Home
Archive
Columnists
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Register to Vote: Rock the Vote, powered by Working Assets Wireless
Advertisement
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Saving the World By Stopping the Pentagon's Programs

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted January 22, 2007.


The Doomsday Clock now stands at five minutes to 12. Here's how the 110th Congress can start pushing the minute-hand back.
01222007story

Share and save this post:
Digg iconDelicious iconReddit iconFark iconYahoo! iconNewsvine! iconFacebook iconNewsTrust icon

More stories by Alexander Zaitchik

Get AlterNet in
your mailbox!

 
Advertisement

Maybe there was a delay in his computerized voice system. Or maybe Stephen Hawking wanted a dramatic pause equal to the power of the words. Whatever the case, a long ten seconds passed between the Cambridge mathematician's roundup of the twin perils hanging over mankind like a double-bladed guillotine -- nuclear weapons and climate change -- and the following sentence, which would have been chilling even if they weren't uttered in the robot voice of the wheelchair-bound genius:

"It is now five minutes to midnight."

Thus ended Hawking's opening statement at Wednesday's simultaneous Washington/London press conference convened by the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The presser announced a two-minute advance of the Doomsday Clock's minute hand, its 18th movement since 1947. That was the year the Cold War turned mutually atomic, and scientists at the University of Chicago hatched the clock as a way to remind humanity how close it was to destroying itself in a spasm of nuclear firepower. Since then, the clock has gotten as close as two minutes to midnight (1953) and as far away as 17 (1991).

The optimism of the "17 minutes" years faded fast. By 1995, it was obvious the nuclear powers felt no urgency in making the most of what Jonathan Schell called the "gift of time." The United States and Russia kept their still massive arsenals cocked on hair-triggers. Global military spending hovered at Cold War levels. Concerns grew over leakage of the post-Soviet nuclear stockpile. Bin Laden. India. Pakistan.

Then the Bush administration rode into town waving blueprints for space weapons, missile defenses, tactical nukes, and dark new doctrines. They trashed arms control treaties like so many bongs left on State Department desks by previous administrations.

The 9/11 attacks opened up a window of fire to consider and address the mounting dangers of this "second nuclear age," which does not supplant but merely compounds the dangers of the first. It was an opportunity lost. The national security debate was soon defined by saber-rattling, fear-mongering, and the blasts of war. There it remains today. Iraq is the "most crucial" issue facing the new Congress according to Jack Murtha, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee.

Maybe. But as the 18 Nobel Laureates at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists remind us, there are other national security fronts that require urgent tending to. High-profile hearings on Iraq should not be held at the exclusion of hearings initiating a nuclear debate long overdue. In the last 15 years, public concern over and knowledge about nuclear issues has faded, despite the ascendance of an abstract, fatalistic and generally uninformed panic over nuclear terrorism.

But this is no time for forgetting, or for fatalism. There are hard policy levers that impact the probability of both nuclear terrorism and the still extant possibility of full-scale nuclear war. The new Congress must grasp this and rain legislative hellfire down on a raft of Strangelovean policies and programs currently in place or seeking funding. This means canceling some weapons while submitting them to fierce public inspection and ridicule, and boosting funds for and explaining the importance of nonproliferation programs that actually enhance national security.

The 110th can't save the world. Real progress will take new executive leadership and arduous diplomacy to reopen and deepen the U.S.-Russia disarmament process, and to close the Non-Proliferation Treaty loophole that allows countries to enrich and reprocess their own nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. In the meantime, Congress can begin raising awareness of nuclear issues. It can kill or stall destabilizing nuclear-related programs where they can, retarding administration and Pentagon efforts to create a world of more nukes at home through obscene levels of defense spending, and less nukes abroad through the application of mindless, counterproductive and hypocritical force.


Digg!

