Forget
The Middle East
By Jason Miller
19 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
“After the explosion itself, anyone on the edge of the
explosion (who were lucky enough to survive) would have melted flesh
and severe burns, the skin would literally fall off the bone. Anyone
who had seen the blast from such a distance would have permanent loss
of vision.”
(http://www.armageddononline.org/nuke.php)
A little perspective, please
After years of living under
the perpetual risk of the ultimate terrorist attack, most people have
become acclimated to the distinct possibility of imminent extinction
of life on Earth. Fortunately, humans tend to be highly adaptable beings,
and most are able to go on with their daily tasks without dwelling on
potential doomsday scenarios.
In fact, people have become
so desensitized to the threat of nuclear holocaust that those who still
believe American propaganda are more terrified of religious fanatics
wielding box cutters than they are of an ICBM capable of annihilating
millions.
According to the FBI, domestic
terrorism is:
“the unlawful use,
or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based
and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without
foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate
or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof,
in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
Given the knowledge that
it is the United States which created and primarily wields the power
to extinguish life on Earth, it is not a tremendous intellectual leap
to classify the American government as the world’s most dangerous
and most powerful terrorist.
America’s own domestic
law enforcement entity has defined terrorism as “threatened use
of force or violence”, intimidation, and coercion against governments
or civilian populations for the “furtherance of political or social
objectives”.
What could be more threatening
or violent than a nuclear attack? What could be more coercive than the
US imposition of its will, culture, and ruthless economic agenda on
a global populace like a domineering father abusing his cowed children?
Employing terrorist tools of intimidation, coercion and threats of violence,
the United States consistently sets the political and social objectives
for the rest of the world.
Remember, Iran, “All
options are on the table.”
America is the Don Corleone
of the world community. They make offers you can’t refuse. “Fat
Man” and “Little Boy” delivered the Sicilian message
that nations defying the United States would find many of their innocent
civilians “sleeping with the fishes”. 200,000 dead Japanese
showed the skeptics that the Godfather meant business.
Bearing in mind that the
atomic bombs deployed in Japan were mere firecrackers relative to today’s
nukes, the following puts a grim perspective on the situation:
“A single Hiroshima-size
blast in downtown Los Angeles, according to a computer projection done
several years ago by Physicians for Social Responsibility, would kill
about 150,000 people immediately and 100,000 more from neutron and gamma
radiation. An additional 800,000 people would be exposed to high-level
radiation.”
(Seattle
Times)
Evil begets evil
Not only did the United States
let the nuclear genie out of the bottle and unleash it on humanity,
through Operation Paperclip, it provided safe haven for Nazi war criminals.
During and after World War II, the CIA altered the records of Nazi scientists
so they could enter the United States and contribute to the evolution
of America’s nuclear weapons program.
Needing an “enemy”
for its indoctrinated citizens to fear, the United States began demonizing
Communism in the 1950’s. As they created their “bogeyman”
so they could manipulate the masses with psychological terror, America’s
leaders pushed a nation with a much weaker economy into an insane scenario
of Mutually Assured Destruction and an arms race. By 2004, Russia’s
stockpile of warheads had the combined power of 120,000 of the bombs
dropped on Hiroshima.
The combined nuclear capacity
of the United States and Russia at the height of the nuclear arms race
was enough to eradicate the Earth of life 1,500 times over.
When is enough, enough?
According to the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, in 2004 the United States had 10,000 nuclear
warheads, 7,000 of which were operational. Yet existing in a realm of
thought where logic ceases to exist, America's leaders are obsessed
with “national security”. The United States accounts for
half of the world’s military expenditures to protect 350 million
of the 6.5 billion people on Earth.
With over 500 land-based
ICBMs, the United States can incinerate any region of a 4.5 billion
year old planet within a mere 35 minutes. The Minuteman III intercontinental
ballistic missiles are only one leg of America’s triad of doom.
Submarine-based Trident nuclear missiles have the capacity to unleash
Armageddon from the depths of the Earth’s tranquil oceans. Maintaining
a fleet of B-1, B-2, and B-52 long-range bombers, the USAF can also
rain nuclear hell upon millions of unsuspecting “units of collateral
damage”.
Desperation and treachery
are the parents of US nuclear invention
Realizing that the “Nuclear
Club” is rapidly expanding, the United States is desperately seeking
ways to circumvent treaties in which they have pledged to work toward
the elimination of nuclear weapons. As they down-sized their nuclear
stock-pile in the 1990’s by retiring ICBM’s like the Peacekeeper,
America’s leadership found ways to avoid truly surrendering its
tools of terror.
The United States began diverting
substantial portions of its obscene defense budget to its Stockpile
Stewardship Program to perpetuate and expand its nuclear capacities.
Consider this 1996 statement by the Department of Energy:
"[n]ational security
policies in the post-Cold War era require that all historical capabilities
of the weapons laboratories, industrial plants, and NTS [the Nevada
Test Site] be maintained," and that "denuclearisation... is
not feasible based on current national security policy."
With the ethereal nuclear
genie slipping further from its grasp, the United States is now focusing
its resources and determined efforts toward ensuring nuclear proliferation
to those it deems deserving. Israel, the US satellite in the Middle
East, and India, a nation Uncle Sam is determined to lure into his bed,
both qualify. Iran and North Korea are obviously not welcome at the
nuclear party, whether they apply the technology for military purposes
or not.
On the domestic front, America’s
bellicose government is emphasizing the enhancement of existing nuclear
weapons to give the appearance that it is not developing new ones. For
example, the B61-11 is a modification of the B61, a “tactical
nuke” which “only” has 2/3 the power of the bomb dropped
on Hiroshima. To neutralize nations which have developed weapons facilities
deep underground, America created the B61-11 to burrow into rock before
discharging its nuclear payload. America’s Neocons are itching
to play with their new toys in Iran.
The Pentagon claims that
these “bunker busters” would pose no threat to life outside
of the underground targets. However, Dr. Robert Nelson of Princeton
University offers a significantly differing opinion:
"No earth-burrowing
missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion
with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima
weapon. "The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive
dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense
and deadly fallout."
Dr. Nelson’s analysis
is substantially more seaworthy than the stone the Pentagon tried to
float when they proclaimed earth-burrowing “mini-nukes”
to be “safe”.
A Messiah complex, severely
stunted emotional intelligence and profound ignorance are the defining
characteristics of the man capable of making nuclear holocaust a reality
within minutes. In light of this, Osama bin Laden, box-cutters, and
suicide bombers don’t seem quite so formidable or worrisome.
Jason Miller
is a 39 year old sociopolitical essayist with a degree in liberal arts
and an extensive self-education (derived from an insatiable appetite
for reading). He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter
of Oxfam International and Human Rights Watch. He welcomes responses
at [email protected]
or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.