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Review of John Scales Avery’s book  ‘Nuclear Weapons: an Absolute Evil’

Nuclear Weapons: an Absolute Evil, The Citizen, ANNE BARING | 16 FEBRUARY, 2018   Review of John Scales Avery’s book  “……. Most of the planet’s inhabitants, even those who are highly educated and working in governments and organizations like the United Nations have very little awareness of what an exchange of nuclear weapons would be like or what its immediate and long-term effects would be in terms of the massive numbers of civilian deaths and the rapid deterioration of the planetary environment. This is the lacuna that Professor Avery’s book sets out to fill in an admirably clear and comprehensive way, enriching it with photographs and quotations from men who have, from the outset, expressed their opposition to nuclear weapons.

The book is an education in itself on the many facets of this complex subject including how these weapons first came into being in first five, then nine nuclear nations. It addresses both the amorality and the illegality of nuclear weapons. Many people like myself who are appalled by the existence of nuclear weapons but insufficiently informed of their history and the threat they pose to the planetary biosphere, could benefit by reading its highly informative chapters.

The first chapter, “The Threat of Nuclear War”, explores the important subject of how existing ethical principles about avoiding the bombing of civilians were eroded during the Second World War with the carpet bombing of cities by German and British air forces, culminating in the incendiary raids on Coventry, Hamburg and Dresden that destroyed those and other German cities and many thousands of their helpless inhabitants.

Not long after these, in August 1945, came the horrific obliteration of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the first atom bombs, together with most of their civilian inhabitants. It is noteworthy that the First and Second World Wars cost the lives of 26 million soldiers but 64 million civilians. We live, Professor Avery comments, in an age of space-age science but stone-age politics.

Instead of drawing back in horror from the evil it had unleashed, America and then the Soviet Union embarked on an arms race that has led, step by step, to the current existence of nine nuclear nations and some 17,000 nuclear weapons, with the greater part of these situated in the United States and Russia.

Thousands of these are kept on permanent “hair-trigger” alert. 200 of these nuclear bombs are situated in Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as Turkey, available for use by NATO and placed there by the United States principally to deter a Russian attack. The danger of the launch of one of these weapons in error is a constant possibility and would precipitate a genocidal catastrophe.

His first chapter also addresses the important concept of nuclear deterrence and shows how, according to the historic 1996 decision by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, this was declared to be not only unacceptable from the standpoint of ethics but also contrary to International Law as well as the principles of democracy. The latter have been reflected in the pattern of voting at the United Nations (originally founded to abolish the Institution of War) which has consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of the world’s people wish to be rid of nuclear weapons.

The basic premise of this chapter and indeed, the entire book, is that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil and that no defence can be offered for them, particularly the defence that they act as a deterrent. He brings evidence to show that the effects of even a small nuclear war would be global and all the nations of the world would suffer. Because of its devastating effects on global agriculture, even a small nuclear war could result in a ‘nuclear winter’ and in an estimated billion deaths from famine.

A large-scale nuclear war would completely destroy all agriculture for a period of ten years. Large areas of the world would be rendered permanently uninhabitable because of the ‘nuclear winter’ and the radioactive contamination affecting plants, animals and humans.

Summarising at the end of this chapter Professor Avery writes: “In the world as it is, the nuclear weapons now stockpiled are sufficient to kill everyone on earth several times over. Nuclear technology is spreading, and many politically unstable countries have recently acquired nuclear weapons or may acquire them soon. Even terrorist groups or organized criminals may acquire such weapons, and there is an increasing danger that they will be used.”

To believe that deterrence is a preventive to their being used is to live in a fool’s paradise. It only needs one inadvertent mistake, one mis-reading of a computer, one terrorist nuclear bomb to unleash unimaginable horror on the world. There have already been several near disasters. Governments claim to protect their populations by holding these weapons. Instead, they offer them as hostages to the greed and will to power of the giant corporations, of arms manufacturers such as BAE and the Military-Industrial Complex in general. Professor Avery refers to the greed for power that drives each of these as “The Devil’s Dynamo”.

As an example of this will to power, concealed beneath the mask of deterrence, there is the existence of a Trident submarine which is on patrol at all times, armed with an estimated eight missiles, each of which can carry up to five warheads. In total, that makes 40 warheads, each with an explosive power of up to 100 kilotons of conventional high explosive—eight times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 which killed an estimated 240,000 people from blast and radiation. One nuclear submarine can incinerate more than 40 million human beings. This capacity for mass murder is presented as essential for our defence but it begs the question: ‘How many people are we prepared to exterminate in order to ensure our security?’ We would have no protection against a reciprocally fired nuclear missile directed at us. The concept of deterrence puts us at risk of instant annihilation.

