Senate to vote on funding and development of Bush's 'usable' nukes.

[Q]

Published on Monday, September 15, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Usable Nukes?

by Kevin Martin and Carrie Benzschawel

 
Ronald Reagan, nobody's idea of a dove when he took office, came to understand the insanity of the nuclear arms race and stated, "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

Yet right now, the Bush Administration is hypocritically pushing for new, more "usable" nuclear weapons. The US invaded and conquered Iraq on "intelligence" about an imminent Iraqi threat of weapons of mass destruction that looks more and more like a big lie every day. President Bush wags his finger at other countries, demanding they end their pursuit of nuclear weapons while the US maintains an arsenal of over 10,000 nuclear warheads and is seeking new types and uses for nuclear weapons.

This "do as we say, not as we do" non-proliferation policy is impossible to reconcile with America's core values and is doomed to failure.

In just a few days, the U.S. Senate will vote on an issue of great importance - the funding and development of Bush's new nukes. The senate's decision could put this country on a perilous road -- a decision to build a new breed of nuclear weapons would likely spark a new global arms race. North Korea and Iran are on the edge of going nuclear, and our government's support of new nuclear weapons could push them over that edge, with other countries to follow.

We've been down this path before. It led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, bomb shelters, the Cuban Missile Crisis, massive instances of thyroid cancer from nuclear testing, widespread fear, and global power structures based on countries' relative ability to unleash apocalypse. At the core of it, this is an issue of survival.

In the next few days, the Senate will take up the issue of funding for a modified nuclear weapon, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, or nuclear bunker buster. This bomb is intended for use against bunkers buried deep within the earth. However, most independent experts say the weapon would not burrow as far underground as advertised and that conventional weapons can do the job if needed.

Funding for a new generation of smaller, low-yield nuclear weapons intended for actual use on the battlefield will also be addressed as part of what's called "advanced concepts." The administration wants to build these new nukes despite the fact that our existing nuclear arsenal is capable of destroying the world a few times over. Proponents of these new types of smaller nuclear weapons like to portray them as precise, surgical, more "usable", with less radioactive fallout and "collateral damage" than the weapons in our current arsenal.

However, the prestigious, non-partisan Federation of American Scientists concluded that the use of low-yield nuclear weapons in urban areas would cause "enormous numbers of civilian casualties". - http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0915-08.htm

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- Write, call or email your representatives and tell them 10,000 nukes is enough.

[Q]

1. Insanity

- What the Bushies call 'usable' nukes will make it easier for them to blackmail and intimidate countries not in line with the 'Bush* Doctrine'.

- This is a very important vote...and will determine if the US will renew the nuclear arms race in a world ready to implode.

[Hippo_Tron]

2. Another example of how Ronald...

Didn't get his message through his supporters' thick skulls. I'm generally conservative on defense issues but for god's sake we have enough nukes left over from the cold war to destroy the world ten times over. New "technology" is pointless when we can already turn an entire city to ashes in a matter of minutes. Even missle defense makes about a thousand times more sense than this.

[arcane1]

3. note to our reps: We Are Watching You

vote accordingly...

[Trek234]

4. Oh shit

I didn't actually think this would come to a vote.