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TechnoratiObama's Nuclear-Weapons Adviser Delivers Doomsday Scenario
It's springtime in Ottawa, and Barack Obama's nuclear weapons adviser invites a luncheon gathering to join him on an imaginary journey that is more Dr. Strangelove than A Moveable Feast.
![[The mushroom cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan. The city of Nagasaki was the target of the world’s second atomic bomb attack at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945.]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/nagasaki_0.jpg "nagasaki.jpg")
``Picture in your mind's eyes your favourite bistro, or some other cherished spot in the city of Paris,'' Dr. Bruce Blair tells the 75 guests picking at a rubber-chicken lunch recently at a downtown Ottawa hotel.
Now, Blair tells them, picture an atomic bomb exploding in that cafe, just like the one that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In that instant, downtown Paris is gone, along with 150,000 souls. The carnage soon multiplies exponentially.
``History would perish. Culture would perish with those many lives. Your bistro, the family at the table next to you, all of these evaporate,'' says Blair, who, by his own admission, misspent part of his youth with his finger on the trigger of mass destruction as a nuclear-ballistic-missile launch officer in the U.S. Midwest.
Obama arrives in Moscow on Monday to meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, to hammer out the details of new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty before the old 1991 deal expires in five months. While many see a new START treaty as the road to smoother relations between the White House and the Kremlin, people such as Blair see it as a watershed moment to take bold steps to ultimately rid the world of nuclear weapons.
``We have the wind of Obama and Medvedev at our back,'' says Blair, president of the non-profit World Security Institute, on a recent visit to Canada's capital to push his Global Zero grassroots initiative to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
On a trip to Europe in April, Obama called for a nuclear-free world. But with the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, coupled with the ever- present threat of terrorists in search of a dirty bomb, the road to that nuclear-free utopia is littered with more potholes than during the Cold War.
Still, Blair and many others say the need for the U.S. and Russia to show leadership is even more pressing, to remove not only the ever-present Cold War possibility of a world-ending nuclear accident, but the 21st-century threat of nukes falling into terrorist hands.
Much has been made of the need to press the ``reset'' button on the strained relations of late between the White House and the Kremlin. Medvedev struck a conciliatory note this past week when he called for a new era in relations with Washington, based on a ``purely pragmatic'' agenda.
Thomas Graham, a retired U.S. diplomat and Clinton-era arms-control ambassador, said Russian and American co-operation on arms control, including a new START treaty, would pay dividends in a much broader sense.
``For too long in this post-Cold War world, the two former Cold War adversaries have remained in a semi-hostile relationship,'' Graham said this past week.
``There could be a serious threat of broader nuclear-weapon proliferation. Many people are concerned about the Iranian nuclear program. . . . This administration, I believe, correctly understands that we cannot effectively deal with either of those issues, and many others, as well, without close co- operation with the Russian Federation.''
Officials from both countries are already hammering out the details of an agreement that would replace the START 1 treaty which expires Dec. 5.
Though the Moscow-Washington relationship is tangled in a web of tension over the U.S. missile-defence-shield plans for Europe, and NATO's eastward expansion, positive signals emerged from the Kremlin on Friday on one front: Medvedev's spokesman said he and Obama would sign a side deal that would allow the U.S. military transit of goods through Russian territory to Afghanistan.
The main goal would be a new START framework that would essentially see both sides slashing their nuclear-warhead stockpiles by one-quarter, down to about 1, 500 warheads each.
Despite the spread of nuclear-weapons arsenals to countries such as China, Pakistan, India and elsewhere, nine out of every 10 nuclear bombs on the planet are under the control of the White House and the Kremlin.
Lilia Shevtsova, of the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggests that a renewed version of START will not necessarily make the world a safer place.
``When you start counting nukes, you start talking disarmament and verification procedure. It's a sign, not of mutual trust; it's rather a sign of lack, an absence of mutual trust,'' says Shevtsova.
Charles Ferguson, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, says if Russia and the U.S. were to go so far as to cut their arsenals down to 1,000 each, other nuclear countries could begin to compete with them.
