nuclear-news

Yes, Virginia, a nuclear bomb would effectively destroy our Washington DC

A nuclear blast of any size would end D.C. as we know it Washington Post, By Mike DeBonis, 27 March 12,  Last November, federal researchers issued a report  commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security on what would happen if a relatively small nuclear device — the kind a terrorist group would most likely come to possess — were detonated at 16th and K streets NW.

“National Capital Region: Key Response Planning Factors for the Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism” was little noticed until the Federation of American Scientists posted a copy of the study  on its Secrecy News blog. It was then picked up by this newspaper, Gizmodo  and others.

Today, the Associated Press wrote up a story on the report, and it’s a good summation of the aftermath of a terrorist nuclear blast in all its awful detail. But it moved across the wire with an unfortunate headline: “Gov’t report: DC nuke blast wouldn’t destroy city.”

Make no mistake, a nuclear blast of any size would destroy D.C. as we know it.

Yes, the loss of life (45,000 dead) and damage to property caused by a 10-kiloton ground blast — approximately Hiroshima-level — would be nowhere as apocalyptic as the multiple, multi-megaton air bursts that the city would absorb during a Cold War-type nuclear exchange.

Most of the city’s residents would survive and most of its residential neighborhoods would remain intact, but any nuclear blast would be an existential dagger for Washington as a center for government and commerce — a death knell for D.C. as a city worthy of that word….. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/post/a-nuclear-blast-of-any-size-would-end-dc-as-we-know-it/2012/03/27/gIQAieZmeS_blog.html

March 28, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA’s ‘moral obligation’ to lead in nuclear disarmament – Obama

Obama: US nuclear disarmament ‘a moral obligation’ News Ok, Joel Gehrke | Published: March 26, 2012      President Obama called nuclear disarmament as “a moral obligation,” as he suggested that the United States is leading by example to bring about “a world without nuclear weapons.” “American leadership has been essential to progress in a second area — taking concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama said yesterday during a speech in Korea. “I believe the United States has a unique responsibility to act — indeed, we have a moral obligation.”

March 28, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA, Iran and the doctrine of pre-emptive strike

The Bush-Obama Pre-Emption Doctrine By MICHAEL CROWLEY |  TIME | March 20, 2012 Writing at CNN.com, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, an adviser to Mitt Romney, makes a provocative point. If Barack Obama’s threat of military action to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is serious, doesn’t that amount to a policy of… pre-emption? Continue reading →

March 21, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The sanity of cutting $100 billion from USA’s Cold War nuclear arsenal

 Try a Little Nuclear Sanity Lawrence S. Wittner, March 19, 2012  On February 8, 2012, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act (H.R.
3974).

This SANE Act would cut $100 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next ten years by reducing the current fleet of U.S. nuclear submarines, delaying the purchase of new nuclear submarines, reducing the number of ICBMs, delaying a new bomber
program, and ending the nuclear mission of air bombers.

“America’s nuclear weapons budget is locked in a Cold War time machine,” noted Markey, the senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “It doesn’t reflect our twenty-first-century security needs. It makes no sense…….Since its introduction, the
SANE Act has picked up significant support. Not surprisingly, it is backed by major peace and disarmament organizations, such as Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the
Ploughshares Foundation. But it has also attracted the support of the National Council of Churches, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Indeed, the SANE Act now has 45 Congressional co-sponsors…. http://hnn.us/articles/145156.html

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA cannot afford to maintain its hoard of nuclear weapons, and a bad example to others

We are telling others, by our hoarding of warheads, that in order to be secure in the world today you need nuclear weapons — and lots of them. Is it any wonder if leaders in Iran and elsewhere might want to buy some protection for themselves with a nuclear stockpile of their own?

 the U.S. lavishes over $50 billion a year  on nuclear arms related programs.

Obama’s Controversial Plan for Nuclear Sanity Richard Schiffman: 03/14/2012 ” “Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon,” read the headline . This front page banner in the satirical weekly, The Onion may not have gotten the number exactly right. The Obama administration reported in 2010 that the U.S. possesses 5,113 warheads in the stockpile and an additional 4,500 retired , but not yet dismantled, making the grand total even higher than the spoofers had guessed.

While media pundits in the U.S. warn darkly of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, America itself is regarded as the main nuclear threat in much of the world today. The United States argues that it needs these weapons to deter attacks on itself and its allies, and that it would only use them to prevent or respond to such an attack. But people in other countries wonder why we need so absurdly many of them — secreted away in missile silos, on submarines and in bombers, computer-targeted to obliterate their cities at the turn of a key.

The U.S. rightly wants to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to nations like Iran that do not yet possess them. Quite simply, the more actors that have the bomb, the greater the risk that it will eventually be used, either as part of a regional war, or in a freelance act of terror. Yet by what right can we ask others to abstain, when we ourselves continue — along with our Cold War rival Russia — to maintain an arsenal large enough to destroy life on the planet several times over?

The problem is not just that we lack the moral authority to preach nonproliferation. The larger problem is that the U.S. is setting a bad example for other nations to follow. Continue reading →

March 15, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment