Wed - April 18, 2007

A-Bomb chaplain repents



I found this interview stunning . It is between Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, who is the founder and the original director of The Program for the Study and Practice of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution at the University of Notre Dame, and Rev. George B. Zabelka who served as a priest for those who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here is a representative passage:
In August of 1945, I did not say to the boys on Tinian, "You cannot follow Christ and drop those bombs." But this same failure on the part of priests, pastors and bishops over the past 1700 years is, I believe, what is significantly responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and for the seemingly unceasing "Christian" blood-letting around the globe. It seems to me that Christians have been slaughtering each other, as well as non-Christians, for the past 1700 years, in large part because their priests, pastors and bishops have simply not told them that violence and homicide are incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. On the contrary, I would say that the average priest, pastor and bishop communicates that violence and homicide can be compatible with Jesus. After all, a machine gun is no more lethal than a broomstick without the will to kill and the fact is that we so-called Christian "leaders" by commission and omission, for 1700 years, have been guilty of supplying a significant piece of the motivational apparatus necessary to execute the mass slaughter of war. Let’s be honest, to justify an evil is to promote an evil. And let’s face it, we priests, pastors and bishops have been justifying the butchery of war in the name of Christ for a long time. I might also add here that where more is required priestly silence is sinful, because silence gives consent and consent motivates toward the evil.

Posted at 03:28 PM     Read More  

Sun - February 26, 2006

The BBC's Muzak for the end of the world


Robert Verkaik of The Independent writes that the BBC had plans in the mid- and late-1950s to broadcast soothing music to the British people to calm them after a nuclear attack, to provide a "diversion to relieve strain and stress". Key BBC personnel would be evacuated to secure places where these broadcasts could be made. He also reports that a bureaucratic struggle broke out between the military and the BBC over who would control these soothing broadcasts and hence who would have greatest access to and control over the traumatised British people. These people must have assumed that the Brits after suffering a devastating nuclear attack which would have destroyed many, perhaps most large British cities, would have dutifully remained glued to their radio sets (after all they had paid the license fee or BBC tax in order to listen to their radios). I expect the scenarios of post-nuclear Britain would have been more like William Cameron Menzies' film Things to Come (1936) with a reversion to medieval tribalism or Peter Watkin's The War Game (1967) (banned from being shown on the BBC for decades) which shows the steady break down of all order and the hopelessness of any recovery.

Posted at 07:58 PM     Read More  

Tue - February 14, 2006

Do as we say not do as we do


Here's a cartoon depicting Condi Rice explaining the nuclear facts of life the Iranians, surrounded as they are by US bases on all sides, having had an earlier elected government overthrow in 1953 and the dictatorship of the Shah imposed upon them, seeing a nuclear-armed North Korea left alone and a nuclear-free Iraq invaded and conquered, they are left to ponder the iniquities of a world ruled by a sole "superpower":

Posted at 08:48 PM     Read More  

Ten megaton hat


At last some replies to the Danish anti-muslim cartoons are starting to appear. Here's a good one by Oliphant called "Ten Megaton Hat" nicely referencing Bush's adopted Texan roots and the fact that he has his presidential finger on the nuclear trigger. The cartoon of the prophet with a bomb in his turban might have blown up a pizza parlour full of innocent people. George W. with his nuclear arsenal could send us all to kingdom come.


Posted at 08:39 PM     Read More  

Sat - February 4, 2006

The continuing value of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty


Conn Hallinan argues that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a major step towards peace but it has been repeatedly violated by its major signatories, especially the US. Key provisions in the treaty were that countries (like Iran) would agree to forgo the acquisition of nuclear weapons on three grounds: that they would not be threatened with a nuclear strike by those countries which had such weapons; that those countries which dod have nuclear weapons would agree to gradually dismantle them; and that all signatories had the right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The US has violated this treaty on all three grounds: according to its latest nuclear posture review it has decided to use nuclear weapons as battle field weapons such as bunker buster bombs against countries like Iran; it has refused to disarm its own nuclear arsenal; and it refuses to allow Iran to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. The other source of hypocrisy is the US stance towards 3 non-signatories of the NPT - Israel, India, and Pakistan. They can have have nuclear weapons so long as they are allies of the US.

Posted at 06:33 PM     Read More  

Sat - December 31, 2005

Nuclear arms race between Iran and Israel


Martin Sieff (UPI) points to an escalating nuclear arms race between Iran and Israel. Israel, not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and protected by the US in the UN, is reputed to have 200 nuclear warheads on land-based missiles, submarine-based missiles, and bombers. It has the vast bulk of its relatively small population and economic infrastructure in and around Tel Aviv which means that only one large nuclear bomb could wipe out the state of Israel. Iran has a new radical president who has advocated wiping the state of Israel off the map and/or relocating the population to Europe. Sieff argues that Iran has acquired Russian-made cruise missiles but not yet the nuclear weapons to arm them. Israel has made threats about a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Happy new year.

Posted at 04:00 PM     Read More  

Fri - December 23, 2005

Pacifist nun released from jail in time for Christmas


Ardeth Platte, the 69 year old pacifist and anti-nucelar Catholic nun, was released after 2 years in prison for daubing a Minuteman missile silo in Colorado with her own blood.



She and two other nuns broke into the missile complex and used their own blood to paint a crucifix on a missile silo in protest against the war in Iraq in particular and nuclear war in general.




The Associated Press reports her saying "The charges remain bogus," she said. "It was, 'If you're not with us, you're against us.' And be assured, I would never stand with this government in any kind of killing." What a feisty lady! When too many Christians merely mouth platitudes about "peace on earth, good will towards all men" at Christmas time and then support whatever war their government instructs them to for the rest of the year, this lady has the courage of her Christian faith.

Posted at 04:14 PM     Read More  

Tue - December 20, 2005

Nuclear War over Iran


Jorge Hirsch is one of the few people writing about a possible nuclear confrontation with Iran (Seymour Hirsch has been writing about a ground attack). He argues that the Bush government has been gradually putting all the pieces together to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran in the near future which will be justified after the fact by reference to his broad powers as "commander-in-chief" and the presence of WMD (the smoking ruins of which will be the only evidence). He cites the changes in US war fighting doctrine which now explicitly include smaller nuclear weapons, the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, and the placement of gung-ho nuclear warriors in positions of senior advisor around Bush, the growing threats from Israel that it will take action if the US does not, and the presence of 150,000 US troops in Iraq as "bait" for an Iranian ground attack (which would provoke US nuclear retaliation). Bush is no mild-mannered President Muffley but he does have his Dr. Strangeloves and General Turgidsons around him in significant numbers. See his Dec 28, 2005 article on the same theme.

Posted at 10:20 PM     Read More  

Mon - December 12, 2005

Nobel Laureate El Baradei urges nuclear disarmament


In his acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize ElBaradei the Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency argued that the alleged nuclear weapons held by North Korea or Iran were dwarfed by the 27,000 warheads held largely by the US and Russia with some hundreds held by China, Israel, Britain and France. [More]

Posted at 09:44 PM     Read More  

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