``We're uncertain as to where China is headed, in terms of its gradual nuclear development. There's still uncertainties even about India, where it may be headed, or Pakistan,'' says Ferguson.
For Blair, it's well past the time to abandon long-held suspicions and animosities.
After walking his Ottawa luncheon crowd through his Paris doomsday vision, Blair piles on more scenarios.
If there were an accidental launch of weapons that triggered all-out nuclear war between Russia and the U.S., 119 million people in each country would die in the initial exchange. That would include 15 million around the Kremlin in Moscow. A city like Chicago or Ottawa would be gone within the hour.
``We've pushed our luck as far as we can; now we need a policy. So, to put it bluntly, there are two paths that stretch before us: We either bury our weapons or we're buried by them,'' says Blair.
``In a Global Zero world, there will still be terrorists, and still be criminals, but they'll not get their hands on nuclear materials. We'll always have Paris in our future, Ottawa in our future. Right now, we cannot say that.''
30 Comments so far
Show AllLet's follow "Trust but verify" with "Hope but don't rely."
The "wind of Obama and Medvedev" may be the one that finally blows no man some good. Whew!
Let's just make god-damned sure we bury ALL the weapons-MAKERS too when we bury those weapons.
Bury the fuckers DEEP, with a sharpened stake pounded through each and every one of their soulless, godless hearts.
We want NO RESURRECTIONS either.
Did I miss the mention of israel's 200 warheads?
Also almost everytime Los Alamos Labs developes a new generation of nukes someone stills the data.
Most likely China or israel.
minitrue, armybrat. mustbefree, (and others) --
IF our specie's genotype can still produce individuals who embody higher-unifying insights like yours, then none of us, including any of you, can say for sure whether the human race is doomed, no matter how likely it seems to be just now.
One of you deeper-feeling higher thinkers, or one of your immediate progeny or a sufficient collection thereof, however initially obscurely may turn out to be the beginning of a fundamental revolution in consciousness that allows us humans to survive this darkest period our species has ever yet faced.
I'd agree that there's not much time left for us to get our suicidal impulses expunged -- based on what I see our standard foibles to be, and based on my not believing in any religion's promises of an externally Divine Intervention that will come to save us from our willfully fragmented selves.
But we humans aren't dead and gone yet. Some marginal degree of Self-unto-Other insight has increased over the millenia, and if some can have been made, maybe more can.
Moreover, it seems counter-intuitive to believe that whatever, if any, Cosmic Intention created us particular creatures is so incomprehensible to us in Itself, that It intends our strugglings toward consciousness to be nothing more than a pre-doomed Dead End, after so much pain, hope and effort on our part, to make it otherwise.
Even if some unknown, cosmically-blind human creating meta-matrix, that may have created the dysfunctional potentials in human Self-Other consciousness, is operating a priori, that doesn't mean that we humans are fated to be mass-suicidally inhumane toward each other by Volition.
Assuming that hardwired human consciousness has any eschatological meaning at all, there's nothing to be done in today's situation except rely on consciousness's most telling perceptions: Viz: Most of want to survive a normal life-term which, if not otherwise cut short by freely-working Hazard, should at least not then be interrupted by the unconsciousness of our own politically weaponated endgame designs.
The presence of self-wrought nuclear weapons among us, and the universally shared-survival need to get rid of them, has now become humanities summa-cognitive challenge.
Anyone who speaks rationally to this challenge, even if pesimistically, is to be honored, encouraged.
It's entirely possible -- I would argue, even likely, that humanity will survive, if it does, only because enough of us want to survive; but in any case certainly not because some fear-imagined sadistic God cares about us.
I admit: it's just as possible that there is no such Cosmic Intention sponsoring us pipsqueak Earthlings -- nor any other seemingly evolving dynamic of consciousness in the universe, for that matter.
But if that unwonted cosmic bleakness is somehow nevertherless true, it would only be all the more reason for us humans to recognize our commonly-dire existential plight, share it honestly, and act all the more humanely toward each other, accordingly.
