Jeff at The Shape of Days has a great post up on nuclear weapons. He does a fantastic job of navigating the questions I hope our leaders are constantly asking themselves.

It is a tough nut to crack and I have often pondered the same things. Go read his post. It will make you think and will probably keep you up at night.

But, he does end it in typical Jeff fashion. Which is one of the reasons he gets mentioned so often in these posts:

Sure, we could comfort ourselves by remembering that it was the enemy regime that started it, and by telling ourselves that their blood is really on the hands of the evil men, now deceased, who put them in harm’s way. We could even pat ourselves on the back for having the courage to take decisive steps when no morally acceptable options presented themselves.

Would it help? Would you be able to sleep at night? Would I?

The sad truth is that I probably could. But this means nothing. As we’ve seen time and time again, my personal capacity for tolerating atrocity is humiliatingly high. The fact that I, personally, could rationalize it all away and go on with my life doesn’t mean it would be right.

“Humiliatingly high”

Yes Jeff, you do have a way with words. Keep it up.

Check out previous editions of “I Wish I Had Written That”