Kagey

Thirty years ago I lived in a Nuclear First Strike Hotspot. Our home sat in the overlapping Soviet targets of RAF Greenham Common airbase with it’s US Cruise Missiles, Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, The Royal Ordinance Factory in Burghfield Common where the war heads for the Trident missiles are made and serviced and RAF Welford, reportedly the largest conventional arms dump in Europe. As Thatcher and Reagan ramped up the tension with the USSR and the Doomsday clock crept beyond five to midnight and towards Armageddon many of us considered our chances of survival. The government’s Protect and Survive leaflet designed to offer helpful advice to the populous in the event of a nuclear war dropped through every door. Seemingly drawn up by wildly optimistic DIY enthusiasts it contained plans for an inner shelter made from the interior doors of the house. It recommended painting the glass in the windows white and should anyone die from the effects of radiation after an attack they should be shoved outside. The sense of doom was hard to escape. My eldest son had nightmares about foreign soldiers coming to our village.

I began to rehearse my response to the future sight of the mushroom clouds on the road to home. Would I have time to get back to my family and spend those last moments together or if we were to survive, organise our shelter? If we were ever to face our adversaries it would be as an occupying force of Soviet Bloc troops… of Russians and perhaps Poles, East German, Ukrainians or Czechs… maybe even Romanians?

The years passed and a new age of youthful optimism blossomed in the East, the Berlin Wall fell and the streets of Prague sang to freedom and peace. People took to the streets and grasped at what had seemed impossible only a few years before; a united and peaceful Europe beyond the boundaries of the old Cold War battle lines. Though the growing pains have been intense with the conflicts that boiled to the surface along old ethnic lines for once we have a continent that seems less likely to rip itself apart.

And so as I witness the small minds and short memories of those who throw their arms up in anger at the prospect of more Romanian and other immigrants from the former Eastern Bloc coming here to work I am deeply dismayed. The petty prejudices and racist remarks that fill the media and the comment threads. Thirty years ago we stood on the brink of a conflict that could have incinerated us all, East and West or at best would have wiped out any vestige of the culture we call being British. Instead this is the Peace Dividend that back then we could only have hoped for. Living and working together for a better future in a united Europe. I welcome you friends from the East!

Ken Finn

I am not a Tony Blair

My guess is you are not George Bush, Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad either.

However the logic of nuclear warfare is that figures like the above will create the conditions for nuclear war that you may be required to pay for with your life.

This week Tony Blair forced through the renewal of Trident. I wholly oppose this decision and yet because of his determination to retain them it is possible that these weapons will be used to incinerate people who like me oppose the decisions of their government.

Listening to the arguments in favour of nuclear weapons in the recent weeks I was struck by the absolute stupidity of the justifications. In a radio debate I heard a woman keep saying that we have a moral duty to protect our population. However it is the possession of nuclear weapons by the state that imposes a blanket responsibility on its population to accept total annihilation in the event of nuclear conflict.

Alliance forces are currently fighting and dying to ensure that the Iraqi people have the opportunity to elect a leader of their choice through the democratic process. Our leaders have said that their highest ideal is to create conditions for peace and stability; that the Iraqi people are to be protected from tyranny. However if Saddam Hussein had possessed nuclear weaponry and looked like using them the nuclear logic would have required the ordinary Iraqi people under his tyrannical rule to be vaporised in retaliation or even in a pre-emptive strike.

Were all Germans Nazi’s? Clearly not yet if Hitler had had a nuclear weapon it would have been the German populous who would have paid an even higher price for the evil of his regime. The citizens of Nagasaki were neither Emperor Hirohito or at the seat of Japanese military policy yet the American government dropped its bomb there anyway.

Declare yourself a Nuclear Free Zone!

 

A spokesperson for the White House commented that “here we have a lunatic with a nuclear bomb.” He was of course refering to Kim Jong-il leader of North Korea, not to the man who helped him get one. See above.

President Bush say’s, “The North Korean regime remains one of the world’s leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.”

I wonder if Mr Bush will be holding Mr Rumsfeld accountable for his proliferation of Nuclear Technology? In 2000 he was a director of ABB, a European engineering giant who supplied key components for nuclear reactors to the North Korean regime he now calls part of the Axis of Evil.

It is breathtaking that following Korea’s nuclear test Western governments are now calling for a ban on the sale of materials essential to Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Which does seem to imply that it’s been business as usual up until now. Talk about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. What incredible ineptitude!

I’d like to remind you that these are the boys with their fingers on the buttons.

Mr Brown has signalled the replacement of Trident and Mr Blair say’s Nuclear power is back on the agenda with a vengeance.

Although as they always say when they’ve made their minds up that no decision has been made.

Despite the fact that they will have no one in particular to point their new shiny nukes at they are ready to commit twenty five billion quid to it… just in case. As Mr Brown say’s, “in an uncertain world we need the certainty of a nuclear deterrent.” What F*$cking tosh! The only thing that is uncertain is who will be deterred by them. While millions starve they’ll be pissing your money down the drain on an immoral weapons system that no one could justify using.

As for nuclear power? It really doesn’t make sense in any shape or form.

Now if you’re looking for joined up thinking on the future energy crisis look no further than Woking, England… birth place of Mr Paul Weller and yours truly It’s the most promising story I’ve heard in ages.

 

The US is pressing for tough action on Iran and it’s ambitions to join the Nuke Club.

It’s the usual rant about rogue states but none of it makes much sense when the rest of the club is in the process of getting new toys. Mind you without rogue states it’s hard to make any sense of it anyway.

I have a few of questions. Currently the UK, USA and the Russian’s are in the process of upgrading, renewing or developing their nuclear arsenals. Who are they targeting?

If the cold war is over then why the need for new sophisticated nukes? Iran for instance, a nuclear juvenile could probably be deterred with little more than a few 80′s vintage ballistic missiles, if the ‘deterrence theory’ holds true.

Our governments are committing huge amounts of our money to build new complex and sophisticated weapons yet if our potential adversaries are emerging rogue states like Iran and North Korea who hardly have their first step on the ladder what’s the rational? China has the potential to build weapons to rival the west but then they also build just about everything else the west consumes, and nice and cheap. Surely we’re not planning to bomb our new mate? Even Walmart doesn’t mind doing business with commies these days!

So if the US, Euro States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel aren’t planning to go toe to toe with anyone within the club why do we need all this new gear?

Anyway the way things are shaping up its very possible that the USA (and whoever they can persuade to join them) are making plans to attack/invade Iran including the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Erm and just why is that? The Iranian government has said some unpleasant things about Israel. They’ve apparently been involved in supporting terrorists too. It seems that if the Bush administration can pin trying to join the Nuke Club on them they have Carte Blanche to fry the population.

The Iranian people are not their government and to be planning such a campaign to annihilate thousands of innocent people for the words and actions of their leaders is immoral.

I happen to think that Mr Bush is a liar and an idiot, Mr Blair is unhinged and should be held in safe place. One man’s Terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. OK that’s two out of three. If I could lay my hands on a Nuke it would follow the above logic for Mr. Bush to order a preventative pre-emptive nuclear strike on Brighton.

The Members

US plans to Nuke Iran

Upgrades

Brazil Joins the Club