A Republican state lawmaker caught a lot of flak on Sunday after he called for the United States to use a “strategically placed nuclear weapon” on the Islamic State terror group.
Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert (R) said in a Facebook post that it was “time to annihilate the strongholds” of the terror group, also known as ISIS, and that the quickest way to “turn things around” would be to employ a “strategically placed nuclear weapon.”
Rapert also posted about using nuclear weapons against the Islamic State earlier Sunday on his personal Facebook page, the Arkansas News pointed out.
“I imagine a nicely placed intercontinental nuclear weapon would shut them up for awhile,” he wrote. “I cannot understand why our president won’t stand up – wait, I forgot that he doesn’t acknowledge the Islamic terrorists.”
Rapert’s post on the “Jason Rapert for Arkansas Senate” page was met with immediate backlash. The lawmaker responded to several of his detractors in the comments.
“It seems some of you haven’t read anything about the use of ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ and only remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” he wrote in one response. “Please do some research and you will find that we have battlefield capable small nuclear weapons that would be perfect for the areas where ISIS has run everyone else out and use as their strongholds.”
In another response, Rapert slammed his critics as “leftist liberals” who “hurl insults and slurs because I actually support force strong enough to stop these barbarians.” He echoed that sentiment on Twitter:
Seems liberals even love ISIS more than stopping them cold in their tracks. They truly amaze me with their anti-American arguments. Bizarre.
— Sen. Jason Rapert (@jasonrapert) February 16, 2015
