In the shadow of the bomb
I grew up under that shadow, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
matociquala had some things to say on the subject.
As time went by, the wall fell and peace seemed to be coming to the Middle East (the Dayton Accords, some rapprochement with Iran, the containment of Iraq... you know, all the failures of the Clinton Years, the effect of those weak-willed, goggle-eyed, touchy-feely "Leftists" who didn't understand the verities of the world) that shadow shrank.
Maia doesn't really understand it. My middle sisters don't understand it at all.
My youngest sister may.
Pakistan's plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor
This strikes me a a bad thing. It bothers me that the gov't knew of this and, pretty much seems not to care,"We discourage military use of the facility." Thanks guys, nice to know you're on top of this.
Iran is building a power plant. We say they could use it, in five to ten years, to make enriched uranium, and might be looking at acquiring, or generating, the equipment, technology and knowhow to build (in not less than six years, at the most speedy of the reasonable estimates I've seen) a bomb. We are hearing people say we need to have a war to fix this "imminent" threat. This despite them saying they are looking for power, and trying, some years ago, to arrange for inspections to assure the world they were doing nothing more than power generation.
"A small reactor already operating at the Khushab [in Pakistan][/i>site is capable of producing about 10 kilograms of plutonium a year, according to the analysis."
But we can sleep easy because "We discourage military use of the facility," and it isn't as if Pakistan has any ongoing conflicts with it's neighbors. It's not as if we just gave one of those neighbors (in contravention of the NPF) the green light to make as much enriched uranium, for military purposes. It's not as is one of those neighbors has a moderately volatile border with another nuclear power, which has interests in the region.
It's also not as if Pakistan isn't completely above suspicion in the support by some significan't portion of its population for Al Qa'eda.
No, we don't really have anything to worry about, certainly this wasn't something Congress might have wanted to know about.
No, the spread of the bomb, and the loss of MAD as a real policy, a modus vivendi between rational players, a real agreement that the damned things really are too horrible to use, that's the world our leaders are not merely fostering, but actively creating; and to go with it the stability of the regions gaining the bomb is fast falling apart.
matociquala had some things to say on the subject.As time went by, the wall fell and peace seemed to be coming to the Middle East (the Dayton Accords, some rapprochement with Iran, the containment of Iraq... you know, all the failures of the Clinton Years, the effect of those weak-willed, goggle-eyed, touchy-feely "Leftists" who didn't understand the verities of the world) that shadow shrank.
Maia doesn't really understand it. My middle sisters don't understand it at all.
My youngest sister may.
Pakistan's plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor
This strikes me a a bad thing. It bothers me that the gov't knew of this and, pretty much seems not to care,"We discourage military use of the facility." Thanks guys, nice to know you're on top of this.
Iran is building a power plant. We say they could use it, in five to ten years, to make enriched uranium, and might be looking at acquiring, or generating, the equipment, technology and knowhow to build (in not less than six years, at the most speedy of the reasonable estimates I've seen) a bomb. We are hearing people say we need to have a war to fix this "imminent" threat. This despite them saying they are looking for power, and trying, some years ago, to arrange for inspections to assure the world they were doing nothing more than power generation.
"A small reactor already operating at the Khushab [in Pakistan][/i>site is capable of producing about 10 kilograms of plutonium a year, according to the analysis."
But we can sleep easy because "We discourage military use of the facility," and it isn't as if Pakistan has any ongoing conflicts with it's neighbors. It's not as if we just gave one of those neighbors (in contravention of the NPF) the green light to make as much enriched uranium, for military purposes. It's not as is one of those neighbors has a moderately volatile border with another nuclear power, which has interests in the region.
It's also not as if Pakistan isn't completely above suspicion in the support by some significan't portion of its population for Al Qa'eda.
No, we don't really have anything to worry about, certainly this wasn't something Congress might have wanted to know about.
No, the spread of the bomb, and the loss of MAD as a real policy, a modus vivendi between rational players, a real agreement that the damned things really are too horrible to use, that's the world our leaders are not merely fostering, but actively creating; and to go with it the stability of the regions gaining the bomb is fast falling apart.
