Nuclear War 21st. century style

national | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Wednesday February 01, 2006 19:05 by Seán Ryan

If we've never had a nuclear war, why is the planet covered in nuclear waste?

How do you nuke somebody without causing international instability?

Here's a hint, think of Chernobyl. (I am not for a moment saying that the incident in Chernobyl was not an accident, although the complete lack of safety and evacuation procedures made it probably more effective than a deliberate act of sabotage).

Now think of what will happen when, Selafield or Windscale or whatever they want to label or re-label that nuclear toilet, gets flushed.

Now consider that the security of this facility has been breached since the 9/11 attack and one gets an idea as to how much our, to quote the ever open minded Mary Hearney, best friends and closest allies the British (the yanks were included in this too), give a shit as to whether we perish or not.

Couple this with the fact that they sailed two cargo ships around our coast after Japan had turned them back because of safety violations and forged paperwork. These ships were of course carrying enough nuclear material to make the emerald Isle glow even greener for many thousands of years.

Add to this that our coastguard and our navy remained totally neutral during this act of war, and to make it even more contemptuous, it is a fact that the Irish military and coastguard are often commended for their bravery and humanity, and had they been deployed they would have fought to the last man or last woman for that matter, for the honour, dignity and life of Ireland.

Add to this that there is a significant amount of radioactive materials in many water supplies in this country.

Of course Bertie put an ad in the Times in England, and tried to sue the British through the European courts.

And of course there was the letter campaign (A letter bombing campaign would have produced better results though as bombing people is now seen as an effective means of communication in the pacific settlement of disputes).

All this didn't work of course but at least we all felt Bertie and others gave a shit.

I wish I could put into words how misguided I think this is, I can only say it wants to make me laugh hysterically and want to shake and scream, all at the same time.

I mean there must surely be somebody out there, who must feel that we as a people, have some rights to life?

What if your next-door neighbour was to start dumping his rubbish outside his front door and put a sign up saying anybody else could dump there too. And he regularly set it alight.

Would you have any rights?

You are damn right you would (depending of course on who your neighbour happened to be, yup we are all equal but some are more equal than others, I seem to remember this from somewhere too and I may add it was not the constitution).

The fact that European courts disregarded these rights should have meant saying goodbye to Europe, not hello to ratifying the Nice treaty.

It is very ironic and very alarming as to how neutral the Irish government can be when it suits them thus.

All English diplomats should be sent home, all trade ceased and all relations with the British ceased until they move their dump to a safe and acceptable distance.

If after a reasonable period the dump were not moved to a safe distance where it could do us no harm, we should ask to borrow a nuke from North Korea. I'm pretty sure they would be delighted to give us one or two. We then set it up on a platform in the Irish Sea, pointed at London and regularly have it maintained by a group of early school leavers on a FÁS course.

It should be set up, so that the moment Windscale dumps on us, we nuke London. If they threaten to nuke us it is only fair that we pay them the same compliment.

Yes Mr. Blair, go fuck yourself; I don't want to hear about how safe your dump is. It is not safe by my standards. I just want you to know that if you make us glow then you and yours will fluoresce too.

How's that for diplomacy.

As far as I am concerned Windscale is a threat from the British to us, and a nuclear one at that. And both the British and the Americans reserve the right to respond in kind should they be nuked. Not to mention that they also reserve the right to make a first strike with nuclear weapons.

I would also again like to quote article 39 of our constitution.

Treason shall consist only in levying war against the
State, or assisting any State or person or inciting or
conspiring with any person to levy war against the
State, or attempting by force of arms or other violent
means to overthrow the organs of government
established by this Constitution, or taking part or being
concerned in or inciting or conspiring with any person to
make or to take part or be concerned in any such
attempt.

