Rachel Maddow Covers “Completely Insane” ICBM De-Nuking Plan

video

by Frances Martel | 1:35 pm, April 24th, 2010

» 6 comments

In one of the stranger and scarier segments in Rachel Maddow Show history, Rachel Maddow criticizes an Obama administration national security suggestion to reduce America’s nuclear arsenal– by making a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile indistinguishable from a conventional weapon ICBM. Don’t get too excited about Maddow turning on Obama—the idea was Donald Rumsfeld’s.

The segment sheds light on a chilling suggestion that, in order to further eliminate the presence of nuclear weapons, ICBMs with nuclear tips would have those tips removed and replaced with conventional weapons. This would make the weapons less dangerous, or at least not radioactive, but the target of the attack would have no idea that the weapon is not nuclear. This would dramatically reduce the damage done on the target but trigger a potential nuclear response from a nation sufficiently armed to respond that way.

Noah Shachtman of Wired’s Danger Room blog described the idea as something “Dr. Strangelove, Dick Cheney, and Jason Bourne sitting around the bong at their college dorm” would come up with, and repeatedly refers to it as “completely insane,” but ultimately suggested that the Obama administration’s revival of the idea could either be an attempt to convince the Pentagon to go along with reducing the nuclear arsenal or an attempt to barter with Russia using weapons that don’t exist.

Watch the clip below:

barack obama, Dick Cheney, donald rumsfeld, ICBM, military, Noah Schachtman, nuclear weapons, Pentagon, Rachel Maddow

m

Would’ve never seen a segment like this on Fox News during the Bush Administration.
TonyClifton

“In one of the stranger and scarier segments in Rachel Maddow Show history, Rachel Maddow criticizes an Obama administration…”

She criticized the Obama Administration? We all know what that means, SHE’S RACIST!!!
Munch

m says:
April 24, 2010 at 1:57 pm

Would’ve never seen a segment like this on Fox News during the Bush Administration.”

Try again. Hannity and O’Reilly regularly criticized Bush for his early handling of the Iraq war. You remember the Iraq war, don’t ya? That’s the one that Harry Reid said we lost; it’s the war in which Obama and Biden voted against the “Surge” and then this year said to Larry King:

” I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. ”

Oh, Joe, say it isn’t so!
timzank

TonyClifton: “She criticized the Obama Administration? We all know what that means, SHE’S RACIST!!!”

Well for any of us, that’d be true, but being gay, liberal, and in the MSM probably gives her an automatic pass on all things race.
ImNotBlue

m says:
April 24, 2010 at 1:57 pm

Would’ve never seen a segment like this on Fox News during the Bush Administration.

No… YOU wouldn’t have. But just because YOU don’t want FNC, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It must be nice to imagine the world and reality revolve around you. Sorry to break your fantasy.
m

>Try again. Hannity and O’Reilly regularly criticized Bush for his early handling of the Iraq war.

Never happened. O’Reilly criticized people who did any form of critical oversight on the war as being unpatriotic. Step out of your fantasy world.