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NYT Ignores Greatest Nuclear Threat |
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By
Stephen Lendman |
| The hugely destructive power of nuclear weapons can end life on earth. NYT editors want them kept from “terrorists,” ignoring state terrorists, especially America and Israel, an alliance posing the greatest of all threats. An earlier article discussed the devastating effects of a thermonuclear attack on New York - likely if America launches nuclear war on Russia, an unthinkable real possibility. The city and any other struck would be incinerated. Almost instantly after detonation, temperature at ground zero would be 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun. Enormous heat and light would ignite fires covering over 100 square miles. Firestorm intensity would create superheated winds of about 300 miles per hour. Nothing could withstand their overwhelming force. Firestorm intensity would vaporize structures, turning midtown Manhattan into smoldering rubble. Around 100 square miles of vegetation would become superheated dust. Raging fires would erupt up to nine miles from ground zero. Material from collapsed buildings could continue bursting into flames when exposed to air months after the firestorm ended. No one in affected areas could escape. Superheated hurricane-force winds would incinerate everyone. The firestorm would extinguish all life in its path and destroy most everything else. Last spring, over 150 countries participated in a Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It aimed to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and entirely eliminate this menace. Conferences have been held every five years since NPT became effective in 1970. The 2015 conference addressed: universality of NPT; nuclear disarmament; nuclear non-proliferation; peaceful use of nuclear energy; regional disarmament and non-proliferation; implementation of the 1995 resolution on making the Middle East “free of nuclear and all other weapons of mass destruction” and their delivery systems; measures to address withdrawal from NPT; ways to promote engagement with civil society in strengthening NPT; and disarmament education. Weeks of talks achieved nothing. Washington, Britain and Canada obstructed responsible change. They blocked agreement aimed at preventing nuclear weapons and technology proliferation. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday clock stands at three minutes to midnight, reflecting the “high” probability of “global catastrophe,” BAS saying last year: “(U)nchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity.” “World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.” Physician, anti-war/anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott explains “nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced.” Martin Luther King warned against nations “spiral(ing) down a militaristic stairway into the hell of (potential) thermonuclear destruction.” Albert Einstein’s theories and work led to the development of atomic power. Splitting the atom changed everything, threatening life on earth. Einstein understood the danger, in 1946 saying “(o)ur world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil.” “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” We have a choice. End nuclear weapons or they’ll end us. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. |
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