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February
28, 2002
James
T. Phillips
Baghdad,
Spring 1992
Gideon
Samet
Sharon
Must Go
Rep. Ron
Paul
Before
We Bomb Iraq
M. Shahid
Alam
Samuel
Huntington:
Peddling Civilizational Wars
St. Clair
/ Cockburn
Rumble
from the Jungle:
Ecaudorian Farmers Fight
DynCorp's ChemWar
February
27, 2002
Eric Hobsbawm
The
Future of War and Peace
John Troyer
About
that WTC Memorial
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Wired
for Democracy
or Business?
Alexander
Cockburn
Daniel
Pearl: Should His
Editors Have Sent Him There?
February
26, 2002
Jonathan
Steele
Kabul's
Loss
Vasily
Streltsov
The
Pentagon in
the Transcaucusas
CounterPunch
Wire
How
Corporations Use Shadowy "527" Groups to Influence
Politicians
Lt. Col.
Robert Bowman
ABM
Treaty: Alive or Dead?
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
A
Prayer for America
February
25, 2002
John Clarke
Interrogated
at US Border
Blankfort,
Poirier, Zeltzer
ADL
Blinks, Settles Spying Case
Alex Lynch
Naked
from Sin:
The Ordeal of Nahla
and Sami Al-Arian
John Chuckman
Ashcroft
Speaks in Tongues
February
24, 2002
David
Vest
Skate
Date
February
23, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Axis
of Evil and
Media Monopolies
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
February
22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Axel
of Evil: Sex Crimes
and the Constitution
February
21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The
Philippines: Second Front in US's Global War
David
Vest
Reagan
Clone Project?
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Chicago
School and Corporate America: Rotten to the Core
February
20, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
The
Shallow Throat Document
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
February
19, 2002
David
Orr
Waylon
Jennings, the Duke,
and the Navajo
John Chuckman
The
Devil and Georgie Bush
Prudence
Crowther
Giblet
Gravitas
Ramzi
Kysia
Caught
in the Iraq DMZ
February
18, 2002
Ron Jacobs
The
US and Iran
George
Lewandowski
Empire
in Declline
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
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
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
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
and St. Clair
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Reviews of Gore:
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March 1, 2002
Nuclear Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
By David Krieger
As bad as September 11th may have been, it could
have been far worse. Had terrorists attacked with nuclear weapons,
the death toll could have risen into the millions. It is likely
that even one crude nuclear weapon would have left Manhattan
utterly destroyed, and with it the financial and communications
center of the country. Were terrorists to obtain one or more
nuclear weapons and use them on New York, Washington or other
cities, the United States could cease to exist as a functioning
country. The stakes are very high, and yet the US is creating
new nuclear policies that increase the likelihood that terrorists
will ultimately obtain nuclear weapons.
A bipartisan commission, headed by Howard
Baker and Lloyd Cutler, concluded that the United States should
be spending some $3 billion per year over the next ten years
to help Russia control its nuclear weapons and weapon-grade nuclear
materials. Rather than spend less than one percent of the current
defense budget on dramatically curtailing the potential spread
of nuclear weapons and materials to terrorists or unfriendly
regimes, the Bush administration is trying to save money in this
area. It is spending only one-third of the proposed amount to
help Russia safeguard its nuclear weapons and materials and find
alternative work for nuclear physicists a woefully inadequate
amount if we are truly attempting to quell nuclear proliferation.
The administration's frugality with regard
to protecting potential "loose nukes" in Russia should
be compared with its generosity for defense spending in general
and for missile defenses in particular. The president has recently
asked for another $48 billion for defense for fiscal 2003, following
an increase of $33.5 billion this year. The annual budget for
ballistic missile defense exceeds $8.5 billion. Since the likelihood
of a terrorist using a missile to launch a nuclear attack against
the United States or any other country is virtually zero, it
would appear that the administration's budget priorities are
way out of line in terms of offering real security and protecting
the US and other countries from the threat of nuclear terrorism.
The administration's approach to nuclear
disarmament with the Russians is to place warheads taken off
active deployment onto the shelf so that they can later be reactivated
should our current president or a future president decide to
do so. While the Russians have made it clear that they would
prefer to destroy the weapons and make nuclear disarmament irreversible,
they will certainly follow the US lead in also shelving their
deactivated weapons. This will, of course, create even greater
security concerns in Russia and make it more likely that these
weapons will find their way into terrorist hands.
So what is to be done? The United States
must change its nuclear policies and make good on its promise
to the other 186 parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear weapons
in the world. This goal can only be achieved with US leadership,
and it is a goal that is absolutely in the interests of the people
of the United States. When the parties to the NPT meet again
this April, the US is sure to come under heavy criticism for
its notice of withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
its failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, its
new strategy to make nuclear disarmament reversible, and its
recent announcement that it is rescinding its security assurances
to non-nuclear weapons states.
In the end, the country that faces the
greatest threat from nuclear terrorism is the United States,
and it is a threat that cannot be counteracted by missile defenses
or threats of retaliation. Terrorists, who cannot be easily located
and who may be suicidal anyway, will simply not be deterred by
nuclear threat.
If the Bush administration truly wants
to reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism against US cities
and abroad, it must reverse its current policy of systematically
dismantling the arms control agreements established over the
past four decades. It must instead become a leader in the global
effort to urgently and dramatically reduce the level of nuclear
weapons throughout the world and bring the remaining small arsenals
of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials under effective international
controls.
David Krieger is president of the Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation (<www.wagingpeace.org>). He can be
contacted at <dkrieger@napf.org>
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