See more stories tagged with: pentagon, nuclear proliferation

Alexander Zaitchik is a journalist currently based in Moscow.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »


Advertisement

 

Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
Theres an easy way to stop escalation
Posted by: Temporary on Jan 22, 2007 12:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Dump your "star wars" program where it rightfully belongs;in the ashtray of history, and settle for the good old 1972 ABM deal! Before then i dont see why countries such as China, India or Iran should even talk to you. Ever since Reagan and star wars theres been nothing but trouble!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It's one minute to Midnight as far as the US is concerned
Posted by: xbj on Jan 22, 2007 4:37 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Chinese just fired another shot across the bow and proved they can take out every satellite in the sky... they don't even have to knock them all down either, they just have to create enough of a debris field up there to take them all out.

When the Bush Administration and Israel try to pull another 9-11 in the Gulf with a faked attack from "Iran" (that will really be from Israel), China will absolutely take out the US. Most Americans have no idea what China is capable of.

China is not kidding; Russia is not kidding; China and Russia have had enough. The entire WORLD has had enough; the "middlin" boys are just about to jump on the Nazi big bully, and the result will be devastating, well-deserved, and permanent.

Israel, believe me you DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH WITH THIS. Because I PROMISE YOU, YOU WILL ABSOLUTELY LOSE THE UNITED STATES, FOREVER. Other than the American military already in the Gulf which will be FLOODING YOUR BORDERS and your infrastructure WITHOUT A COUNTRY TO GO HOME TO.

GIVE IT UP. LET FRIGGING IRAN HAVE A BOMB. Let them have 50 bombs. The United States and Russia had bombs for DECADES without blowing each other up. It's called MAD, mutually assured destruction.

It WORKS.

You will NEVER WIN THIS, and the price you will pay for your arrogance, paranoia, and desperation will be unthinkable.

And unforgivable.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Is Your Name brunowe? Posted by: Douglas
» Babs needs to do more research! Posted by: Conservasaurus
» RE: Babs needs to do more research! Posted by: Conservasaurus
» At a loss for words! Posted by: Conservasaurus
the law of karma
Posted by: wawa on Jan 22, 2007 5:44 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What goes around comes around, and any state or nation that sets off a nuclear weapon will reap the nuclear fallout in the air and water and destroy themselves as well as the other.



“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946


“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK

"The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright

"Looking for a Leader with The Great Spirit on his side."-Neil Young



Mordechai Vanunu,
The Whistleblower of Israel's WMD Program speaks to USA:
"30 Minutes with Vanunu"
Freely Streaming on WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Thanks to Bulletin and Author. . .
Posted by: Russ Wellen on Jan 22, 2007 6:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
. . . for their attempts to dredge the nuclear issue out of the backwaters of the public's consciousness.

We need to remember that MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), whether or not it ever really worked, has been rendered obsolete since the acqusition of nukes by volatile regimes (Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel -- not that our administration isn't almost as volatile as those).

At least some good has come from reports that the US and Israel are considering attacking Iran with nukes. It's a reminder that we can no longer operate under the illusion that nuclear threat, along with the Cold War, has been consigned to the past.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Book of Warning
Posted by: freerain on Jan 22, 2007 7:21 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Finally, 10 years later, the image that was set to grab the publics eye to Immorality of Christianity is now being used as it ought to be. The use of Nuclear weapons is madness - so is the idea of Armaggedon, but Neo-Con Christians see it as their salvation believing Jesus will come and save them and leave us all to burn. Oh Joy! The Book is free, read it.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Congress cannot stop this-
Posted by: WitchyNy on Jan 22, 2007 8:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
they are mostly a bunch of puppets of the rich. Our government is out of control. The rest of the world is fed up. Our Mafia -war culture controlled government is destroying the world.
We can no longer live under capitalism...capitalism LEADS to environmental destuction.
We better stop Bush-before the rest of the world decides they have no choice but to stop US.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It's not just nuclear, it's biological warfare that threatens the world
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Jan 22, 2007 9:10 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is indeed a massive push to produce another round of nuclear weapons manufacturing, which is completely unneccesary but which will be a massive payoff to the corporations involved. These are the corporations who are now managing the US nuclear labs at places like Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Labs ('co-managed' with the University of California);
see http://ucnuclearfree.org/blog/bidforbomb.html

They are also running a multi-billion dollar "Project Bioshield" which is being run under absolute secrecy under the umbrella of the nuclear research system - which will keep it away from oversight - and these corporations, like Battelle and SAIC, have worked with the CIA and Pentagon to create the most 'advanced' bioweapons on the planet...