Many people are not aware that the illegality of war was established in 1946 when the United Nations General Assembly unanimously affirmed “The principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal.” These set out the crimes that henceforth were punishable under international law. It is obvious that the nine nuclear nations, in developing and holding their weapons, have ignored and violated these principles.

Professor Avery draws attention to the significant fact that NATO’s nuclear weapons policy violates both the spirit and the text of the NPT. An estimated one hundred and eighty US nuclear weapons, all of them B-61 hydrogen bombs, are still on European soil with the air forces of the nations in which they are based regularly trained to deliver the US weapons.

These nations are Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands as well as the United Kingdom with its Trident submarines. Turkey, one of the 29 nations that have joined NATO holds about 50 hydrogen bombs at a US base at Incirlik. The aim of all these weapons is to intimidate Russia. This “nuclear sharing” as he points out, “violates Articles 1 and 11 of the NPT, which forbid the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon states.”

In another most important chapter “Against Nuclear Proliferation” Professor Avery draws attention to the danger of nuclear reactors, a danger that is very rarely reflected on by the governments who have committed vast sums to building them and is virtually unknown to the general public. ……….

Summing up the effects on the world of a nuclear war, Professor Avery writes:

The danger of a catastrophic nuclear war casts a dark shadow over the future of our species. It also casts a very black shadow over the future of the global environment. The environmental consequences of a massive exchange of nuclear weapons have been treated in a number of studies by meteorologists and other experts from both East and West. They predict that a large-scale use of nuclear weapons would result in fire storms with very high winds and high temperatures [similar to what happened in Hamburg and Dresden]… The resulting smoke and dust would block out sunlight for a period of many months, at first only in the northern hemisphere but later also in the southern hemisphere. Temperatures in many places would fall far below freezing, and much of the earth’s plant life would be killed. Animals and humans would then die of starvation.

I cannot recommend this book too highly. It has given me what I wanted to know and what I had no immediate access to: the complete picture of how we have lost our humanity and how we could regain it by ridding the Earth of these demonic weapons. ………

(Professor Avery is Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Copenhagen.

Nuclear Weapons: an Absolute Evil can be purchased at http://www.lulu.com/home or downloaded from http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/nuclear.pdf

Anne Baring is an author and a Jungian Analyst: www.annebaring.comhttps://youtu.be/TOsuJuHUgv4 on nuclear weapons) http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/9/13044/Nuclear-Weapons-an-Absolute-Evil

February 17, 2018 Posted by | resources - print, weapons and war | Leave a comment

WHAT ARE SALTED BOMBS?

Daily Mail UK, 17 Feb 18   A ‘salted bomb’ is a type of nuclear weapon that has been branded ‘highly immoral’ by some experts. The device aims to spread deadly radioactive fallout as far as possible rather than maximise explosive force.

The result is lasting environmental damage and vast areas of land left uninhabitable for decades.
Salted bombs take their name from the phrase ‘to salt the earth’, meaning to render soil unable to host life.

They are able to contaminate a much larger area than a traditional ‘dirty’ atomic bomb, like those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.To increase the radioactive destruction of salted bombs, certain radioactive isotopes are added to the device.

Heavy metals like gold, cobalt or tantalum can be used. Incorporating these metals into an atomic bomb would send high-energy neutrons at the stable element and turn it into a highly radioactive version. The radioactive isotope would then contaminate huge swathes of land.

A salted bomb is believed to be of lesser energy than other bombs due to these changes but could cause more long-term damage.

The idea of a salted bomb was first proposed by Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard during the Cold War.

Along with Albert Einstein, the scientist was instrumental in the beginning of the Manhattan Project.

No intentionally salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested but the UK tested a 1 kiloton bomb incorporating a small amount of cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer in 1957. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5400191/China-building-highly-immoral-salted-nuclear-bomb.html

February 17, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The untold story of Algeria’s victims of French nuclear bomb tests

How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria (PHOTOS) https://sputniknews.com/world/201802151061681243-1960-france-nuclear-tests-algeria/

On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.

There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas.