And as far as any of know, it IS true.
Therefore, I say, we must not give up to any sense of doom; especially those of us who have the good sense to apprehend it.
Is it my feelings or any of the others feeling that are fueling a doomsday scenario or is it that the scene is already out there and we are just picking up on it?Thoughts are things and whether it is ours or some lunatic's out there who just does not care. I care and know that the others do too.Death is a part of life and that is not my fear for me but a deep sadness for all other life human and otherwise.Wrote this awhile back but has not lost it's meaning for me.Tony
Gifts of God: 1. Love 2. Family 3. Freedom
Why these three; yes indeed why?
Love
To have a world without the uplifting and life affirming nature of this thing called love leaves us where we are today.
Even critters are more tolerant and loving than we as a human species should be considering our relative nearness to the Creator of all.
The love I speak of is: Consider the world as a home and every human as family and be a benevolent steward towards all other living creatures and you will see the wish of the all encompassing God.
Family
Here is a step; a step towards the ultimate understanding that all are a family as a human species. With the goal of a family of nations, of all peoples!
We start with the family of blood move to a family of interests, neighbors, on to cities, states or whatever they are called in other places and as you can see; a family of all.
This growing towards this ultimate goal has been the thrust of some in history and yet greed, power, the subjection of others turned a quest into a tragedy.
Freedom
Safety in fear is not freedom! It is a false choice for you get a negative trying to masquerade as a positive and in the process tyranny appears.
Freedom is of choice, yes, choices with responsibilities; responsibilities to others and not just to the me. For with the choice of the me; is this not greed and tyranny?
There are many more words and ideals of the gifts of a creator and yet, for me, these three: Love, Family, Freedom must stand together to usher in a world livable for all.
Tony 3/12/07 Where my heart is.
The U.S. and Britain, and France always brandish the specter of stateless terrorists' getting their hands on a nuclear device. Where are these terrorists gonna get that nuclear device, if not from a state that produces nuclear materials?
If that is correct, then ridding the world of fissile nuclear materials and bombs is a major, major step towards eliminating the possibility of such a scenario.
How serious are these three states about eliminating such a scenario?
Iran is not North korea. They are wise.
Russia is surrounded by US troops, US nuclear weapons, bases and Occupied Countries. Russia and Iran are Sympatico. Rhetoric to the absolute and total contrary, Russia will be STOKED when Iran finally achieves some degree of parity, via Nuclear Weapons, with her aggressors, who are ALSO Russia's. Persia invented chess, the Russians play very well. Georgia. They need another Queen on the board.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Canada decided, for an extravagant fee of course, to allow a couple dozen Russian military bases to be built along its southern border, and the same with Mexico on its northern border? And then they could station a few aircraft carriers and submarines around 400-500 miles off our east and west coasts. They could install ballistic missle defense radars and interceptor missles in Cuba and Venezuela in case of an attack on the U.S. by Iran. Would there be any cause for concern among the general population and the politicians? Why should there be? All of this would be simply in support of the cause of promoting democracy and world peace.
Reducing the total number of nukes looks good as a PR idea. Get rid of your aging stockpiles but keep enough to still ensure total annihilation of your foes. - In other words, it's a good way to modernise your inventory.
There's still two ideas out there that'll keep nukes around for a long time....one is a WW2 mindset of more (conventional) bombs must be better than fewer, and the second is that you must always keep some/many of your nukes in reserve to ensure that in the event that should you be attacked, then from outside the ashes fields you can still destroy your attacker(s) with your strategic reserves of nukes....and let your enemies know that you can do all that beforehand. (MAD = mutual assured destruction)
The trouble I think is that smaller nuclear weaponised countries still see nukes as a valid option to use in a so-called 'limited war' amongst their neighbours/enemies.
And finally, with the USA running around the world like a madman with a knife (a quote from the corrupt Putin which I always think is still apt), who's going to ever trust what they say or do?
Dr. Strangelove rides again! Yee Haw!
