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BBC Talking Point - Could Nuclear Weapons Fall into
the Hands of Terrorists? Are We Worried?
by
Larry Ross,
August 5, 2005
Secretary/Founder, New Zealand
Nuclear Free Zone Committee
I am very worried and share Dr Helen Caldicott's concern that Bush's re-election
meant "endless war and I think it could mean nuclear war... these
people are much worse than the Reagan people"
Today thousands of nuclear missiles are on hair-trigger alert status ready
to launch-on-warning against the U.S.A. and Russia. Previous US head of
nuclear forces, General Lee Butler (Ret) and previous Secretary of Defence
Robert McNamara, both have warned that we have been very close to a nuclear
war in the past - several times. Various rogue groups, including terrorists,
with nuclear weapons could trigger global nuclear extinction.
President John Kennedy warned in 1962, that "a nuclear sword of Damocles
hangs over us all by the slenderest of threads, ready to be cut at any
moment, by accident, miscalculation or act of madness".
Although nuclear proliferation is increasing, the US torpedoed the May
2005 Nuclear Non-proliferation conference. Nuclear dangers have increased
as US nuclear policy is to develop new nuclear weapons and resume testing;
allow nuclear weapons to be used in conventional military situations,
and allow local military commanders to recommend their use. The US has
also either withdrawn from, or ignored, various nuclear disarmament treaties.
Both the US and UK knew their war with Iraq was based on lies and without
any justification. It is an illegal war of aggression. Yet both Blair
and Bush threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iraq if they were opposed
with certain types of weapons. So far, over 100,000 people have been killed
and the war is widening.
This is an era of pre-emptive wars, even nuclear wars, concocted by our
own leaders as signalled by their lowering of the threshold for nuclear
weapons use.
I am less worried that terrorists might get nuclear weapons, and much
more worried that our own leaders might invent some pretext to justify
a nuclear war, as they invented pretexts to justify the war on Iraq.
As the dangers of nuclear war loom closer, it seems like there is a media
ban on any discussion on the really urgent issues.
60 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity has become adapted to
existing on the brink of global nuclear suicide as if it can never happen.
Unfortunately it can happen very easily.
I hope the BBC can air these concerns.
Larry Ross
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