Divine Strake Back on Track

[helderheid]

Now that those pesky elections are out of the way, Divine Strake (http://www.nukestrat.com/us/stratcom/gs-divinestrake.htm) is ramping up again for execution as early as this spring on the Nevada Test Range. My objection to Divine Strake sources not as much from the potential of more lethal toxins being kicked into the atmosphere, but the fact that we’re developing new nuclear weapons at all. The Defense Department doesn’t seem to realize that bunker busters have little effect on insurgents using cellphones and fertilizer to make roadside bombs. The nature of war has changed, but we’re still dumping borrowed cash into schoolboy efforts to see how big of a boom we can make in the desert.

The “Great Stopper” (http://peteashdown.org/journal/2006/04/21/sob/)has not weighed in on the new timetable for Divine Strake. Make sure you let him know how you feel about the military messing around in the desert while there are still troops lacking armor in the field.
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact

The Orwellian “Defense Threat Reduction Agency” is holding a series of public meetings on Divine Strake:

* Jan. 9 6:30-9:00 p.m., Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Nuclear Security Administration, public meeting on the proposed “Divine Strake” nuclear simulation to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Cashman Convention Center, 850 N. Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, NV
* Jan. 10 6:30-9:00 p.m., Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Nuclear Security Administration, public meeting on the proposed “Divine Strake” nuclear simulation to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Energy Solutions Arena, 310 W. South Temple St., Salt Lake City, UT
* Jan. 11 6:30-9:00 p.m., Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Nuclear Security Administration, public meeting on the proposed “Divine Strake” nuclear simulation to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Dixie Center, 1835 Convention Center Dr., St. George, UT

[louis-t]

1. The fact that it has 'Divine' in the name

scares the Hell out of me.

[helderheid]

2. As it should!

:scared: Me too!!

[originalpckelly]

3. They openly lied to us the first time about it's purpose, how can we trust their assertions...

that it will not kick up radioactive soil?

I was one of a number of people who called bullshit on this test. We all did some very simple math, and we figured out that this could in no way be the test for a conventional bomb, because no conventional explosive known to humanity is capable of such a weight to blast equivalence in TNT ratio.

And this was a fairly obvious bullshit statement, because it was like 5 or six times the maximum weight our highest payload capacity airplane can carry.

[helderheid]

4. Wasn't it like 700 TONS or some such shit?

[originalpckelly]

7. Yeppo, the math was sort of simple:

The C-5 has the largest payload capacity of any American plane, it's 270,000 lbs.

In pounds the weight of the Divine Strake bomb is 1.4 million lbs. That's 5.19x the payload capacity of a C-5.

So it was fairly obvious how full of shit the cover story was.

They used to be good at these things, but now they're getting sloppy.

Oh and then if you'll remember, they had a second story, which was equally as much bullshit. They said they were using one big bomb to simulate a mass bombardment of a target. Of course, the blast wave of one big bomb will penetrate the Earth far deeper than 500 small bombs.

That was BS as well. Finally, they admitted what was going on, when someone found the line item in the federal budget, for this particular test, and it was listed as a test for a nuclear penetrator simulation.

[helderheid]

5. kick looking for 1 more rec

[Lars39]

6. Gladly.

:scared: :grr:

[helderheid]

8. thank you thank you!

[crickets]

9. Again? It's like playing whack-a-mole

trying to get rid of this insane thing. Sigh.

[helderheid]

10. I know isn't this like the 5th time?

[crickets]

14. Honestly, I've lost track.

I just wish it were the last time already.

[helderheid]

17. I hope with us in the majority now we can stop this madness!

[otherlander]

11. This cannot end well.

:scared:

[Jcrowley]

12. Stop worrying

Gubment say it gonna be OK. No threat at all. Saw it in ze newzpaper jus' ze other day.



K&R

[itsmesgd]

13. great, now I gotta head back out on the protest tour.

One thing that has not been mentioned too much around all this "Divine" bullshit is the effect that this "test" or "Iranian practice" will have on the Western Shoshone tribe. The Western Shoshone Defense Project has been leading the forefront on stopping this test from the tribal community. www.wsdp.org
This test will kick up some nasty radioactive dirt that has been under the ground since our earlier tests back before and during the cold war. Then these clouds of unknown substances will drift over and settle on the Western Shoshone tribal lands.
Why don't they test this shit in Crawford, TX?
Pray for the Shoshone.

[Solo_in_MD]

15. Actually, it could well be a good thing

Empirical demonstration of how explosions impact underground structures as a factor of range vs energy is in many ways a good thing. Also should provide enough data to validate/tune the models being used, which means less testing in the long run.

It is not a nuclear demonstration, never has been. The use of oversize conventional charge gets a wider range of data, nothing more. No nuclear devices or even conventional triggers are being used. It it no way can contribute to the design and development of nuclear weapons.

The only potential nuclear side to this is if the data demonstrates that only a nuclear surface/near surface blast can destroy certain kinds of deep/hardened facilities, that this or subsequent administration might consider using nuclear weapons against something similar.

[sproutster]

16. Tell that to the people downwind

I've never seen such fearful and tearful people with the cancerous family trees from the past testing. Sick.

[helderheid]

18. Lucky you in MD - I'm in Utah downwind. NO THANK YOU.

[crickets]

19. I think originalpckelly's post covered this

I've got links to all of those back discussions, but since you commented in at least one of those threads, you must have read some of them. Remember this?

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=916837&mesg_id=923005
They want to set a precedent.

The Bush Administration wants to show the world that we have 'useable nukes' and are willing to use them. Generally that'd be called terrorism, but when you wear a $3000 suit they call it "aggressive foreign policy".


Two words: saber rattling.

[951-Riverside]

20. and just what is our democatic leaders doing about it?

[helderheid]

21. I know Matheson and Reid are on this - not sure who else