When they tried to frighten us in school, my father told us not to worry because we would never even know what had hit us - we would all be incinerated instantly, being we were so close to a major city at the time. He also told us that the only reason a nuclear war had not already begun was because the Russians had atomic weapons as well, and that was the main deterrent to the US/UK plan to rule the world through terrorism: SOP for any empire, failed or failing. He told us that the Russians had been so decimated by both Stalin's paranoia (is it really paranoia when the main powers of the world are intent on destroying your country?) and Hitler's 'total war' against the USSR. The US picked up where Hitler had left off - and that's the kind of world we've been living in ever since. 'We the people' - of any nation in the world - have no say about what the psychotic madmen plan in their doomsday scenarios. They always find another 'evil enemy' to justify their paranoid delusions.
Nothing will ever change - ordinary people don't think about what their own government is doing to insure the extinction of life on this planet. War is a game to them - 'politics by other means' - and far too many military honchos believe that they can survive nuclear war... it is insanity, but then, they are, and always have been, totally insane. What does that say about the rest of us who eagerly give them the reins of power? If any of us spoke of such senseless slaughter - such global destruction - we would be consigned to a padded room. But for politicians and militarists, this is just 'business as usual' - call it 'job security' for a handful of madmen. There is nothing 'conservative' about taking the path that leads only to inevitable self-destruction. And just imagine what a wonderful world we could have built if we had not taken this doomsday path - what the world could have accomplished had it invested in the betterment of our world instead of guaranteeing its destruction. The dream of the post-WWII generation drowned in the nightmares of a few paranoid, delusional, racist-supremacist madmen projecting their own vile greedy power-hungry aspirations on 'others' - and such people will always find a new and scarier 'enemy' - even if they have to create it themselves, as they have, again and again. We are doomed.
"Nothing will ever change"?!
Couldn't we as easily say, "Nothing will ever be the same"?
"They will find an "Evil Enemy"........NOT.....THEY will create their own Enemy !
From the Rockefellers supporting the Bolshevik Revolution to the Rothschilds supporting Adolph Hitler....From the Rockefellers and Bushes doing business, as usual, with Adolph Hitler to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1980's........From The U.S. CIA creating a 100,000 man Islamic Militant Force later to become Al Qaeda (Their Database) to putting the Taliban in power in Afghanistan (Zbigniew Brzezinski asked, "Which would you rather have as an enemy, The Soviet Union or The Taliban?")............Honduras to Iran....The CIA and its subsidiary USAID have destabilized more Sovereign Nations than any Stalin, Hitler, or Bush could have done without a"Power Elite" making a fortune and gaining control of governments, "If I control the money supply (World Bank/IMF/ Federal Reserve etc.), I can control the government."
There isn't a country that has nuclear weapons that the United States did not help to acquire them or sell the missle technology to deliver them (China and Bill Clinton). Since Israel has over 200 nuclear weapons and the missle systems to deliver them, I would say Iran has the right to defend itself. (One must remember Israel was an English Colony until Zionist Terrorists blew up an English hotel.)
Maybe, one day, those "Evil Men" who have accumulated TRILLIONS of Dollars will say, "Enough is Enough" and stop financing men who murder people by the millions!
Excellent post. "We" must manufacture enemies in order to keep the MIC and the BANKS raking in the profits. God* forbid we should turn away from this death and destruction and focus our efforts on building a peaceful world.
*A mythical omnipotent supernatural being, whose existence is promoted by those who would control you and force you into a life of poverty while they take all of the wealth and riches, a being who loves humanity, and shows it by allowing untold suffering of innocents, at least one billion of whom, for example, are starving to death through no fault of their own except for, perhaps, "original sin", and by demanding absolute allegiance which will result in a peaceful "afterlife".
armybrat:The longer I live the more it seems as though WW1 and2 were nothing but power grabs and had nothing to do with "freedom" or the preservation of civilization and then Korea,Vietnam,etc.The amount of evil deeds by egos for power and money is staggering and beyond my comprehension.Dont know if my mind is going but I have no problem believing it.Tony
It didn't start there.