To do nothing in the face of a clear and present danger and a nuclear one at that, is to aid those who place us in this situation. And further, I add that Ireland is itself a supposed sovereign nation. Fair enough check out European, and or world justice if you will, and even start an advertising campaign on foreign soil if you will, but remember that these are just part of the network of choices available to one whose primary responsibility, is to the fidelity and security of this country and state, and that to await the pleasure of others as this threat becomes more immediate, is a dereliction of duty of the highest magnitude.

Why do we not demand and implement the same rights, the Americans, the British and others, claim to be the sole possessors of?

We surely have the right to at least try to defend ourselves too. In fact I would go further and say we have absolute authority and absolute duty to try to defend ourselves I would describe these rights to be the cornerstone in the definition of sovereign.

Do the thoughts of being irradiated not induce unnecessary fear and threat? Is this not terrorism and I may add true international terrorism? Our country is supposedly pledged to help eradicate international terrorism even if it has completely forgotten about our own sovereign right to self-defence. All fucking talk, no action other than the smell of bullshit.

And if Windscale is not an act of aggression by the British, neither was the wholesale slaughter inflicted on us by our 'bestest friend and ally' who has given us much over the years like, Cromwell, The Black and Tans, Slavery and Famine. Not all traditions are good.

Of course we would never be allowed to defend ourselves as the European Rapid Reaction force would probably for the first and only time actually respond like lightning, and with the British and the Americans, invade and subdue us. This might at least point out to the likes of Mary who our friends are not.

I might add Mary, that the more times you have to point out that these arseholes are our friends the more it sounds like bullshit, let their actions speak for them, and their little group of apologists shut the fuck up.

Now I hate the British some will say.

Crap.

I was born in London, some of my closest friends are British, some people I truly respect like Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, but to mention a very few are British and live there, and lots of family whom I care deeply for live there. I do however hold an Irish passport and am of Irish parentage, and Ireland is where I grew up and will die, it is where my loyalties lie. Like American individuals who I do not hate either, I do not hate English individuals, I feel they are as much under the thumb of their politicians as we are under ours.

I mean I don't wish them as a nation any ill will either, I believe the war of independence is long over at least in the 26 counties and with the British that is. However I see the threat of annihilation as being an act of war. Maybe I'm being oversensitive, so sue me. I see the new war of independence to be against the Irish government and that it is an ideological one. Further if an ideological war with one's government is treason, then so be it too. If this is the case, then Orwell's thought police, have well and truly arrived.

Right that's enough of Selafield. I cannot be much clearer as to how I feel about it.

Let's talk of nuclear war, doing it the legal and friendly way.

During the first American and British lead invasion and slaughter of Iraqi people, whom the Americans and British themselves, described as, victims of oppression, before killing them, nuclear war evolved into an acceptable style of combat.

Depleted Uranium was tested extensively for the first time. Accelerated cancer rates in Iraq and probably Gulf War Syndrome are more than likely by-products of this shit.

Depleted Uranium is cheap and plentiful; it is in fact nuclear waste that is left, when fissionable uranium has been removed from uranium ore. Up until recently it would have been dumped or buried somewhere.

Anyway they make the stuff into shells, like anti-tank rounds etc., and will probably shortly if they already haven't, into rounds for small arms fire.

Being twice the weight of lead these shells have some mental properties.

Unlike their more expensive steel counterparts these rounds get sharper as they penetrate something tough such as a tank. As it penetrates the inner hull of the tank a shower of white-hot debris and dust will start to incinerate all those onboard. When the shell fully penetrates we get what is called a 'Catastrophic Kill', meaning everybody on board will be or should be killed.

Welcome to the new style of war. I mean short of using other weapons termed, weapons of mass destruction, war is not about killing one's enemy. Conventional war has always tried to injure soldiers etc. rather than killing them, as caring for a wounded soldier takes up valuable resources. Yup even your normal garden variety landmine, is really only designed to remove a leg or two.

Of course not to lose this advantage America rained destruction on the population at large, terming those who were murdered or feloniously injured as collateral damage. Translated this means these innocents are sacrificed to the holy God of war and capitalism so that the righteous may be triumphant.

