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October
8, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
Flashes
and Plumes of Fire
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
October
6, 2001
Vijay
Prashad
US
War Aims
Kevin
Gray
The
Trap:
Blacks and 9/11
October
5, 2001
Ronnie
Gilbert
Déjà
Vu: The FBI's War
on Civil Liberties
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban
Cluster Bombs
Dave
Marsh
John
Brown, Woody Guthrie
and the Secret Music of 9/11
Babak
Nahid
A
Suspect's Perspective
October
4, 2001
David
Vest
Send
in the Cons
Robin
Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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Five
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Seattle and Beyond
By
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8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
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October 27,
2001
Nukes on the Loose
How to Prevent
a Terrorist Mushroom Cloud
By David Krieger
The images of the hijacked planes crashing
into the World Trade Center are nightmare images of unspeakable
horror that will forever be a part of our reality.
Imagine, however, another nightmare
-- that of a mushroom cloud rising over an American city. This
is a threat we can no longer ignore. Perhaps today citizens and
leaders alike will better understand the seriousness of the nuclear
threat.
Our leaders have failed to
grasp that our present nuclear weapons policies contribute to
the possibility of nuclear terrorism against our country. Large
nuclear arsenals do not protect us any more than a missile shield
would have prevented the attacks against the World Trade Center
or the Pentagon.
In 1998 India and Pakistan
both demonstrated their nuclear capabilities. Pakistan, which
borders on Afghanistan, is now the only country in the world
to recognize the Taliban regime. Should there be a US led war
in Afghanistan, it is possible that the Pakistani government
could fall to extremists linked to the Taliban, thus putting
nuclear weapons into the hands of a regime that might well support
and harbor terrorists.
Up to now, the Bush Administration's
primary response to the nuclear threat has been to push for a
national missile shield costing billions of dollars, the technology
of which is unproven, and which would at best be years away from
implementation. A missile shield would likely do irreparable
harm to our relations with other countries, countries that we
need to join us in the fight against international terrorism,
including Russia.
The mad nuclear arms race during
the Cold War, and the paltry steps taken to reverse it since
the end of the Cold War, have left tens of thousands of nuclear
weapons potentially available to terrorists. Today there is no
accurate inventory of the world's nuclear arsenals or weapons-grade
fissile materials suitable for making nuclear weapons. Estimates
have it, however, that there are currently some 30,000 nuclear
weapons in the world. We simply don't know whether these weapons
are adequately controlled, or whether some could already have
fallen into the hands of terrorists.
A US blue ribbon commission,
headed by former Senate majority leader Howard Baker, has called
for spending $3 billion a year over the next ten years to maintain
control of the nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and nuclear
scientists in the former Soviet Union. The Bush administration
had planned to cut funding for this program from $1.2 billion
to $800 million next year.
The US government was put on
notice that the World Trade Center was a target of attack by
terrorists after an unsuccessful attempt to topple the Trade
Center towers in 1993. Yet, despite this previous attempt to
destroy the World Trade Center, our intelligence services were
ineffectual in protecting it in the face of determined and suicidal
terrorists.
Can we continue to ignore the
determination of those who hate this country? Is there any reason
to believe that they would not seek to attack the United States
with nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction if
they could obtain them?
More than ten years after the
end of the Cold War we and the Russians still have more than
10,000 nuclear weapons each with a total of some 4,500 of them
on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. The Russians
have been urging the US to move faster in reducing the size of
the nuclear arsenals in both countries, while we have been largely
indifferent to their entreaties.
Since the inauguration of the
Bush presidency, the US has been increasing its unilateralism,
demonstrating its disregard for international law. But we cannot
combat terrorism unilaterally, and our disregard for the rule
of law will only cause others to follow in our footsteps, making
the world an even more dangerous place.
Our response to the despicable
terrorism perpetrated against us must be multilateral and consistent
with the rule of international law. We should urge the United
Nations to convene a World Peace Conference of leaders of all
nations to find solutions to the outstanding problems of war
and other forms of violence. Unless these problems are solved
we will never be able to eradicate terrorism.
Our vulnerability demands that
we hear from and respond to all who have grievances. We need
justice under the law, but acts of vengeance will only make matters
worse, leading to even greater threat. "The chain reaction
of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must
be broken," said Martin Luther King, Jr., "or we shall
be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." None of
us wants to awaken to see the image of a mushroom cloud and know
that one of our cities has been destroyed. The destruction of
the World Trade Center should send powerful warning signals.
The elimination of nuclear
weapons can no longer be a back-burner issue. The danger of the
use of nuclear weapons has actually increased in the wake of
the terrorist threats. We must act to reduce and eliminate the
nuclear arsenals of the world as if our very futures depended
upon it because it is clear that they do. CP
David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist,
is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. For further
perspectives on the terrorist attacks and
ideas on waging peace, visit the Foundation's
web site.
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