Since Ugh bonked Gronk on the noggin war has been simply for someone's personal gain.
What country would give up its nukes or desire to have some when it has seen what America does to countries that don't have any? What guarantee have they that another Bush won't be "elected"?
"What guarantee have they that another Bush won't be "elected"?"
I've got bad news for you, he already has. The only noticeable difference is that this one can speak in complete sentences and is of a darker hue. All else stays the same.
Since stateless terrorist organizations have no homeland to retaliate against, there is no reason why the threat or fear of nuclear terrorism would prevent complete nuclear disarmament by nation states. Policing nuclear plants and preventing reprocessing of plutonium or any fissionable material into anything which could be used in a nuclear devise,or dirty bomb, would eliminate proliferation of new weapons. The only barriers to compete nuclear disarmament are political and economic. Greed and fear! peace
Obama claims to want a world rid of nuclear weapons. So why reduce the stockpile down to 1500 nuclear warheads? Why 1500 nuclear bombs? Why not reduce to 550, say? Or, better yet, to 0? Where does that figure of 1500 come from?
The whole thing seems utterly arbitrary. Why aren't any reasons offered for the procedure and the figure?
Of course, one wishes the world could rid itself of these darn things. But the above remarks of mine seem to indicate that no one is really serious about the matter.
Am I missing something? Please let me know, if you think so.
Jeevee
ZERO is the only feasible number, with continuous world policing to make it continue! And that's just a start:how 'bout world-wide elimination of cluster bombs, "drones", etc.
"In 1956, as a young navy man, I was at the thermonuclear tests at Bikini, code named Operation Redwing. The first bomb exploded was, we were told, a twenty megaton plus thermonuclear device, to be detonated at an altitude of twenty thousand feet. Our observation point was to be aboard ship at a distance of thirty miles from ground zero. That is a long way; about, as far as the doctor was from Kansas City when the first bomb went off in the movie [The Day After, 1983, TV]. It is not far enough.
"Most of the crew was ranged on deck, wearing blast goggles and facing aft, away from the blast. I was not on deck as there were not enough goggles to go around. Instead, I picked a spot in a passageway, about thirty feet forward of a light well. Any light coming in would have to come from the direction away from the blast, down about a twenty foot well, then penetrate the passageway. I had my back to the well. During the final countdown, I wrapped both arms across my eyes, one over the other. I could hear the voice on the ship's intercom; 5...4...3...2...1...ZERO.
"Suddenly, I could see light, right through my arms! The heat was intense, as though I had my back to an opened furnace door. The silence was deafening. After what seemed like minutes, but was probably a few seconds, the light began to fade. As it grew dark, I eased one arm away from the other and the light was back, but again fading. When it was gone, I moved my other arm. The light through my clenched eyelids was painful, but it continued to fade and I gradually opened my eyes and began backing toward the light well. As the light continued to decrease, it finally got to the point where I could squint up the light well at the sky. The light was brilliant, the sky an intense blue. I climbed out of the well and peeked forward around the shelter of the conning tower, directly at the cloud and the, now fading, fireball.
"My first impression was of a weird beauty. The cloud was sharply defined, like a thunderhead, and had a fluorescent; amethyst colored glow, which tinged toward a dark red. It is impossible to communicate the scale of the cloud. We were thirty miles away, yet the feeling was similar to when one stands beneath a huge redwood, watching the trunk taper away above you, to be surmounted by a crown of spreading branches far overhead. At thirty miles, it was as though we were right at the base of the cloud looking up, rather than out, at it.
"We stood there in silence, looking at the cloud and quietly commenting on the colors. On the right side, close to the cloud, we could see two bright, stationary lights. They were visible for a short while, then they faded.
Over two minutes had passed, then the voice on the intercom began the countdown for the shock wave. 5...4...3...2...1...Zero. The pressure wave at that distance was not violent; there was an increase of about one atmosphere, enough to make your ears pop; the sound was a long low rumble lasting about thirty seconds.