Having plenty of depleted uranium back home (as I said it is a waste product of mining uranium, though it is now also used for components in airplanes and boats) they didn't bother picking this shit up when they finished dumping it all over Iraq. They dropped something like 400 tons of this stuff by the way. (This was Bush seniors contribution of course, fuck knows how much 'Shrub' donated)

Of course the Iraq invasion was the best advertising shit like this could possibly get. It wasn't long until every fucker was buying, selling and deploying it. The U.N. got in on the act too. (Though it has now banned the use of D.U. weapons. This ban is of course totally ignored by America.)

Why don't we get our army to safely harvest it from the country formerly known as Yugoslavia? I mean there is enough of it dumped there; it might as well be growing there. And I reckon the people living there would appreciate us taking it away.

We could then use it instead of expensive steel or iron or lead, for products we manufacture for export to Britain and America (Why not design a new range of furniture and cooking utensils?). I mean they reckon the shit is harmless and are only too willing to point out how much better it is than steel and other stuff.

Lets have a look some published material on the subject.

From the Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI), Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the U.S. Army, June 1995

If DU (depleted uranium), enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological.

Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposures.

Lets look at a report completed six months before Desert Storm began.

I shall quote from the, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) report, included as Appendix D of AMMCOM's Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, Danesi, July 1990.

Short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer.

Aerosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects.

Further, From: Operation Desert Storm: Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal With Depleted Uranium Contamination, United States General Accounting Office (GAO/NSIAD-93-90), January 1993, pp. 17-18.

Inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and a toxicity risk.

Of course to be fair let me quote some of the reply the American government have given to these its own governmental documents.

From the Final Report: Presidential Advisory Committee of Gulf War Veterans Illnesses, December 1996.

The Committee concludes that it is unlikely that health effects reports by Gulf War Veterans today are the result of exposure to depleted uranium during the Gulf war.

The two most important words in this sentence being, 'concludes,' and 'unlikely.' And only arriving this far more than six years after using it for the first time in Iraq.

Finding out what didn't cause Gulf War Syndrome took priority over finding out what did cause it for some obscure covert reason.

Yah Gulf war syndrome was caused by am... errrr......or ......oh yah or fakers or even be part of an Iraqi propaganda conspiracy. Of course it could also have been as a result to the anti-chemical and anti-biological vaccinations and combinations of them that were tested on these soldiers. The funny thing being that these chemicals and biologicals and their ingredients and recipes had mostly been sold to the Iraqi's by the Americans in the first place, for use against the people of Iran whom the Americans now love and cherish and of course were not deployed in the gulf war. Not to mention the massive increase in cancer cases in Iraq and of course to mention that also cases of Gulf War Syndrome effected Iraqi people who received no such vaccinations.

Couple DU with the best weapons arsenal and the best propaganda and brainwashing mechanism in the world and you have the American dream come to pay you a visit.

They have a fleet of nuclear submarines, any one of which who could at a few moments notice take out Europe.

Christ only knows what satellite technology has given them what with modern cameras and all. Nearly 20 years ago it was boasted they could hit a beer can from two miles up in an airplane moving at mach speeds, not to mention that nowadays the Hubble telescope is able to observe different planets in different solar systems.

They have developed the rail gun, which tries to hurl a round made from aluminium at relativistic speeds.

They have enough biological and chemical weapons to turn the world green with more than envy.

They spend more on their military budget each year than we in our whole budget.

They will drop Daisycutters on you if you so much as look sideways at them, Daisycutters are bombs that take out the area of about four football fields and leave a pretty pattern in the sand, and fuck all else. It is nearly close as we can currently get to deploying a nuke without the radiation and was in existence by the time of the Vietnam war, God and George only know what its capabilities are now and God is dead.

This is but a tiny glimpse of the capability and ongoing actions of the American dream.