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I grew up under that shadow,
Followed that link, and despite being born in 1950, there was this huge "aha, that's what's going on in my head". I truly didn't expect to live to 18. or 25. or 30. I participated in those "duck and cover drills, and a neighbor built a backyard bomb shelter, but even in second or third grade I knew, from reading my father's SF magazines, that they were futile. If The Bomb fell, one could only hope that one *wasn't* a survivor.
The thing that really signalled our reprieve was the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was actually learning to hope.
And now, well...
appropriate background music: Tom Lehrer's "we'll all go together when we go" (actual music, Copland's "Appalachian Spring")
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And then I remember that, yes, this is reality, and yes, they really are that stupid, or arrogant, or something.
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Especially not when the government of Pakistan has a tenous grip on power (wia a military coup) and those who would seek to overthrow the government are not likely to be friendly to either the US or India.
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TK
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mojo sends
India and Pakistan are 2 and 6 in population.
Re: India and Pakistan are 2 and 6 in population.
I don't think it a good thing that some millions of people get killed, to encourage the rest of us. Shall we make the city New York, how about Chicago, or London. What say we just take out Jerusalem (that way we kill lots of birds, the folks fighting over it don't have to worry about it, and we get lots of horribly dead people as a grace note (the same way you take away the toy from both the kids who are fighting over it; if you believe in punishment you can see the killing as a spanking as well).
Yes, Hitler didn't like gas, but the real reason it wasn't used is that it doesn't work all that well, it just slows things down. There is no reason to think the Soviets thought it too horrible to use on Germans, and no real reason to think they'd have had any compunction about it causing some casualties in the ranks of the Red Army. It's lack of real effect is why they forewent using gas.
Think about the Tokyo subway, a couple of dozen people died, a few hundred were admitted to hospital, and that in an almost ideal set of conditions.
TK
Re: India and Pakistan are 2 and 6 in population.
You're right, maybe gas was a bad example. But we'll go back to nukes. During the Korean War there was no MAD, or at least not on a global scale. Did we use the bomb on the North or the Chinese (who wouldn't've been able to do much of shit but cry foul to the Soviets)? No, because it was just wrong.
Since then though it's as if people have forgotten about how powerful and devestating they are. Some guy further up points out security of stockpiles. Mass proliferation; it's not just us and the Ruskies anymore. Hell, Russia and China are letting Iran make them so they can have access to the oil. The Rumsfield regime in the Pentagon actually thinks tactical battlefield nukes might be okay to use. Are you fucking kidding me?
I don't think it would be good for millions of people to die. But I think it would be a lot worse if BILLIONS of people died.
Re: India and Pakistan are 2 and 6 in population.
You may not think it pleasant, but that statement, combined with the conclusion you draw (that as a result the Bomb would be renounced by one and all) is claiming that such a thing would be good.
It may be the more in sorrow sort of good, but it's the logic of those who support the death penalty. It may be bad to kill people, but it's good for society, which justifies it.
And that justification is that it is a good.
The problem with nukes, at present, is that US policy is to allow (even encourage) their proliferation amongst our, present, friends, and to avoid those we've declared to be our enemies, if they have them, while beating up on those who don't.
No small part of our lack of credit in the Middle East is that we've not told Israel to pony up and admit, publically to nukes, or divest.
But that's a whole 'nother topic.
TK
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It's scarier now, and not, I think, because I'm older--it's scarier because things are way less controlled than they seemed then--the Soviets, after all, were willing to sit down and talk about these things, and when Brezhnev made a deal, you could be pretty sure that half the regime wasn't playing a game where they got to pull him down and set up their own shop. I get none of that from what we're dealing with now--too many people who are building their own realities, too many people who are too excited about martyrdom, too many people who can't make a deal, because that would be weak (GWB, DIck Cheney--I'm lookin' at you, too--it's not just the Iranians and the North Koreans who are a problem here).
*I hate it when I have to add to my list of Reasons why Nixon was better than this lot we have now. I really, really hate it.
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TK
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