Review: Countdown to Zero - the need for Nuclear Fearism didn't end in the 1980's

How many nuclear weapons are there in the world? How many nuclear weapons should there be in the world? Is there a safe level of use of nuclear material in the world? Can you put toothpaste back in the tube after you've squeezed it out?

That last question is more a great analogy than a random tangent. Really.

The knowledge to make and use nuclear weapons is known, and construction of nuclear weapons an engineering exercise. They are incredibly dangerous and an unfortunate string of accidents could leave us with hundreds of millions dead and a burning planet that's barely habitable. Much as we want to stop use of nuclear weapons, just as it's impossible to put toothpaste back in the tube, it's not possible to put that knowledge out of our collective minds and stop having them around.

Movie: Countdown to Zero

The recent movie, Countdown to Zero, goes into the nuclear threat very well. It's a scary movie and expect to come away from it highly alarmed by the threats - either of those evil dirty rotten terrorists getting their hands on some material, or an accidental launch of nuclear missiles, or proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, or... gosh, when fear is on the table any crazy scenario can be imagined, eh?

Part of this is about engendering fear. The movie lays out a laundry list of information, stories and scenarios to make anybody get scared. The people in the movie are top notch experts in the field, from Valerie Plame (the former CIA agent outed by Dick Cheney in one of his many acts of treason) to Jimmy Carter, to Mikhail Gorbachev and plenty of other top level people who were in positions of decision making on nuclear security or terrorism.

Real Dangers portrayed in Cowntdown to Zero

Highly enriched uranium is within the reach of any reasonably advanced country - and once you have the uranium, a bomb is relatively easy.

The movie showed, getting highly enriched uranium is simply a logistical problem of acquiring and running centrifuges long enough to enrich uranium to a high enough purity to be weapons grade. With high purity uranium, constructing it into a bomb is relatively simple 1950's era technology.

The movie pointed at a long laundry list of terrible scenarios that could result in nuclear weapons being used. Either in an isolated incident (a terrorist group constructs a weapon and blows up a city) or in an all out nuclear exchange.

One main threat was those dirty evil terrorists getting their hands on nuclear material, sneaking it into the U.S., and constructing a bomb. They showed rusting ships that presumably are the former Soviet Union's former nuclear powered naval fleet, rusting industrial complexes which were part of Russias former nuclear industry, and talked about nonexistent security at nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union. The message one was to take is getting highly enriched uranium is relatively easy within Russia, and that the Republic of Georgia routinely catches smugglers with uranium headed to the West. Then once uranium is outside Russia, it would be straightforward to put it in lead pipes, then package it deep within a shipping container, and send it to the U.S. The volume of shipping containers arriving in the U.S. makes it impossible to ensure no contraband (much less uranium) sneaks into the country.

The other main threat is proliferation in the Middle East, especially due to Iran.

The movie frequently showed aerial photos of cities with circles marking different blast radius's. I can imagine being a resident of one of those cities, and having a sinking feeling recognizing that you're within the blast zone of a target city. I had the same sinking feeling while watching An Inconvenient Truth and realizing I live in a neighborhood due to be inundated by rising waters if the sea level rises as expected.

The environment of fearism

Those of us old enough grew up with the nuclear threat being hung over us. Young people today are growing up with a different threat being hung over us, terrorism. But just because some terrorists used airplanes to destroy a few buildings does not make us safe from the threat of nuclear weapons. The previous situation with nuclear weapons has not changed, and in fact it has gotten horribly worse.

While these threats have some truth, both threats are hung over our whole society in a way that makes everyone afraid. One wonders to what extent these threats are pushed on society, to make society afraid, to facilitate implementation of policies friendly to the military-industrial complex.

Fearism

Fearism is the policy of political leadership to spread fear stories to cause a fearfilled populace to fall in line with the agenda of that leadership.

There is fearism where they show you a cockamamie story, but in a way that makes you very very afraid. Then there is fearism where the threat is real and highly dangerous. This threat of nuclear war falls in the second category of real and highly dangerous. But still the movie is in the format of fearism, and is geared to shock the viewer into demanding some action or another.

For example the movie contains a lot of information about the nuclear proliferation network operated from Pakistan by AQ Khan. He was their chief Nuclear Scientist, and also operated an extensive network of selling nuclear technology around the world.

One of his clients was Iran, and there is a lot of concern about nuclear proliferation in Iran. If Iran were to achieve nuclear weapons, the movie contends that Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc will also work to achieve nuclear weapons. The result will be a Middle East with more nuclear states than the one already there - Israel.