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_10/Tucker.asp:

In August 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush rejected a draft multilateral protocol that had been under negotiation for six years to strengthen the BWC with a system of mandatory declarations and inspections. One reason for this decision was the administration’s concern that intrusive on site visits to U.S. biodefense facilities might compromise classified threat-assessment research. On September 4, 2001, exactly one week before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, a front-page story in The New York Times revealed the existence of three secret threat-assessment projects being conducted by the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense:

• Project Jefferson, a plan by the Defense Intelligence Agency to reproduce a genetically modified strain of the anthrax bacterium developed by Russian scientists in the early 1990s, in order to determine whether or not the agent was resistant to the licensed U.S. anthrax vaccine.

• Project Clear Vision, a project by Battelle Memorial Institute, under contract to the CIA, to reconstruct and test a Soviet-designed biological bomblet so as to assess its dissemination characteristics.
*(produced powdered anthrax similar to that used in Fall 2001)*

• Project Bacchus, an effort by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a unit of the Defense Department, to construct a mock biowarfare production facility to assess the feasibility of mass-producing anthrax bacterial stimulant with off-the-shelf equipment.[4]

The Bush administration claimed that all three studies were consistent with the BWC because the underlying intent was defensive, but a number of international legal scholars disagreed. They argued that the recreation of the Soviet bomblet under Project Clear Vision violated the Article I prohibition on the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, or retention of “weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use [biological] agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.”


What's really unpleasant is how the University of California is legitimizing these efforts by agreeing to enter into 'partnership' with Bechtel, Battelle, BWXT and the Washington Group.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Only Impeachment Can Prevent More War By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Posted by: rwa on Jan 22, 2007 10:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...On January 18 a panel of retired generals testifying on Capitol Hill slammed Bush's surge plan as "a fool's errand." Even the easily bamboozled American public knows the plan will not work...

Nevertheless, Bush defended his surge plan last week saying, "I believe it will work."

Bush is correct that it will work--indeed, the surge is working. We have to be clear about how the plan works. It does not mean that 21,500 more US troops will bring order and stability to Iraq. The surge is working, because it is deflecting attention from the Bush Regime's real game plan.

The real game plan is to orchestrate a war with Iran and to initiate wider conflict in the Middle East before public and military pressure forces the Bush Regime to withdraw US troops from Iraq...

Israeli pilots have been training for an attack on Iran. US war doctrine has been changed to permit pre-emptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear countries. US attack aircraft have been deployed at bases in Turkey. A neocon admiral who attends AIPAC events has been made commander in chief of US forces in the Middle East. Obviously, the ground war in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the focus of the Bush Regime's new military deployments. The Regime is focused on attacking Iran.

Col. Sam Gardiner reports that the Bush Regime has put into operation a group led by National Security Council staff whose mission is to create and foment outrage against Iran. Col. Gardiner details various signs of the Bush Regime's escalation and indicates some of the final deployments that will signal an imminent strike on Iran, such as "USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria" in order to position them for refueling B-2 bombers on their way to Iran.

Both Michel Chossudovsky (ICH Jan. 17) and Jorge Hirsch (CounterPunch Jan. 20) have recently documented evidence that the Bush Regime is orchestrating a crisis with Iran that can lead to the use of nuclear weapons to attack Iran.