However, these figures do not take into account the untimely deaths of the descendants of these people, who were affected by cancer and other nuclear radiation-related illnesses. To this day, the contaminated areas pose a danger to life and health.

A representative of the ‘Desert Detainees’ (a community of people who served sentences in prisons located in the desert regions of Algeria from 1992 to 1996), Nureddin Mauhub, said that many prisoners were exposed to radiation while serving their sentences in jails in the desert.

Nuclear engineer Ammar Mansuri told the newspaper Arabi al-Jadid, that in fact, there were more nuclear tests carried out in Algeria.

“France conducted 13 underground nuclear tests, 4 ground tests, 4 plutonium tests and 35 other tests,” he said.

According to him, the nuclear tests documentation was passed on to the Algerian government only 10 years ago.

Some of the documents are still classified. For these reasons, no systematic observations or studies have been conducted in the area in the past century. Therefore, no timely measures were taken to reduce the negative impact on the environment. It is difficult to say how the level of contamination has changed over the past decades and what to expect in the future.

The Algerian government claims that the contaminated area is more than 100 square km, according to the Al-Arabi al-Jadid website. However, problems aren’t limited to this exclusion zone. The desert winds carry contaminated particles to formally clean areas. There’s now a need to study the level of radiation in the desert to accurately determine the boundaries of the contaminated area.

February 17, 2018 Posted by | EUROPE, France, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA’s B61 bombs in Europe serve no purpose, are a security liability, and cost $billions

US wasting billions on nuclear bombs that serve no purpose and are security liability – experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/15/us-nuclear-bomb-risks-security-report
Washington to spend billions upgrading cold war era B61 bombs
NTI report says weapons are potentially catastrophic liability, Guardian.   Julian Borger , 15 Feb 18, 

 The US is to spend billions of dollars upgrading 150 nuclear bombs positioned in Europe, although the weapons may be useless as a deterrent and a potentially catastrophic security liability, according to a new report by arms experts.

A third of the B61 bombs in Europe under joint US and Nato control are thought to be kept at Incirlik base in Turkey, 70 miles from the Syrian border, which has been the subject of serious concerns.

The threat to the base posed by Islamic State militants was considered serious enough in March 2016 to evacuate the families of  military officers.During a coup attempt four months later, Turkish authorities locked down the base and cut its electricity. The Turkish commanding officer at Incirlik was arrested for his alleged role in the plot.

A report on the future of the B61 bombs by arms control advocacy group the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) , and made available to the Guardian, said the 2016 events “shows just how quickly assumptions about the safety and security of US nuclear weapons stored abroad can change.”

Since then US-Turkish relations have soured further, largely over Washington’s support for Kurd forces in Syria. The national security adviser, HR McMaster, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, have both made trips to Turkey this week to try to heal the rift.

There have been reports that the bombs have been quietly moved out because of safety concerns, but that has not been confirmed.

The remaining B61 bombs are stored at five other locations in four countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, according to the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks the weapons. The NTI report said it “should be assumed that they are targets for terrorism and theft”.

The bombs are the remnants of a much larger cold war nuclear arsenal in Europe, and critics have said they serve no military purpose, as the nuclear deterrent against Russia relies largely on the overwhelming US strategic missile arsenal.

Using the B61s in any conflict would involve an agreement between the US and the host country in consultation with other Nato members.

“It is hard to envision the circumstances under which a US president would initiate nuclear use for the first time in more than 70 years with a Nato [dual-capable aircraft] flown by non-US pilots delivering a US B61 bomb,” said the NTI report, titled Building a Safe, Secure and Credible Nato Nuclear Posture.

Since the cold war, the B61 has played a symbolic role, as reassurance for some Nato members of US commitment to defending Europe. They are also considered potential bargaining chips against Russia’s much greater arsenal of nearly 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons.

However, the NTI report argues they are also serious liabilities, because of the threat of terrorism or accident, and because they could become targets in the early stages of any conflict with Russia.

“Forward-deployed US nuclear weapons in Europe increase the risk of accidents, blunders, or catastrophic terrorism and invite pre-emption. Given these added risks, it is past time to revisit whether these forward-based weapons are essential for military deterrence and political reassurance” the Obama administration’s energy secretary Ernest Moniz and former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, both NTI co-chairmen, argue in the preface to the report.

The Obama administration considered withdrawing the B61s from Europe as part of the president’s nuclear disarmament initiative but the idea lost support as relations with Russia deteriorated. Instead, the administration approved a Pentagon programme to upgrade the bombs over the next decade with a tailfin assembly to make them more accurate.