Conclusion

There are a zillion threats facing our society. Some of them are real and justified. Some of them are cockamamie. Our political leaders are using fears for political gain.

It pays to not take the fearism stories at face value, but to stay in ones position of internal clear choice and stability. Rather than be sucked in - consciously evaluating the stories should help one see the truth more clearly.

References: 

C.I.A. Says Pakistanis Gave Iran Nuclear Aid

References: 

Iran says wants to stay within nuclear rules

References: 

The cost of the Iraq war? Nuclear proliferation?

References: 

Nuclear proliferation in the wake of Iran

External Media

Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content.

Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.

In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.

...The comments were the sternest yet from Mr. Putin, who has long bristled over criticism from the United States and its European allies as he and his cadre of former Soviet intelligence officials have consolidated their hold on Russia’s government, energy reserves and arms-manufacturing and trading complexes.

Article Reference: 

Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability

Nuke detectors to ring New York, official says

New York City will be protected by a ring of devices to detect nuclear or dirty bombs before the end of the year, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

...Under the "Securing the Cities" initiative, detectors will be placed along highways, at truck stops, in weigh stations and at other sites on the perimeter of New York, as well as locations closer to the city center, an official said.

Article Reference: 

Nuke detectors to ring New York, official says

Iran says wants to stay within nuclear rules

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marked the 28th anniversary of Iran's revolution on Sunday pledging to maintain the country's nuclear program but saying he wanted to remain within international rules.

...His comments had prompted talk Iran might say it had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, defying a U.N. sanctions resolution which gave Tehran until February 21 to suspend enrichment or face more measures.

...The proposal would permit Iran to keep its uranium enrichment infrastructure of several hundred centrifuges but it would not be allowed to feed any processed uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into the machines while negotiating with six world powers over a package of incentives to observe U.N. demands.

Article Reference: 

Iran says wants to stay within nuclear rules

Nuclear proliferation in the wake of Iran

Six Arab states join rush to go nuclear This is a Times of London article discussing six Arab countries who have announced their intention to build nuclear reactors, and presumably move to join the list of countries possessing nuclear weapons. One stated reason is for desalination. I flew over the Gulf region last year, and from 45,000 feet the whole area sure looked to be exceedingly dry. They have long wanted a source of non-salty water. Though, nuclear power seems to be a curious way to achieve that goal.

The countries are: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

The article clearly links this move with Iran's budding nuclear program. Pakistan and Israel are known to have nuclear weapons, and it's likely that Iran will also have them in a few years. These other countries surely will feel threatened by that, and seek to have these weapons themselves.

The question then is, what will come of this growing presence of nuclear weaponry? The fear with nuclear proliferation has long been that it's a slippery slope until eventually some power-mad world leader who doesn't care about the consequences will use their "ultimate weapon".

That's a scary thought, but I think the example GW Bush shows us is that the power-mad world leader need not be the stereotype we've been fed. Namely, it might not be the uneducated third world leader but it might be the fundamentalist American who thinks they're hastening Armageddon and therefore bringing about the New Heaven and New Earth promised in the Book of Revelations.

The cost of the Iraq war? Nuclear proliferation?

The situation: The Iraq war and situation are worsening. A couple days ago some members of the Medhi army took over a town, for a short time, declaring the formation of an "Republic" in Iraq that's outside the central government. Their leader told them to stand down, and they did, but it certainly reflects the will on the street. Namely undoing the damage done by the British 100 years ago when they caused the three peoples, Kurds, Sunni and Shia to form a single country.

The situation: Iran may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. They have a nuclear program whose side effects include weapons grade material. Their president is being very confrontational with the rest of the world, but to be fair the Bush administration only knows confrontaton as well.

The situation: North Korea has recently exploded a small nuclear bomb, giving them entree to the exclusive club of countries who have nuclear weapons.

In 2002 GW Bush declared an Axis of Evil vowing to stop nuclear proliferation etc. It was Iraq, Iran and North Korea he said was in this Axis. But we see the failure of that declaration, don't we?

The Iraq war has gone terribly astray. This article The week the war unravelled: Bush to 'refocus' Iraq strategy gives a rundown of the recent events that illustrate this. Emergency meetings with the leaders of the Iraq war effort, calls for quick pullout from Iraq, growing calls for a partitioning of Iraq into three semi-autonomous zones, etc.

