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 willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.