The plan has been embraced by the Trump administration’s nuclear posture review, despite the fact that the estimated cost of the 460 new model bombs, the B61-12, has doubled in recent years to $10bin, a part of a huge increase of overall defence spending.

February 16, 2018 Posted by | EUROPE, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Japan has enough plutonium for 5,000 nuclear warheads, and its Constitution does not rule them out

Is Japan About to Hit Its Nuclear Tipping Point?   Tokyo almost built a bomb in 1945 and now has enough plutonium stockpiled for 5,000 nukes. North Korea may give its hawkish government an excuse to build them. The Daily Beast,  JAKE ADELSTEIN 02.15.18  TOKYO—“Don’t be fooled by North Korea’s smiley-face diplomacy,” Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Kono, warned last week in the middle of the Winter Olympics’ warm fuzzy photo ops with Hermit Kingdom emissaries.

Kono’s skepticism was quite serious, as is the confrontation he sees looming. Earlier this month he shocked Japan by broaching the idea that the Japanese should gain access to “usable” nuclear weapons, and he lavished praise on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review.

While much of the rest of the world was entranced by North Korean cheerleaders and Kim Jong Un’s baby sister, Japan was quietly considering if and when to build its own nuclear missiles to discourage North Korea from so much as contemplating a missile strike.

The hawkish government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling coalition are exploiting real and unreal fears of a North Korean nuclear attack to drum up support for a Japan that can wage war, and possibly as a prelude to pushing harder for nuclear weapons development.

At a minimum, it should be apparent to the world that this administration has no interest in nuclear disarmament, and is preparing for a possible showdown.

This week, The Ministry of Culture, Education and Science announced that in the Risk Management manual distributed to schools nationwide, it would be urging teachers to conduct missile evacuation drills. That should ratchet up the paranoia a few notches.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced last year that his country’s nuclear program is now complete, after the “successful” launch of a new missile that threatens all of the continental United States. But Japan has been in the crosshairs of the hermit kingdom for some time, and the storm over Kim’s atomic posturing has reignited a simmering, almost taboo, debate about nuclear weapons here.

The question isn’t whether Japan could become a nuclear weapons power. There’s really no doubt about that. But should it? And when? And if so, politically, how?

Japan As A Nuclear Power

Japan’s consumer nuclear energy industry has generated enough plutonium to make an estimated 5,000 nuclear warheads, this has long stood as an implicit threat. As former Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto once declared, Japan’s commercial nuclear power reactors have “very great defensive deterrent functions.” He was implying that the plants Japan has built to make reactor fuel could be used to make fuel for nuclear arms, if Japan ever decides to do so.

In case anyone missed the point, in the spring of 2016, the Abe government explicitly stated that there is nothing in the nation’s Constitution that forbids pacifist Japan from possessing or using nuclear weapons……… https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-japan-about-to-hit-its-nuclear-tipping-point

February 16, 2018 Posted by | Japan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Soaring deficit for USA in Trump’s $4.4 Trillions Budget with huge weapons expenditure

President Trump’s $4.4 Trillions Budget Features Soaring Deficits 2 News 13 Feb 18

President Donald Trump is sending Congress a $4.4 trillion spending planthat provides a huge increase in defense spending while cutting taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. The result is soaring budget deficits.

Trump’s first budget last year projected that the government would achieve a small surplus by 2027. But the new budget never gets to balance. It proposes $7.1 trillion in red ink over the next decade, basically doubling last year’s forecast……..

Trump last week signed a $300 billion measure to boost defense and domestic spending, negating many of the cuts in his new budget plan. …..

Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants NASA out of the International Space Station by 2025, and private businesses running the place instead.

Under the proposed budget released, U.S. government funding for the space station would cease by 2025. The government would set aside $150 million to encourage commercial development…..

Altogether, the budget seeks to increase NASA’s budget slightly to $19.6 billion.

And – the Pentagon is proposing to spend hundreds of millions more in 2019 on missile defense.

The budget calls for increasing the number of strategic missile interceptors from 44 to 64. The additional 20 interceptors would be based at Fort Greely, Alaska. Critics question the reliability of the interceptors, arguing that years of testing have yet to prove them effective against sophisticated threats.

