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The Myth of Nuclear Terrorism
By David Glenn Cox
Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons that he could load onto robot airplanes and gas the United States! Saddam Hussein was trying to build nuclear weapons, and as we all know the mobile chemical weapons lab turned out to be a weather balloon truck.
For over forty years the United States and the Soviet Union have built nuclear arsenals and delivery systems trying to gain advantage by one-upping each other. Throughout all that time not one bomb was ever detonated in anger, because nuclear war is the end game. President Kennedy made it clear in 1962 that any missile launched from Cuba or anywhere else would be considered an attack by the Soviet Union. That is a sobering thought and not to be taken lightly, because nuclear war is the end game.
The Bush administration told fantastic tales about yellow cake uranium leaving out details such as Saddam would have needed twenty fully loaded tractor-trailers full of yellow cake uranium to make one bomb. The accused mine was owned by a French company that measured and recorded its shipments twice, once at the mine and once at the dock before loading, keeping two separate records of transactions. Saddam’s record of trying to build a bomb was clear and it ended when the Iranians bombed his Osirak reactor in 1980 and the Israelis finished the job in 1981.
The United States has had a thirty-year war on Iran; the United States suspended its arms embargoes with Iraq just to supply them with our weaponry to use against Iran. We are waist deep in this and are sinking fast. The destabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan are about a world power playing chess with third world lives. The United States did nothing to stop Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons, but as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reminds us, “Israel’s nuclear weapons aren’t a threat. Terrorists with nukes are.”
Mrs. Clinton just accurately framed the whole argument; friendly nations with nuclear weapons are fine. Unfriendly nations are a danger. She is to be praised for her candor even though it destroys any possible credibility of President Obama’s nuclear summit. This administration and previous administrations have played nuclear footsy with countries that have never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was the US that gave Israel its first reactor and the Bush administration was all in a hot sweat to trade nuclear fuel for mangos with India.
This tangled, tattered web of deceit has left, in its wake, the Near East being the second most nuclear-armed countries on the planet, yet Obama warns that if Iran gets the bomb it could ignite an arms race. Iran is surrounded by nuclear powers, nuclear powers that eye Iran’s resources. Across the Gulf she faces a belligerent nuclear-armed super power as well as the Saudis who have a long simmering feud over financial dealings in the Gulf region. There are all sorts of super powers, military and financial, and in the Gulf the Saudis are a financial power to be reckoned with.
Iran has explained that it has no desire to possess nuclear weapons, but is that true? Say that Iran hypothetically had a bomb, who would she use it on? Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? Or Israel? Iran would be flattened in retaliation and what would be accomplished? Could Iran launch a warhead at Israel and not kill one Palestinian for each Israeli killed? Would a nuclear attack advance the Palestinian cause or would it retard it? Nuclear war is the end game; any and all hopes for the advancement of causes and issues end at that gate. The only logical reason for Iran to posses a bomb is to prevent nuclear blackmail.
India built a bomb and Pakistan responded by building one of their own for the express purpose of preventing nuclear blackmail. India and Pakistan have fought four wars and neither has ever used a nuclear weapon. Not because they wouldn’t have liked to, but because they realized that everything they hoped to gain by war would be lost if they used nuclear weapons. What world court or United Nations resolution would give them title to Kashmir after they nuked New Delhi or Islamabad?
Barack Obama said, "The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon. This is something that could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come."
Let me translate for those of you who have forgotten your Bush speak. “9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11 because, of course, 9-11 and 9-11.”
Nuclear weapons are very, very expensive and no terrorist group could possibly hope to fund the construction or purchase of one of these weapons without a state sponsor. Any state sponsor would be giving away their own destiny and the destiny of their nation with the weapon. Take Iran for example, they are already blamed for everything but the spoiled milk in the refrigerator. Would they connect themselves in any way with such a project? What’s the upside? What’s in it for them?
Every nation has goals and aspirations and no one, repeat no one, wants to be Kennedy or Khrushchev in 1962. There are no terrorist groups or mad mullahs shivering in the mountains dreaming of nuking New York or Jerusalem because it is blatantly obvious that it would set back their cause irrevocably. Israel might respond by reducing Mecca to a highly radioactive cinder. Even mad mullahs think about those things while shivering in the mountains.
In 2001 when “terrorists” struck the World Trade Center with jet airliners, just twenty-four miles up the road is the Indian Point nuclear power plant. One jetliner into a containment building and most of New York State would have become Chernobyl. Wasn’t that the plan, to inflict as much damage and injury as possible upon us? Or did the conspirators stop and realize that such damage would provoke an equal and cataclysmic response?
Obama’s Security Summit brings together forty-seven nations, well, forty-six after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remembered that he had left the iron on back in Israel and cancelled his appearance and went home. Netanyahu feared that a high-ranking official may be put on the horns of a dilemma because of its now not-so-clandestine nuclear weapons stockpile. “Thanks, Hillary.” He left behind a low-level delegation with full authority to honestly answer, “I don’t know, I’ll take that question and get back to you on it.”
Ukraine's President announced that his nation would give up all of its nuclear material. Ukraine has no potential enemies to use it on that wouldn’t annihilate them first so the nuclear material has become for Ukraine more of a nuclear white elephant, and if someone comes along and offers to take it off of your hands, well then, let them. Ukraine has no interest in involving itself in Near East politics, and like most nations getting rid of the supply, it frees them from any potential headaches.
So President Obama has brought together forty-seven nations that all agree. They all agree that preventing the spread of weapons is important, but giving up their own weapons is not important. Pakistan is expanding its weapons capability with the addition of two new reactors. India’s deal with the Bush administration would have given India an infinite supply of American nuclear fuel, leaving all of their domestic production for weapons. Obama’s deal with the Russians allows for the return of the missile defense shield pointed at Russia.
Who is zooming who? This isn’t about ending nuclear weapons; this is about ending nuclear weapons for those countries America has a beef with, countries that claim they only want nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Why won’t Iran take the nuclear deal and give up domestic enrichment? Because if it does that, then an outside power can decide to turn off the lights in Iran. Iran would effectively be giving up control of its domestic energy supply to belligerent foreign powers.
Iran fears that it is at peak oil and in twenty years might not be in a position where it can afford to create the nuclear program it is creating today. If Iran is building a nuclear weapon it is motivated out of paranoia and not ambition. In fact, with the situation on the ground she would be crazy not to build a bomb as her survival would depend on it. Only a nuclear-armed Iran would have no fear of Israeli Air Force training missions practicing to bomb her nuclear facilities or US Navy ships patrolling her coastal waters. The greatest threat of a nuclear-armed Iran comes from outside Iran, not inside.
Forty-seven nations were invited but Iran was not one of them, and they give Nobel Peace Prizes for that! Doesn’t take any courage to put on a stage show with friends and extras who, like school girls, sit around talking about the girls they don’t like. It takes courage to invite those you have disagreements with, to sit down and settle them openly and fairly.
Instead our Secretary of State and Defense Secretary say, "If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off." Clinton said this in reference to America's new nuclear policy that allows nuclear strikes on non-nuclear countries that are not in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Who decides who is in compliance?
We do. The myth of nuclear terrorism is not the one that Obama is selling and the only answer is for those nations who feel threatened by Mrs. Clinton’s statement to build bombs as quickly as possible to protect themselves while the US is busy crying crocodile tears about proliferation.
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