From The Madison Capital Times, 9/16/03:
http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/zweifel/56811.php
Bush would use mini-nukes, prof warns
By Dave Zweifel
Is George Bush the most dangerous president in U.S. history?
If you ask Professor John Swomley, he is.
Swomley, who teaches Christian ethics at the St. Paul School of
Theology in Kansas City, has authored an indictment of the Bush
administration's foreign policy that includes actual plans to use
nuclear bombs as pre-emptive weapons.
It is essential, he says in a magazine article, for Americans to
understand that the administration has directed the military to
prepare plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries
- China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Libya and Iraq.
Presumably, had Iraq had those so-called weapons of mass destruction
and had used them when we invaded the country this spring, we were
prepared to drop a weapon of mass destruction of our own.
And Swomley warns that we shouldn't buy the argument that these nukes
are small and won't be all that horrific.
"Nuclear weapons, even if they are smaller than those of Hiroshima or
Nagasaki, will not only kill on impact, but raise immense radioactive
dust, with the terrible results of slow, agonizing death from
radiation," he writes.
"Some people make the assumption that using smaller nuclear weapons
will allow accurate precision bombing, such as was claimed for the
bombing of Iraq," he adds.
"What was not reported by officials is that although the Iraq 'smart'
bombs rarely missed a target by more than 13 feet, when a bomb blew up
it sent high-speed shrapnel flying as far as a mile, causing many
civilian casualties. The additional power of a nuclear bomb, together
with its dispersal of radioactivity , is sure to produce infinitely
more harm."
Nevertheless, the U.S. Senate has already approved Bush's request to
lift a 10-year ban on research, development and production of nuclear
weapons of less than 5 kilotons.
Swomley quotes defense budget analyst Bill Donahue, who says that the
United States is spending roughly $5.8 billion on nuclear weapons this
year and that the Los Alamos National Laboratories have been told to
begin developing "earth penetrator" mini-nukes even before seeking
permission from Congress.
The professor insists that Bush is hell-bent on building an American
empire as envisioned by the likes of Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfield, his underlings Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, Vice
President ***** Cheney and State Department hawks Richard Armitage and
John Bolton.
The philosophy is pre-emptive war, unilateral action and world
domination.
"The problem we face today is one that Al Gore described as a new
doctrine that destroys the goal of a world in which states consider
themselves subject to law, in favor of the notion that there is no law
but the discretion of the president of the United States," Swomley
insists.
___________________________________________________
"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I
do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending
on the breaks."
General "Buck" Turgidson
From the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb
Harry
.
|