The Pentagon also would invest more heavily in the ship-based Aegis system and the Army’s Patriot air and missile defense system. Both are designed to defend against missiles with ranges shorter than the intercontinental ballistic missile that is of greatest U.S. concern in the context of North Korea.

Trump’s proposed 2019 budget calls for slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by more than one third, including ending the Climate Change Research and Partnership Programs.

The president’s budget would also make deep cuts to funding for cleaning up the nation’s most polluted sites, even as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says that’s one of his top priorities. Trump’s budget would allocate just $762 million for the Hazardous Substance Superfund Account, a reduction of more than 30%.

Current spending for Superfund is down to about half of what it was in the 1990s. Despite the cut, the White House says the administration plans to “accelerate” site cleanups by bringing “more private funding to the table for redevelopment.”

……Congressman Ruben J. Kihuen issued the statement after the release of President Trump’s 2019 budget proposal which supports plans for an interim storage program and the licensing of the Yucca Mountain geologic repository:

“I am disappointed that President Trump’s latest budget request dedicates $120 million to revive the long-dead nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, money that would be much better spent on research and development of the renewable energy technology that we need to power our clean-energy future. Rather than pursue a realistic attempt to develop a substantive nuclear waste management program, this is a colossal waste of funding that goes directly against the will of Nevadans. I have been proud to help lead the fight against dumping nuclear waste in Nevadans’ backyards, and I will continue working to ensure this project remains dead.” 

U.S. Senator Dean Heller released this statement:

“Despite Congress’ refusal to fund the Yucca Mountain project, the Administration is once again prioritizing it. Whether it’s the threat that Yucca Mountain poses to the people of southern Nevada or its potentially catastrophic effect on our tourism economy, I’ve made it clear why Nevada does not want to turn into the nation’s nuclear waste dump,” said Heller. “Under my leadership Congress has not appropriated funding for licensing activities at Yucca Mountain as requested in the last budget, and I’m going to continue to fight to make sure that this project doesn’t see the light of day.”  

U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto said in a statement: 

“It’s a disgrace that president trump and some members of congress find it acceptable to continue throwing away tax payer money on a failed project.” 

http://www.ktvn.com/story/37484935/president-trumps-44-trillions-budget-features-soaring-deficits

February 14, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes, weapons and war | 1 Comment

A new arms race – Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review gives the signal

The Nuclear Posture Review Signals a New Arms Race https://www.thenation.com/article/the-nuclear-posture-review-signals-a-new-arms-race/

We need to revive momentum for reducing nuclear weapons, not for “modernizing” them.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel  13 Feb 18EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.


On Friday, the Pentagon released its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. Its debut demands more attention, because it announced a renewed round in the nuclear-arms race, one inevitably bringing us ever closer to the unthinkable—a nuclear war of catastrophic consequences.

The review clearly seeks to calm fears about President Trump’s finger on the nuclear trigger. Ignoring the many accidents and close calls during the Cold War, the review asserts that the United States has “measures and protocols” to ensure that intercontinental ballistic missiles are “safe, secure and under constant control.” Furthermore, the Pentagon says that “any U.S. decision to employ nuclear weapons would follow a deliberative process.” Despite these assurances, the review’s plans for the nuclear arsenal and nuclear strategy should rouse alarms and spark congressional hearings and public debate.

The United States has an active stockpile of more than 4,000 nuclear weapons, arrayed in the triad of land-based launch sites, nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers, including nuclear-armed ICBMs, air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, and gravity bombs. More than enough to destroy the world several times over, the arsenal’s “credibility” is not in issue. Yet the review reaffirms the Obama administration’s commitment to a new generation of missiles, nuclear submarines, strategic bombers, and nuclear bombs. It warns of a “rapid deterioration of the threat environment,” making it imperative not to “delay modernization of our nuclear forces if we are to preserve a credible nuclear deterrent.” Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

February 14, 2018 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea’s nuclear weapons macho men

Kim Jong-un’s rocket men: North Korea’s ‘key men’ behind nuclear weapons arsenal, Express UK MEET the Megaton Twins – the two scientists Kim Jong-un can thank for his terrifying nuclear arsenal, according to experts. Michael Madden, who works with the 38 North watchdog, said Hong Sung-mu and Ri Hong-sop were crucial to the weapons programme’s success. Feb 13, 2018 

With their help, North Korea went from detonating suspected duds in 2006 to its current nukes, which are up to 18 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

And with the regime’s latest missile – the Hwasong-15 – theoretically able to reach Washington DC, their weapons are more threatening than ever.

