what's this?

A report on the ABC News website mentions, almost casually, in a story about missile defense, that there is a plan to remove nuclear warheads from Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles and replace them with conventional heavy-hitters, (my term), for use in a short-notice strike against terrorist targets.

Bad idea. Very, very, very bad idea.

Up to this moment, I did not believe that the administration had planned, (though it really wants to), strike at Iran. Does the president believe that we have the moxie to pull something like that off right now? It is an undisputed fact that our miltary is stretched very thin right now, and the thought that our salvation might be the use of vehicles previously associated with our own deterrent force is reflective of true desperation in the seat of federal power.

For any nation to adapt ICBM's for conventional use risks escalating any conflict to a nuclear holocaust; how might Russia or China know for sure that the warhead on the Trident lifting off is nuclear or conventional? And what if it strays just a few degrees off course, making it a threat to nations that we currently have no complaint with. It will move us one step closer to making this behavior acceptable.

In ugly, real terms, use of such a device would lower our standing in the world a bit further than using such a vehicle with a nuke attached. There really is not a lot of difference when one is talking ICBM's. If you are gonna use 'em, make it count, and that means make it nuclear.

The chilling aspect of this, (to me), is how easy it is to make those logical steps or leaps when one is seated in a secure environment, drinking ones coffee, and wondering what can be done to make a difference in things today.

How easy must it be for the President and his assistants to reach such a simple and clear solution?

There seems to have been a subtle shift in the general mood of the blogsphere, (subtracting all the "hey ho! I'm with the President" & "hey ho! the President is evil and incompetent" stuff), that the war has been focused on the wrong target. I think that the fact of the war is wearing on the public, and that many now see 'total' victory as the cheapest and quickest way out.

If that is the case, the war is lost, and I am not talking about the battles for Iraq and Afghanistan. The notion that the wisdom of opening up this war to begin with was faulty seems to have slipped, it is shifting to the notion that we hit the wrong country.

Uh-oh.

I know not what the administration plans today, I just know that I don't have any confidence in them, the planners, advisers or strategists.

Repent. The end is real near.