the UK has nuclear weapons with what we can retaliate with. The fact that ours are stored in submarines makes it almost impossible to destroy them as part as a first strike which therefore means a first strike is far less likely to happen.
Don't get me wrong, there are certain terrorist groups out there that don't give a damn about that but luckily they're a minority who, hopefully, will never get hold nuclear material. The fact is, however, that nuclear science cannot be "uninvented" even if we wanted it to be. Physics is physics & can't really be kept secret.

I deliberately used a liberal source in anticipation of claims like this. I suppose the Guardian are conspiring against him as well?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-foreign-policy-antisemitism

It defeats the deterrent argument because there are only two times we could use nuclear weapons.
(1) Before we have been attacked - in which case it will not be a deterrent if we are using it first.

(2) In response to an attack - in which case the deterrent would have failed.

So if we admit we would use the nuclear weapons on millions of people, we admit that it simply cannot possibly be a deterrent, as we could only use them if the deterrent had failed.

My point was that Theresa May gets called a centrist for declaring she would kill millions of innocent civilians whereas Jeremy Corbyn gets called a dangerous extremist for saying he would not kill millions of innocent civilians.

In what type of bizarre, twisted world is the less extremist leader one who would gladly kill millions?

I understand what you're trying to get at here but you're missing out that the sheer threat of Trident & its ilk can prevent an attack before it even gets off the planning stage. Therefore just having missiles & a publicly expressed will to use them in defence of the UK is a deterrent. They don't need to be fired to be useful. In fact, they're at their most useful when they're hidden inside one of the RN's missile subs.

All his supporters seem to be students who want free everything in life. Printing money and all that rubbish.

I know, the silly Labour party have been quantitatively easing hundreds of millions since 2010. Oh no wait... that's the Conservatives.

It doesn't matter that you 'used a liberal source', the media - regardless of its political alignment, has had a history of misrepresenting Corbyn's views. This sort of behaviour throughout the last 20 years is what is motivating some of his supporters to continue doing so, regardless of what nonsense the media interprets from him.

.. Think about it love, who got us into this mess in the first place!!!