At the same time we have real nuclear proliferation happening. Nuclear proliferation being the real danger in this world, not this ephemeral danger of Terrorism, and not this false danger that was Iraq. They propped up Iraq as the extreme threat and conned us into launching a war there, while at the same time the real threats grew and grew.

And what of Pakistan? Pakistan is the country from whom both Iran and North Korea acquired their nuclear technology. Without Pakistan exporting nuclear know-how neither of these countries would have gotten as far as they are. Yet, are we threatening Pakistan? Nope. They are (supposedly) U.S. allies.

And what of the Taliban and al Qaeda? They are having a resurgence in Afghanistan.

The key theme I'm seeing in all this is the mismanagement of Iraq. The situation in Iraq seems to be highly distracting, leading U.S. leadership to focus all their attention on Iraq while other countries and situations are not getting the attention they deserve.

I think we can call this "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater" eh?

Re: North Korea says conducted nuclear test

North Korea says conducted nuclear test ... North Korea was one of the Axis of Evil countries which GW ominously warned us about a few years ago. It wasn't really clear why he wanted to label them as "evil", but he did. Iraq of course was another of them, as was Iran.

The phrase "axis of evil" drags the mind back to The Axis, which was the arrangement between Germany, Italy and Japan that led to World War II. The phrase implies cooperation between one group of countries to stand against another group of countries. But, really, how could we believe that Iran and Iraq could agree to stand together. After that long war fought between Iran and Iraq, how could they ever stand together? There is that principle, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" but I believe the divisions between the old Iraq regime, and the Iran regime, were too deep for even that principle to bring them together.

In any case, the danger Iran and Korea present are nuclear weapons developed outside the legal framework of the International Atomic Energy Commission. In other words, Nuclear Proliferation. The danger of nuclear proliferation is that if everybody has nukes, then eventually someone will again use them in warfare. And of course nuclear weapons are so vehemently dangerous that they should never be used in warfare.

Right, Mr. President?

Oh, wait, our dear President GW Bush wants to use nuclear weapons. I forgot.

In any case, back to North Korea. This story has been growing for quite some time, North Korea and its nuclear program. There have been on and off negotiations etc. And at the same time Iran has been moving towards nuclear weapons, while protesting their nuclear program is entirely peaceful.

But where has most of the U.S. resources been spent? Iraq. Iraq had no nuclear program, had no biological weapons program, etc. Yet the danger of a mushroom cloud coming at us from Iraq propelled the U.S. into a boondoggle of a war, that's costing hundreds of billions per year, costing tens of thousands of lives, creating great anger around the world toward the U.S. etc.

And all the while North Korea and Iran have been developing their nuclear programs, outside the inspection system, outside the world legal system, etc. And because the U.S. is consumed with the war in Iraq we haven't had the freedom to take any actions against North Korea or Iran.

And it's worth considering what "take actions against" means.

Of what worth is Sovereingty? Being a sovereign nation means defending the country against all intrusions from outsiders, and that the nation makes its own decisions over its destiny.

So if a nation wishes to develop nuclear weapons, the assumption in nuclear proliferation theory is that the world cannot allow nuclear proliferation. The world cannot allow this because it's dangerous. The genie is out of the bottle with some countries, with nuclear weapons having already proliferated to a few countries during the 1950's. Any step by any country not already possessing nuclear weapons is of great concern. The weapons are so dangerous that, as I said before, the more widely available they are, the more possibility is they might be used again.

Hence the world powers have decided that no countries should "be allowed" to develop nuclear weapons unless they also submit to outside monitoring.

But what is this "be allowed" crap when we're talking about sovereign nations? As sovereign nations shouldn't Iran and North Korea and Iraq have been free to do whatever they want? If one set of countries want their own sovereignty to be respected, shouldn't they respect the sovereignty of other countries?

In order to take action against North Korea or Iran the world powers must be ready to do as the U.S. has done against Iraq. Right? If they're going to run nuclear processing plants, then the world powers must be ready to invade those countries and destroy the plants. Right?

In other words, stopping nuclear proliferation requires violating the sovereignty of free nations.

Just so long as we understand what's at stake.

C.I.A. Says Pakistanis Gave Iran Nuclear Aid

Yup, our dear "allies", the Pakistani's, have been busy proliferating nuclear technology. Tell me again why we invaded Iraq and not Pakistan?

C.I.A. Says Pakistanis Gave Iran Nuclear Aid


By DOUGLAS JEHL Published: November 24, 2004 NYTIMES.COM

A new report from the Central Intelligence Agency says the arms trafficking network led by the Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan provided Iran's nuclear program with "significant assistance," including the designs for "advanced and efficient" weapons components.