Civil libertarians who have observed the Bush Regime's concentration of dictatorial powers in the presidency expect that war with Iran... will be accompanied by Bush's declaration of a state of emergency. The Bush Regime will use the state of emergency to grab more arbitrary and dictatorial powers in the name of protecting "national security interests" and American citizens from "terrorism."

As the Regime's crimes against the US Constitution and humanity will be monstrous, dissent will be throttled in ways that will make us afraid to speak, or even to think, the truth. By stifling dissent, the Bush Regime will escape accountability for launching wars on the basis of blatant lies. It will complete its destruction of the civil liberties that protect free speech, dissent, and Americans from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention without charges or access to attorneys.

Congress is wasting precious time with non-binding resolutions and debates over cutting off war funding. The Bush Regime is rushing the country into a war and a domestic police state. Writing in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick reports that one of the main goals of the so-called "war on terror" (essentially a propagandistic hoax) is to achieve a massive expansion in unaccountable executive power. This is a long-time goal of VP Cheney. It is also the main goal of the Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers from whose membership Republican judicial nominees are drawn.

American public opinion is being manipulated. In the name of protecting "American freedom and democracy," the Bush regime rides roughshod over both as it ignores both the public and Congress and proceeds with a catastrophic policy supported by no one but the Bush Regime and neoconservatives.

Nothing can stop the Regime except the immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney. This is America's last chance.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

a couple of things the article missed
Posted by: Don Garb on Jan 22, 2007 12:14 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Number one is the "Depleted Uranium Ordinance" program. We saw what a speck of polonium too small to see did to Litvinenko, what do you think several hundred tons of uranium micro-particles blasted all over Kosovo, Kuwait and Iraq will do to the planet?

Second is the US Air Force. Hundreds of top gun yahoo retards are flying around the sky, nailing the after burner button whenever they feel like having a rush. What do you suppose all those millions of gallons of jet fuel burned up way high in the atmosphere does to global warming? The paranoia and insanity of the US "Defense" establishment is killing the planet!

These insane psychopaths WILL eventually control all of the world's oil, but by then every living thing will be dead!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Trillions Spent, Yet Defeat in Iraq and Vietnam!
Posted by: sofla100 on Jan 22, 2007 4:18 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The American military and Pentagon, trillions spent in war preperations and the technology of killing. And yet, they cannot win. They lost in Vietnam and now Iraq is virtually lost! What an irony it all is!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Recall the Hieronymous Bosch Triptych...Well..Bad News we ain't
Posted by: ekipnrut on Jan 22, 2007 7:19 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
in the Garden...But!.. Good news (Week)...There isn't any:
per this excerpt from the Herald Tribune about the contem-
plated refurbishing of the ENTIRE US nuke warhead stock:
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
The two teams competing to design the weapon, one at Los
Alamos in New Mexico and one at the Livermore National
Laboratory in California, approached the problem with very
different philosophies, nuclear officials and experts said.
Livermore drew on a single, robust design that, before the
testing moratorium, was detonated in the 1980s under a
desolate patch of Nevada desert. The weapon, however,
never entered the nation's nuclear stockpile.
The Los Alamos team drew on aspects of many weapons
from the stockpile and pulled them together in a novel design
that has never undergone testing.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Here is more from a 2/7/2005 NYT article:
Our goal is to carry out this program without the need for nuclear testing," Dr. Harvey said. "But there's no guarantees in this business, and I can't prove to you that I can do that right now." Another official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the topic is politically delicate, said that such testing would come only as a last resort and that the Bush administration's policy was to maintain the moratorium.
AND also the astounding:
( "Coyle notes that weapons scientists are attempting to create an entire arsenal of untested weapons, something they've never done before.") Entire article:
linked text
Let's get this straight...Refit the ENTIRE warhead arsenal
with UNTESTED designs incorporating new materials.....
absolute and complete... madness.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Pentagon Plan: Hit Anywhere in an Hour
Posted by: fanny666 on Jan 23, 2007 12:39 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
LINK

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]