The REAL Threat to Future Generations
I have just been listening to an interview with Joseph Cirincione, the Nuclear proliferation expert of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/
on npr who summarized there the nuclear threats facing us down the line -- probably more Pakistan than Iran if an assassin's bullet or bomb takes out our ally, Pervez Musharraf, there and releases Pakistan's know-how and build up of nuclear bombs even further than may already have been the case to the terrorists who would presumably use them against the continental U.S. without the threat of territorial retaliation that holds in check most nations -- eight(?) -- now in possession of nuclear weapons or the increasing numbers that could produce them if the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty begins to break down:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/
No wonder we Americans are increasing the use of sleeping pills to get a night's sleep. If it is not a threat to our jobs, it is to our very existence if we live in a major American city where a shipping crate containing a stray nuclear bomb could be delivered -- we are not moving rapidly enough in picking up those bombs and nuclear materials scattered around the former Soviet Union states and relatively unprotected there from sale or theft.
I well recall the letters to the editor some years back in the Ithaca Journal following a report that 100,000 NYC refugees from a nuclear attack would be assigned to Ithaca -- the next day a host of gun owning letter writers indicated that any such radioactive refugees would be met by them en route and politely told to go back where they had come from.
The good news is that it would take some time for Iran to develop nuclear weapons -- Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Co. had supported the Shah back when with the development of a nuclear program there. We can hopefully negotiate some solution now and Iran would know that a nuclear attack on Israel would be suicide, given Israel's extensive supply of weapons itself. The problem is the other nations of the world breaking with the treaty and area conflicts erupting that would spread nuclear contamination world wide.
Let us hope that we can head off the culture war that so many seem bent on stimulating rather than seeking world peace for their children and grand children. I was a child of WW2 and supported fighting our enemies with all my childhood vigor -- I trained in aircraft observers in our front yard air raid warning center as to how to identify enemy planes and call in reports to Washington as an eight-year-old. I suffered nightmares about enemy attacks and watched our pilots practicing dog fights overhead -- one plane crashed and kids brought the pieces of the plane to school the next day to distribute. I went through officers training for the Korean War which Eisenhower ended just before I would have had to enter the Navy.
But any idiot can see now that all of our efforts must be directed to making world peace work while we still have time to avert global catastrophe -- the weapons of mass destruction are here and we must persuade any and all not to use them.
P.S. As I write this I hear that there is a news report of a nerve gas sensor sounding in a Senate building? Interesting that they are so protected. Wonder how well set up they are with nuclear bomb shelters? Or maybe they are too busy with Iraq for such things?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/
on npr who summarized there the nuclear threats facing us down the line -- probably more Pakistan than Iran if an assassin's bullet or bomb takes out our ally, Pervez Musharraf, there and releases Pakistan's know-how and build up of nuclear bombs even further than may already have been the case to the terrorists who would presumably use them against the continental U.S. without the threat of territorial retaliation that holds in check most nations -- eight(?) -- now in possession of nuclear weapons or the increasing numbers that could produce them if the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty begins to break down:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/
No wonder we Americans are increasing the use of sleeping pills to get a night's sleep. If it is not a threat to our jobs, it is to our very existence if we live in a major American city where a shipping crate containing a stray nuclear bomb could be delivered -- we are not moving rapidly enough in picking up those bombs and nuclear materials scattered around the former Soviet Union states and relatively unprotected there from sale or theft.
I well recall the letters to the editor some years back in the Ithaca Journal following a report that 100,000 NYC refugees from a nuclear attack would be assigned to Ithaca -- the next day a host of gun owning letter writers indicated that any such radioactive refugees would be met by them en route and politely told to go back where they had come from.
The good news is that it would take some time for Iran to develop nuclear weapons -- Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Co. had supported the Shah back when with the development of a nuclear program there. We can hopefully negotiate some solution now and Iran would know that a nuclear attack on Israel would be suicide, given Israel's extensive supply of weapons itself. The problem is the other nations of the world breaking with the treaty and area conflicts erupting that would spread nuclear contamination world wide.
Let us hope that we can head off the culture war that so many seem bent on stimulating rather than seeking world peace for their children and grand children. I was a child of WW2 and supported fighting our enemies with all my childhood vigor -- I trained in aircraft observers in our front yard air raid warning center as to how to identify enemy planes and call in reports to Washington as an eight-year-old. I suffered nightmares about enemy attacks and watched our pilots practicing dog fights overhead -- one plane crashed and kids brought the pieces of the plane to school the next day to distribute. I went through officers training for the Korean War which Eisenhower ended just before I would have had to enter the Navy.
But any idiot can see now that all of our efforts must be directed to making world peace work while we still have time to avert global catastrophe -- the weapons of mass destruction are here and we must persuade any and all not to use them.
P.S. As I write this I hear that there is a news report of a nerve gas sensor sounding in a Senate building? Interesting that they are so protected. Wonder how well set up they are with nuclear bomb shelters? Or maybe they are too busy with Iraq for such things?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 8:44 PM
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