The unclassified version of the report, posted Tuesday on the agency's Web site, www.cia.gov, does not say explicitly whether Mr. Khan's network sold Iran complete plans for building a warhead, as the network is known to have done for Libya and perhaps North Korea. But it suggests that American intelligence agencies now believe that the bomb-making designs provided by the network to Iran in the 1990's were more significant than the United States government has previously disclosed.

In a recent closed-door speech to a private group, George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, described Mr. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, as being "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden" because of his role in providing nuclear technology to other countries. A tape recording of the speech was obtained by The New York Times.

Going to cia.gov, we find the report here:

(http://cia.gov/cia/reports/721_reports/july_dec2003.htm)
Attachment A:
Unclassified Report to Congress
on the Acquisition of Technology
Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction
and Advanced Conventional Munitions,

1 July Through 31 December 2003

Rethinking the nuclear option - pebble bed reactors for South America

Rethinking the nuclear option: Discusses a new nuclear plant, using "Pebble Bed" technology, being designed and readied to be installed in South Africa. The idea is much the same as the "portable" nuclear plants discussed in the next story.

Group Says Iran Has Secret Nuclear Arms Program (NY Times)

To add a twist to the Iran story, we have an Iranian dissident group claiming

Group Says Iran Has Secret Nuclear Arms Program

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: November 17, 2004 (NY Times)

An Iranian opposition group says it has new evidence that Iran is producing enriched uranium at a covert Defense Ministry facility in Tehran that has not been disclosed to United Nations inspectors.

The group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, is planning to announce its finding in Paris on Wednesday. The group says that inspection of the site would demonstrate that Iran is secretly trying to produce nuclear weapons even while promising to freeze a critical part of its declared nuclear program, which it maintains is intended purely for civilian purposes.

A senior official of the group, Muhammad Mohaddessin, said in a telephone interview late on Tuesday that the group had shared the new information "very recently'' with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But he and other officials of the group said it had not discussed the matter with the United States government, and its claims could not be verified.

It's all very convenient, isn't it? A few days ago Iran and the EU come to an agreement to halt Iran's uranium enrichment, only to be met by U.S. grumbles that we'll have to see if they really live up to it. And a few days later this dissident group unveils new evidence.

Reminds me of the Iraqi dissident groups used by Washington DC to promote stories that justified the invasion of Iraq, but those stories turned out to be entirely false. (mobile weapons labs, that never were found, and more)

To be fair - Iran has admitted to an Uranium enrichment program that would, as a side effect, make weapons-grade materials. And they were doing this outside the globally agreed-to parameters that all such activities be done under the inspection rituals established by the UN. Nuclear profileration is of great concern, and the world had previously agreed that the best approach to controlling the spread of this dangerous weapon was for every country to submit to UN inspection. Part of the struggle at the moment is that North Korea, Iran, and a small number of other countries, have refused to submit to these inspections, and have since been caught secretly enriching Uranium to make weapons grade materials.

At the same time we must remember that the Neocon agenda is to reshape the middle east with this folly of a plan to "install democracy" by first toppling Iraq's government, and then Iran's. The "it's convenient" I alluded to above is how convenient it is for the Neocon agenda that someone stepped forward to challenge the EU/Iran agreement just when it appeared the justification to invade Iran might have been crumbling.

Iran agrees to suspend uranium enrichment

Iran agrees to suspend uranium enrichment
Sunday, November 14, 2004 Posted: 7:02 PM EST (0002 GMT) (CNN.COM)

The article is saying that Iran has reached an agreement with the EU proposals. This is the negotiations I've been tracking in this category. This is good news, as it removes one of the justifications the neocon's were likely to employ before invading Iran.

Of course, to make sure it's not so simple, the neocon's have this to say:

The U.S. State Department had no immediate reaction to Sunday's report, but spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters last week, "The question of where they stand -- where Iran stands -- when we get to the board meeting is the important one."

"Will Iran have complied at that point with the requirements of the IAEA board?," Boucher asked. "Will the IAEA be in a position to verify that and to say that they are engaging in the verification of that kind of promise and activity?"

He added, "Ultimately, it's what Iran does that matters, not just what they have agreed to."

Documents: U.S. had plan to nuke N. Korea

Documents: U.S. had plan to nuke N. Korea
Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 7 (UPI) in Washington Times

The article summarises a newly declassified report on the battle plans considered against North Korea in 1998. Among them was a plan to nuke them, if they attacked South Korea.