W's MD Part II: The Nuke-u-ler Option

June 02, 2005

The Cold War should have taught the world all we ever needed to know about brinksmanship. For one thing, we learned that deterrence might prevent an attack but it doesn't prevent the development of ever-deadlier weapons. We also learned that the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) isn't something that threatens only heads of state and their unfortunate, terrified citizens but something that hangs over the heads of every damn one of us.

Leave it to BushCo, then, to turn back the clock into the middle of the Twentieth Century.

Under the cloak of secrecy imparted by use of military code names, the American administration has been taking a big - and dangerous - step that will lead to the transformation of the nuclear bomb into a legitimate weapon for waging war.

Ever since the terror attack of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has gradually done away with all the nuclear brakes that characterized American policy during the Cold War. No longer are nuclear bombs considered "the weapon of last resort." No longer is the nuclear bomb the ultimate means of deterrence against nuclear powers, which the United States would never be the first to employ....

Remember the code name "CONPLAN 8022." Last week, the Washington Post reported that this unintelligible nickname masks a military program whose implementation could drag the world into nuclear war.

CONPLAN 8022 is a series of operational plans prepared by Startcom, the U.S. Army's Strategic Command, which calls for preemptive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea. One of the plan's major components is the use of nuclear weapons to destroy the underground facilities where North Korea and Iran are developing their nuclear weapons. The standard ordnance deployed by the Americans is not capable of destroying these facilities.

The quote is from the Isreali paper Haaretz. The source link seems to be out of order, but the above selection should suffice.

Nuclear deterrence is arguably effective against nation states. But how on earth does this policy deter terrorists? For that matter, how on earth would another wave of proliferation deter states from aiding and abetting free radicals in their pursuit of nuclear weapons?

The spectacular failure of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was predictable at the outset and is overwhelmingly attributable to the nuclear policies of the Bush administration and its unwillingness to accept US obligations for nuclear disarmament under the treaty. The Bush administration simply does not seem to understand that it cannot go back on previous US commitments under the treaty and continue to promote nuclear weapons in its own arsenal, while exhorting other nations to forego their nuclear options.

The treaty is crumbling under the double standards of American policy. It may not be able to recover from the rigid and do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do positions of the Bush administration, which are viewed by most of the world as high-level nuclear hypocrisy.

Common Dreams

Ah, but hypocrisy is in the eye of The Beholder:

Seize your armor, gird it on
Now the battle will be won
Soon, your enemies all slain
Crowns of glory you shall gain

From "Soldiers of the Cross, Arise"

Posted by X at June 2, 2005 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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