Mr Madden said there were a number of people who’d contributed to North Korea’s nuclear weapons over the years.

But he said Ri Hong-sop, the head of North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Institute, and Hong Sung-mu, were the “key people” now……. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/918460/North-korea-news-nuclear-war-weapons-kim-jong-un-world-war-3-donald-trump-rocket-man

February 14, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New types of nuclear weapons being developed by Pakistan

Pak developing new types of nuclear weapons: US, Economic Times, Feb 13, 2018,

  Pakistan is developing new types of nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical ones, that bring more risks to the region, America’s intelligence chief warned today.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats’ remarks came days after a group of Pakistan -based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists struck the Sunjuwan Military Camp in Jammu   on Saturday , killing seven people including six soldiers.

“Pakistan is developing new types of nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical weapons,” Coats told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on worldwide threats organised by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Pakistan continues to produce nuclear weapons and develop n ew types of nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical weapons, sea-based cruise missiles, air-launched cruise missiles, and longer-range ballistic missiles, he warned.

“These new types of nuclear weapons will introduce new risks for escalation of dynamics and security in the region,” Coats said, reflecting on the risks involved in developing such types of nuclear weapons. …….https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/pak-developing-new-types-of-nuclear-weapons-us/articleshow/62907167.cms

February 14, 2018 Posted by | Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Pentagon’s lies: it DID use depleted uranium weapons in Syria

The Pentagon said it wouldn’t use depleted uranium rounds against ISIS. Months later, it did — thousands of times. WP, By Thomas Gibbons-Neff February 16, 2017 

Months after the Pentagon said it wouldn’t use a controversial type of armor-piercing ammunition that has been blamed for long-term health complications, U.S. aircraft fired thousands of the rounds during two high-profile air raids in Syria in November 2015, the Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday.

The use of the ammunition, a 30mm depleted-uranium bullet called PGU-14, was first reported by a joint Air Wars-Foreign Policy investigation on Tuesday. The roughly 5,265 rounds of the munition were fired from multiple A-10 ground attack aircraft on Nov 16, 2015, and Nov. 22, 2015, in airstrikes in Syria’s eastern desert that targeted the Islamic State’s oil supply during Operation Tidal Wave II, said Maj. Josh Jacques, a U.S. Central Command spokesman.

When loaded with depleted-uranium bullets, the A-10s fired what is called a “combat-mix,” meaning the aircraft’s cannon fires five depleted-uranium rounds to one high explosive incendiary bullet.

The strikes, which involved 30mm cannon fire, rockets and guided bombs, destroyed more than 300 vehicles, mostly civilian tanker trucks, the Pentagon said at the time. The two incidents were championed by the Pentagon, and footage of trucks being destroyed was posted online. The Pentagon said that no civilians were present during the bombardment because fliers had been dropped before strafing runs warning those in their trucks to flee.

Before the November strikes, the Pentagon said it would not use depleted-uranium munitions in the campaign against the Islamic State. In response to a query from a reporter in February 2015, Capt. John Moore, a spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq and Syria said in an email that “U.S. and Coalition aircraft have not been and will not be using depleted uranium munitions in Iraq or Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve.” ….https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/02/16/the-pentagon-said-it-wouldnt-use-depleted-uranium-rounds-against-isis-months-later-it-did-5265-times/?utm_term=.6e94c644b90b

February 14, 2018 Posted by | depleted uranium, Syria, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons – always the goal of India’s “peaceful” nuclear power

The Nation 11th Feb 2018, Indian army chief calls our strategic and tactical nuclear capability `a bluff’. His view may be rooted in India’s own bitter enrichment experience (1980-1985).

Ramana points out during initial operations that India’s enrichment plant `had frequent breakdown as a result of corrosion  and failure of parts’. `Many leaders of Indian Department of Atomic  Energy held that uranium enrichment was very difficult and were skeptical of Pakistani claims that they had succeeded in enriching uranium to weapons grade levels’.

From day one, India’s nuclear programme has been dual-use oriented. Nehru never ruled out the nuclear option for India . He wrote to Homi Bhabha `Apart from building power stations and developing electricity there is always a built-in advantage of defence use [of nuclear enrichment] if the need should arise’. According to Srinivasan, former head of Indian Atomic Energy Commission, `Nuclear technology was developed by a country for its own benefit, whether for peaceful purposes or military applications’.
https://nation.com.pk/11-Feb-2018/unmasking-india-s-secret-nuclear-capability

February 14, 2018 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Dwight D Eisenhower was the granddaddy of hard-core nuclearism in the world tday

Ken, Eisenhower was the grandaddy of hard-core nuclearism in the world today. He was the grandaddy of the military-industrial complex, in spite of the propaganda, put out.

