Bush's
Nuclear Madness
By Stephen M. Osborn
14 March, 2006
Opednews.com
The
latest information I have had from the followers of Bush is that he
has demanded and received permission to use nuclear “bunker busters”
in Iran in a preemptive strike. As a nuclear veteran (Operation Redwing,
Bikini, 1956) I can affirm that this is absolute madness. The “bunker
buster” is a cute sounding name for a nuclear horror. Air bursts
are horrible enough, doing incredible destruction through heat, shock
and high initial radiation. The fallout from an air burst is registered
around the world. A surface or subsurface burst is even deadlier and
more long lasting.
The Castle-Bravo blast at
Bikini in 1954 was a fifteen megaton surface blast. It blew a hole over
a mile wide and four hundred feet deep in the atoll, completely obliterating
the island and vaporizing over thirteen billion cubic feet of coral,
rock and water, sending it in a radioactive cloud extending into the
stratosphere. The fallout over the atolls downwind was devastating to
the people and ecology there. All of that material is rendered extremely
radioactive and as it cools it condenses to fall as rain or radioactive
“snow” which contaminates everything it touches. The effects
are felt worldwide.
Firing der Bush’s bunker
busters in Iran, or anywhere else for that matter, will vaporize hundreds
of thousands of tons of earth, water and rock and send this radioactive
soup downwind to kill and sicken whole populations. Those immediately
downwind will die quickly, in hours or days. Those further downwind
will take longer. The global incidences of cancers and disease will
again rise markedly. The land downwind will remain contaminated and
unusable for generations. If there were deep shelters, it has been postulated
by the designers that the bunker busters would not penetrate deeply
enough to affect them. I imagine that would initiate the attack theory
of sending one nuke after another into the same hole. Picture the intensity
of the radioactive disaster that would perpetrate on the area.
There are not too many of
us left that witnessed the tests, but there are a number of groups that
monitor the effects through cancers, birth defects, both physical and
mental and monitoring of contamination in the environment. We are still
feeling the results of those tests. I have exchanged e-mails with downwinders
and with the children of downwinders who have had children with birth
defects that had no previous history of such things in their families;
who suffer from cancers that are peculiar to nuclear radiation.
Now we are facing the specter
of Depleted Uranium, which is turning up in atmospheric filters around
the world. Depleted Uranium is a nuclear byproduct of the nuclear industry.
It is a low level radioactive material of extreme density. The half
life of DU is 4.5 billion years. Workers in DU have to wear full protective
equipment and respirators. DU ammunition is extremely hard and dense.
It penetrates armor like tissue paper, vaporizing and burning, leaving
dust and particles as shrapnel to be ingested or breathed. DU is not
what the public thinks of as a radioactive material. It only emits alpha
and beta radiation. A piece of paper will stop it. However, when it
is in the lungs or elsewhere in the body, it is in contact with living
tissue, bombarding that tissue with low level radiation for the rest
of your life and beyond. That radiation can lead to cancers, genetic
damage and eventual death.
Independent laboratories
like Johns Hopkins have studied this and made predictions of the harm
it can do. The government says, as it did with Agent Orange, “There
is nothing to it, it is all in your head.” Meanwhile, people continue
to sicken and die and will for generations.
Chernobyl was not a nuclear
explosion. It was just a very hot, stubborn fire in nuclear fuel. Chernobyl
and a huge surrounding area is uninhabitable for an estimated three
to six hundred years. The fallout from Chernobyl contaminated food and
livestock around Europe and Scandinavia for a long time, and the radiation
is still traceable in the earth and some living things.
I, and many thousands like
me, worked for many years to end the nuclear threat. Treaties were drawn
up and ratified. The Peaceful Uses of Space treaty which guaranteed
that no nation would use space as a platform for making war. That treaty
is now derided by the American Military Establishment as naive. We are
ready to take full control of the space around earth to provide a high
ground for attack on any “threat” to the United States hegemony.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which was to keep nuclear weapon
technology from spreading around the world. Der Bush has narrowed that
down to anyone who could conceivably at some time in the future be a
threat to American domination. Our “friends” can build what
they want. We’ll even help them. The Arms Reduction Treatybetween
us and the CCCP. That was a treaty to destroy nuclear weapons and delivery
systems on a mutual basis, with observers from each country verifying
the destruction. Der Bush and Putin decided to change that to putting
the weapons in storage instead of destroying them. Storage means access
by black marketeers who can bribe poorly paid security guards and remove
weapons and weapon grade material for resale to the highest bidder.
Treaties mean nothing to
this government, of course, if they interfere with profits or power.
The Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners is ignored, the
international conventions against torture are ignored, the tenets of
our own Bill of Rights and Constitution guaranteeing privacy and freedom
of expression to its citizens are being canceled our by der Bush and
his minions, the United Nations Charter is ignored or derided. The Kyoto
Protocols on global warming and other studies are ignored by this administration
as they interfere with short term profits.
All of these breaches of
humanity are overshadowed, however, by the possibility of our using
nuclear weapons. The effects of that will be as earth shattering as
global warming and pollution. This can be avoided very simply by not
using them,the one thing we cannot count on der Bush doing unless we
stop him by absolutely forbidding the use of nuclear weapons. Even better
would be to forbid him from conducting so called “preemptive wars”
with anybody who disagrees with him.
Here are some links for those
who wish to read a bit further into the subject.
This is my page on the Atomic
Veterans site. It contains writings on my nuclear experiences. Then
explore the rest of the site. http://www.aracnet.com/~pdxavets/osborn.htm
Downwinders are those who
have been exposed to radiation through our testing both here and in
the Pacific. http://www.downwinders.org/
There are a number of Chernobyl
sites of interest, but these two really bring it home. http://library.thinkquest.org/3426/
Goes over the circumstances and effects of Chernobyl on the world. The
Kiddofspeed site is the site of a courageous lady named Elena who has
ridden her motorcycle through Chernobyl and its surroundings, photographing
what she found there. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html
Depleted Uranium is discussed
at many sites including the following, http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm
Googling Depleted Uranium will give you about five million hits, many
of them government apologia saying that DU is harmless, or nearly harmless.
http://www.cadu.org.uk/ is
the site of the Committee Against Depleted Uranium and well worth reading.
http://www.ccnr.org/bertell_book.html
Is a site on DU and Gulf War Syndrome, which also explores some of the
problems with the manufacture of DU armaments to the ecology in the
vicinity of the plants.
Please, do your own reading
on the subject, then insist that the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable
for any reason. As one who has faced the nuclear dragon and survived,
I can only say that “Ban the Bomb” is not just a slogan,
it is a necessity.
Biobyte: Stephen M. Osborn
is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest.
He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956,
) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament
and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor,
writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.