The sun began to rise, lighting the outside of the cloud and overpowering the internal glow. The cloud was identifiable for much of the day, with the top being slowly torn to rags by the jet stream..."
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The paper is too long to post here. The whole paper is available at, http://www.populistamerica.com/there_must_be_no_day
We watched and were exposed to numerous bombs over the next few months. I suffered from radiation poisoning. There are not many of us left that witnessed the tests, but all of us felt that, if not controlled or eliminated, the nuclear dragon would eventually devour us all.
Then Congresswoman, Barbara Boxer, read it on the floor of the House on Hiroshima Day, 1984. The paper ends with,
---------------------------------------------
"Mankind has always had a tendency for its technology to outstrip its moral growth, It is time we begin to slow down the technical race and begin to think, not of what is expedient, or will show the greatest short-term profit, but what will benefit the planet and ourselves in the long run. What kind of agriculture will leave the land fertile and productive for a thousand years and more? What processes can be used that will leave only biodegradable wastes? Does society's existence depend on an endless flow of gadgets and novelties, designed to fall apart almost immediately? Must everything be designed to wear out in two or three years? Is it possible to recycle our mineral resources rather than continually mining more and allowing worn out products to decay, or simply rust in storage? Can't we produce crops and see that they are distributed, rather than stored to rot? Why don't we make a major effort to harness and use wind and solar energy for power and make a greater effort to reduce energy needs?
"Let us pledge to make a start by informing all world leaders that nuclear war is out. The people of this planet will take no more of fear and terror!
"Then, with this as a starting point, let us, as stewards of a fragile planet, begin the process of healing and growing, individually and as a species, to the point where all of this will seem an horrible, impossible nightmare. A lesson to be forever remembered, but never repeated. It is up to us."
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Twenty-five years later, it is still up to us. Those in power don't really care; data is used to manipulate us, terrorize us into allowing them to continue their path of greed, corruption and hate.
We the People of the United States, We the People of the World, must take a stand! Our alleged representatives are not going to do it, regardless of whether they belong to the tweedledee party or the Tweedledum.
There will never be a nuclear free world.
"On a trip to Europe in April, Obama called for a nuclear-free world."
-what is stopping the US from reducing its arsenal? The US is in violation of the NPT.
The NPT has three pillars:
1 non-proliferation,
2 disarmament, and
3 the right to peacefully use nuclear technology
The US is in violation of: the second pillar (disarmament)
The NPT's preamble contains language affirming the desire of treaty signatories to ease international tension and strengthen international trust so as to create someday the conditions for a halt to the production of nuclear weapons, and treaty on general and complete disarmament that liquidates, in particular, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles from national arsenals.
The wording of the NPT's Article VI arguably imposes only a vague obligation on all NPT signatories to move in the general direction of nuclear and total disarmament, saying, "Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament." -wikipedia
The "vagueness" is subject to interpretation. Sounds clear to me; get rid of your nuclear weapons.
The US has not moved in the direction of nuclear disarmament. Where is the UN Security Council condemnation? Oh, that's right, that's only used against rogue states the US doesn't like; Iraq, Iran, North Korea etc.
Rogue states the US does like, Israel for example, need not sign the NPT and can be free of all criticism of its nuclear programs because they are an ally of the US. Got it.
"Medvedev's spokesman said he and Obama would sign a side deal that would allow the U.S. military transit of goods through Russian territory to Afghanistan."
Hmmmm. So the Russians want to be an accomplice in the war crime called Afghanistan.
The Russians don't intend to be an accomplice. They intend to make it easy for us to go down the same hole they went into in Afghanistan. Who said the Russians don't have a sense of humor.
That is exactly what I think. They are going to help us spend ourselves into oblivion.
...or give Obama more than enough rope to hang himself...
Or maybe supply the Taliban with arms to defeat the occupier, just to sort of even things out.
I remember the hiding under the desk thing.Isn't fear a wonderful thing and the dems have learned so well.nothings changed except the words.Tony