The US started with 1000 nuclear waepons, when he came in. Ended with 22,000, when he came out. He did the most open air, nuclear-bomb testing.

He set the fateful course for using inefficient, deadly nuclear reactors to generate energy. He had a cabinet of millionaires. He set the human race on the path of it’s own destruction. A true evil monky general, as Dr Caldicott says, if there ever was one.  http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20753:Undoing-the-New-Deal%3A–Eisenhower-Builds-an-Arsenal-of-Nuclear-Weapons-and-a-Cabinet-of-Millionair

February 12, 2018 Posted by | history, weapons and war, World | Leave a comment

“Militarizing The Confrontation: Risks Of The New U.S. Nuclear Posture Review”

Russian Expert Suslov: The New U.S Nuclear Doctrine Could Lead To A Military Crisis Fraught With A Direct Military Clash Between The U.S. And Russia, MEMRI,  Special Dispatch No. 7325  February 11, 2018
 On February 2, 2018, the U.S Department of Defense released its Nuclear Posture Review. The new U.S. Nuclear Doctrine states that while Russia initially followed “America’s lead and made similarly sharp reductions in its strategic nuclear forces,” it retained large quantities of non-strategic nuclear weapons. “Today, Russia is modernizing these weapons as well as its other strategic systems. Even more troubling has been Russia’s adoption of military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success. These developments, coupled with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark

Moscow’s decided return to Great Power competition,” stated the Nuclear Posture Review.[1]

Dmitry Suslov, a veteran America-watcher and program director of the Valdai Discussion Club noted in his assessment of the review, that a troubling aspect of the new U.S. nuclear doctrine is the “considerable erosion of nuclear employment terms.” Suslov stated: “The current document says that the United States allows the possibility of using nuclear weapons in response to a non-nuclear attack not only against the U.S. itself and its allies but also against its ‘partners,’ a category that can include just about anyone apart from those the US openly calls its adversaries (today these are Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) or unfriendly countries (Syria, Venezuela, etc.). Officially, the United States’ ‘strategic partners’ are Ukraine and Georgia, to name just these two. Does this mean that Washington will seriously contemplate using nuclear weapons if their security is under threat?”

Like many Russian experts Suslov regards the situation as worse than during the Cold War and urges the expert communities in both the U.S. and Russia to share their concerns with the policy makers.

Below are excerpts from Suslov’s article, titled “Militarizing The Confrontation: Risks Of The New U.S. Nuclear Posture Review,” published in the Valdai Discussion Club:[2]

‘The General Strategic Situation Is Much More Complex And Multifaceted Than During The Cold War’

“During the last four years, Russian-American confrontation has been mostly confined to the political, information and economic (sanctions) areas and has been minimal in terms of the military. The military establishments in Russia and America and their proponents among the Russian and U.S. political elite regarded each other as potential adversaries even before the current confrontation. Moscow’s 2010 military doctrine (incidentally, approved at the peak of the Russian-U.S. ‘reset’) described globalization and NATO expansion as the main military threat. NATO’s official pivot in 2014 to the open military and political containment of Russia was until recently of a predominantly declarative and political nature. In the military respect, it was rather modest since the real scale of NATO’s infrastructural expansion in the Baltic and Black Sea areas was not great. In the Middle East, too, the U.S. refrained from creating military obstacles to the Russian operation in Syria, which would have risked a direct clash between the two powers.

“However, the situation may change radically quite soon. On February 2, 2018, Washington presented its new nuclear doctrine (Nuclear Posture Review), which outlined a qualitative change in U.S. nuclear policy. ……..

“The main change in the U.S. nuclear doctrine is that the Trump administration, based on the qualitatively new realities of the great-power confrontation with Russia and China as compared with the period after the Cold War, has decided on a higher role for nuclear weapons and emphasizes them in its defense strategy, whereas the Obama and Bush administrations on the contrary sought to downplay it.  ……….

https://www.memri.org/reports/russian-expert-suslov-new-us-nuclear-doctrine-could-lead-military-crisis-fraught-direct

February 12, 2018 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Where to save America’s head honchos in the event of a nuclear attack?