They are now exempt from being tried as war criminals, thanks to some threats about leaving the former Yugoslavia disintegrate back into madness, yes there was a serious chance indeed that America could have been tried for war crimes and this was well before their recent crusade against the terrorists.

They wantonly disregard the basic human rights of their victims in their invasions. They also disregard human rights with prisoners of war, employing such tactics as sensory deprivation, waterboarding, sexual defilement and with many of these prisoners being women and children.

They use the same old tactic again and again, of crippling cities by taking out electrical grids and other essential civil services, this supposedly affects an army's ability to fight back? Well it certainly fucks with hospitals and all other critical services.

They usually kill more of their own people and allies than their intended victims kill.

They always report that the battles are hard fought, when the simple truth is that they have the technology and the equipment that can move a wall of death right through any area, without putting any of their own personnel at risk. The enemy may as well be armed with rocks and I may add many are.

They always make sure non immediate life supporting resources in the country of their victims are saved and secured first, e.g., oil fields, this will be required for the victims they lie so that they can rebuild, they had a pipeline built and pumping gas up to Turkey from Afghanistan before the next round of the world tour began in Iraq.

With their recent pillaging expedition into Iraq, they finally showed the U.N. to be flaccid and irrelevant, along with its power to dictate law. Of course this is not the first time they have acted without sanction and that we have tottered after them lovingly each time.

Yah, shock and awe, more like a schlock horror with an insane bloodthirsty gutless bastard as its director and we just lap this piss up.

I seem to remember international law requiring one to be defending or retaliating against an aggressor and also that retaliation must be using like force and these are the conditions that are required for waging war.

It is interesting to note that none of the hijackers of the 9/11 planes were from either Afghanistan or Iraq.

In fact Osama Bin Laden is from neither country either.

Afghanistan was allowing Osama to train his lads there, if any media is to be believed.

This was the reason America initially gave before they invaded. However after some clever propaganda the Taliban and their record of human rights abuses were shown to be a much better reason, they then went and started killing these terrorists.

America helped put the Taliban in government to begin with.

The C.I.A. also trained and set up Osama Bin Laden, to do what he eventually did to them, to the Russians.

Is it not just as well the U.N. didn't sanction any of these invasions. Otherwise the U.N. would have also been duty bound to silence and subdue America for the exact same reasons America used to invade these countries.

In fairness, the U.N. should still have to impose sanctions on and demand disarmament from America.

In angry righteousness they lied again and again and again to the U.N. about weapons of mass destruction.

Even the weapons inspectors were sick of the Americans wasting their valuable and limited time by sending them on useless wild goose chases.

They questioned the ability of the U.N. by saying that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction. I mean if using weapons inspectors does not work why do we still do it?

Nobody in the U.N. believed Iraq capable of waging war, so why did we allow America to say that they were a threat to world peace. I mean no disrespect to ourselves or Iraq, when I say that, after ten years of genocidal sanctions, Ireland on her own could have invaded and colonized Iraq with the Irish rugby team.

Oh yah, maybe they might send terrorists to America. Or acquire nuclear material (other than the DU the Americans left from last time), and give it to some terrorists. Yah and make sure model airplanes are added to the list of proscribed goods in the sanctions.

Why would the terrorists just not go and get the shit themselves?

Who is going to give Iraq the ingredients for a nuke? Israel?

It's also funny that Israel is allowed to continue to manufacture nuclear weapons of mass destruction in flagrant violation of international law. I don't disagree with Israel here either because I think we should tell the U.N. to go fuck itself too.

America has fostered and legitimised a dictator, and the self-proclaimed president of Pakistan, in order to gain an ally in the fight to bring democracy to Iraq. I may add that Pakistan possesses weapons of mass destruction.

America has given countries that Amnesty International and others condemn by saying that they practice torture, information that has led to the capture and subsequent torture of suspected terrorists. The information extracted has then been given to the Americans. I mean countries like Egypt. This process allows America to practice crimes against humanity without seeming to sully itself.