Where might Trump go in a nuclear attack? BBC News, By Tara McKelveyBBC White House reporter, 11 Feb 18,   “…….. US officials have made access arrangements for the president and a group of individuals deemed to be at the “top of the food chain”, according to Robert Darling, a Marine who spent part of 9/11 in the White House bunker. He has described who was allowed in.

As Darling pointed out, only a select few are allowed into a presidential bunker, turning social hierarchy into a matter of life or death. Still historians say bunker building is a necessary part of governmental business.

“You have to maintain a chain of command,” says Randy Sowell, an archivist at the Truman President Library in Independence, Missouri. “Or there’d be complete chaos.”

The construction of shelters and bunkers, whether for presidents or ordinary people, serves another purpose – they make it easier for Americans to talk about atomic or nuclear warheads and help make the unthinkable – global nuclear war – thinkable.

President Harry Truman oversaw the establishment of a federal civil defence administration in the 1950s. The overall message from the government, said Christian Appy, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, was that “nuclear war wasn’t necessarily an apocalypse for everyone”.

The civil defence agency helped create the idea of “nuclear citizenship”, says Appy. The US government wanted civilians to adjust to a new reality, he says, paving the way for their “acquiescence to the nuclear arms race”.

A US strategic bombing survey found about 30% of those who died immediately in the US atomic attack on Nagasaki would have been saved by fallout shelters, says Sowell, explaining the rationale behind Truman’s civil defence programme.

Officials at the agency tried to set up a nationwide shelter system. Some shelters were built for government employees and members of the public. Officials oversaw the construction of a large facility in Los Altos, California, in the 1960s, for example.

Mainly, though, private individuals built their own bunkers. Thousands were constructed, as Laura McEnaney, a history professor, discovered while researching her book on the subject. “Nuclear war,” she says, became “the responsibility of the nuclear family”.

One of them, an heiress named Marjorie Merriweather Post, built her bunkers under her estate – the Mar-a-Lago, in Florida.

In the early 1950s, Post was worried about the Korean War and its potential for escalation, and so she built underground shelters. They were dug into the earth below Mar-a-Lago’s main building, according to a US interior department surveyon historic buildings.

Trump bought the property along with the bunker in 1985. He later described the underground facility as sturdy, “anchored into the coral reef with steel and concrete”.

The ceilings are low, says Wes Blackman. The 6ft 5in former project manager had to duck while visiting the place with Trump years ago.

“It was like we were on an archaeological exploration,” he says………

Mount Weather, a 1,754-ft (534m) peak near Bluemont, Virginia, was turned into a giant bunker for the president, his advisers and others to hide in case of nuclear attack.

Members of Congress would be taken to a bunker at Greenbrier resort near White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The facility had a code name, Project Greek Island, and operated for decades – until its existence was revealed in the media in 1992 when the bunker was “decommissioned”.

Mount Weather is now run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and was “activated” after the al-Qaeda attacks in September 2001, a Fema director testified to Congress in October of that year. He didn’t provide details. ……
In the autumn of 1961, construction began on another presidential bunker. This one was created for President John F Kennedy in Florida. It’s not far from Mar-a-Lago – the US Navy’s Seabees built the bunker on Peanut Island, a 10-minute journey from a Palm Beach house where Kennedy often stayed. The bunker was known as Detachment Hotel, and it cost $97,000 to construct, according to a 1973 report to Congress. …….http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42969877

February 12, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Plan for a criminal lawsuit against the 19 member states of NATO, over use of depleted uranium

LAWSUIT OVER DEPLETED URANIUM AGAINST 19 MEMBERS OF NATO  https://inserbia.info/today/2018/02/lawsuit-over-depleted-uranium-against-19-members-of-nato/

The first in a series of meetings that should lead to the formation of a Council to prepare a criminal lawsuit against the 19 member states of NATO, who bombed Serbia in 1999, was held on Thursday night in Nis. According to the lawyer Srdjan Aleksic each country will be sued separately and invites lawyers and doctors to join them.

“We have been preparing documentation for the writing of the lawsuit for years. Several countries had to pay damages to the soldiers who were hired in Kosovo. I believe that citizens of Serbia, especially those who have cancer, have identical rights. Because of the depleted uranium our health is endangered and the environment is polluted,” says Aleksic.

February 12, 2018 Posted by | depleted uranium, EUROPE, Legal | Leave a comment

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