Most terrorist training camps bombed and attacked in Afghanistan were originally funded and staffed at the expense of the American taxpayer and by all of us civilised folk, whose mined or extracted resources and labour and acquiescence contributed to the American pie.

America re-labels prisoners of war as illegal combatants, and who thus are not under the protection of the Geneva Convention. This is further shown to be bullshitology by repeatedly saying that they are involved in a war against terrorism. And since the American war is unlike mine, in that it is not an ideological war, but an actual war in which people are killed, and for it to be a war there must be at least two opposing sides, each represented by soldiers loyal to and willing to die for their cause. Why not take the concept further and re-label the innocent civilians bereaved, maimed and massacred as illegal victims? This re-labelling would be much closer to the truth than the first.

The process of re-labelling in and of itself turns the spirit and ultimate purpose of the Geneva Convention into a debate about semantics and definition. To wantonly ignore the Geneva Convention and to wantonly destroy and kill is to show to those whom are supposedly being educated that the educator himself is flawed and corrupted, and that the lesson itself is about enslavement, and not about freedom. Plus, the Geneva Convention is very specific in who is subject to it. I mean that those who signed up to it are those who are bound by it, America and Britain are both signed up to it and thus far the re-labelling has blurred the picture. History will put all in perspective and hopefully will do so in time to see that justice may be humanly administered.

The only reason that the Americans and the British supposedly cannot be tried for crimes against humanity is that they have rejected the new international justice system. It is interesting to note however that the trials and courts of Nuremberg did not require the Nazis to recognise their legitimacy.

The Americans used the self defence clause from the UN.'s terms of engagement in order to go to war with Afghanistan. The fact that they did not even bother to declare war was a mark of the cowardice in the choice of victims.

The Americans supported the rebels in their war and thus apparently were not at war with Afghanistan. Another way they hedged behaving honourably was by declaring that the Taliban were not the legitimate government and yet before 9/11 they discussed oil and pipeline deals with this non-legitimate system. As was recently pointed out to me however. America didn't recognise the rebel authority it supposedly supported during the war. Once the war was 'won,' it set up a completely different government. Which means it invaded Afghanistan recognising no legitimacy of any government, barr itself. Total war.

I have a question at this point. Who the fuck authorised the right of America to redefine and pervert the concept of world law and world justice?

I disagree with lots of people on most subjects, in fact most people I suppose. But I have yet to meet one singular solitary individual who longs for war.

I know they exist however, their works can be seen everywhere, but I have never met one and I've met lots of people.

If world opinion or at least the vast majority of it scream for peace, why is there war?

If the majority of Americans long for world peace, and I believe they do, then why does this supposed majority rule system have a finger in every pie that is every conflict on the face of the earth?

America is the definition of democracy in most of the eyes of the world. Yet the will of the many desire an end to war. Yet they play global chess games that perpetuate war and hatred.

I may also add that they play these games with no foresight in that they have gotten themselves into a position of strength and believe that this strength will win and rule the day. This is to play chess with a lumbering moron. Even the yanks must see that evolution was never about strength for if it were we would not have gotten far after initially climbing from the water.

There are but two outcomes, and both I may add involve an end of American world dominance.

The first is that the world itself will respond and bring this regime to its knees.

The second is that the will of the many, will wake the fuck up and see that its actual desires, are met, by ending the regime and by approaching world politics from a view of equality rather than a dictatorial one.

The U.N. has been worn down to but two functions. The first being to support America in its empire building, and the second is to enable America to continue its empire building when lending physical support would be politically damaging. (I wonder is the U.N. trying to develop a military neutrality policy too?)

In fairness try to name a continent other than Australia where there isn't a war?

So much for international law.

I mean in principle and in theory the U.N. is a noble creature. And it contains some very fine examples of human and humanitarian beings. In fact one of them, who is our former president Mary Robinson, who had to resign her post because she dared to criticize the Americans. I may also add that the U.N. shedding one of its most essential and functioning cogs has to be considered our gain. Speaking essentially for myself but believing many others echo my wishes, I would beg Mary to get into politics back home, as we truly need her, and others like her, and I believe this irregardless as to how she views my politics. I am in awe of her intellect, passion, humanitarianism and her ability to project her Irishness with pride and equality for the world to see. Mary and the Celtic tiger were around at the same time, and I know with absolute certainty which of the two gave back to me some of the pride that was my rightful inheritance.

I demand the rest of it.

Anyway I was pointing out how useless the U.N. is before I got a bit sidetracked and a bit sentimental. I don't really want to insult the U.N. as such because despite being an enabler of the Americans it has been known to perform the odd noble deed, and I know of many Irish men and women who have given their working lives and their actual lives to prove this.

I would consider anyone who goes into service of the U.N. to be doing so for noble purpose, and I mean everybody from politicians to soldiers, with the odd few exceptions who I am pretty sure I don't have to name at this point.

It is how the U.N. operates that churns my stomach.

It is so bogged down with red tape, vetoes, voting and debate, that action that is seen to be as needed immediately, takes forever and usually when action is eventually decided upon it is usually after much unnecessary death and suffering and is usually so irrelevant to what is needed that it is but a further insult to the lives already destroyed.

What is the big problem?

I mean lets look at the idea of two countries at war.

Why hold a debate? Are these people not obviously killing each other enough? Is it not a real war? Are ye freaked out because ye think it's the Americans showing one of their propaganda films?

Get in there. Separate them. Disarm them if necessary. Then debate and offer apologies if they are warranted.

I don't expect them to be in the right every time. It is a human trait to err.

Ok now that we have the question of war settled lets talk of Humanitarian disasters, famine, earthquakes, and human rights violations etc.

Debate.

Action.

Red tape.

Action.

Starting to sound familiar?

Fix problem. Settle bill afterwards.

U.N.='united'+'nations'

We are all one.

Seeing the red tape take priority over those it should serve, mean the U.N. must always at best approach that which it stands for but it will never be.

The red tape has to be given the back seat and should be told to shut the fuck up during driving.

I understand that this could and would mean swift and deadly force at times.

And I understand that mistakes can and will be made. But nonetheless this is what is required at present if there is to be a world peace and an international law.

I also understand that having to take swift and deadly action will make decisions to take this type of action more just, the reason being that the decision making process needs to become mechanised or automatic. I also understand the swifter action is taken that the less human beings and the less humanity itself will suffer.

Again I said it was to stop wars and not support them. It must have exclusive right to do this and any nation acting without its approval must be seen to be in violation of international law.

If this became the function and practice of the U.N., I would reconsider and change my opinion as to Ireland's neutrality and our government's anaemic and sickening version of it, even unto changing the preamble of our constitution. As I said at the start I am a hypocrite when and if it suits me to be. But until all this comes about I hold onto my beliefs about Irish neutrality with almost religious fervour. And I also reckon that regardless as to whether the U.N. ever grows up or not that we try to get back and hang onto Mary Robinson.

I also say that until there really is an international law and not a supposed or fictional one, that our government and others shut the fuck up about it, stop pretending the world is less barbaric than before and help achieve an international law, and do it by example and debate and when the debate is finished turn it into a mechanism and tune it after every use, with more debate, it might get dirty at first and in particular when the U.S. is disarmed, but it will soon function with noble cause and just action. It even doesn't have to come to this either, if but the people of America, many who share my blood and could share it again if needed for that matter, just copped the fuck on, and stopped putting vision impaired arseholes in charge of building and executing their own noble dream, as we too, can be readily seen to be guilty of. Then war can become a thing that has passed and a truth that is more palatable and due to mankind can be unravelled.

Sláinte,
Seán Ryan