The Unthinkable

I guess politics are a part of life so the ending of life as we know it should indeed be a valid topic of political discourse.

I submit for your review This disturbing article that detail the preparations being made for a ‘surgical’ nuclear strike against Iran next month.

Ordinarily this is where a responsible diarist would warn you to don your tinfoil hat but this is a look at some very real plans being made by our government in their ‘divine mission’ to keep us ‘safe’ at all costs…even if it kills us.

The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages.

Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in "an advanced stage of readiness".

Various military exercises have been conducted, starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December in anticipation of a US sponsored attack.

Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara and NATO headquarters in Brussels.[snip]

NATO has endorsed the US sponsored military plan, although it is unclear, at this stage, as to the nature of NATO's involvement in the planned aerial attacks.

"Shock and Awe"

The various components of the military operation are firmly under US Command, coordinated by the Pentagon and US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska.

The actions announced by Israel would be carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The command structure of the operation is centralized and ultimately Washington will decide when to launch the military operation.

US military sources have confirmed that an aerial attack on Iran would involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US "shock and awe" bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:
American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States, possibly supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters staging from al Udeid in Qatar or some other location in theater, the two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted.
Military planners could tailor their target list to reflect the preferences of the Administration by having limited air strikes that would target only the most crucial facilities ... or the United States could opt for a far more comprehensive set of strikes against a comprehensive range of WMD related targets, as well as conventional and unconventional forces that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq

(See Globalsecurity.org at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran-strikes.htm)
In November, US Strategic Command conducted a major exercise of a "global strike plan" entitled "Global Lightening". The latter involved a simulated attack using both conventional and nuclear weapons against a "fictitious enemy".

Following the "Global Lightening" exercise, US Strategic Command declared an advanced state of readiness (See our analysis below)

While Asian press reports stated that the "fictitious enemy" in the Global Lightening exercise was North Korea, the timing of the exercises, suggests that they were conducted in anticipation of a planned attack on Iran.

While the pieces of the puzzle point towards Iran, it’s interesting to note the Asian press suspects the exercise could be a preface to an attack on North Korea…

How many other nations have entertained the notion that they may be the next ones in the crosshairs now that a ‘tactical’ nuclear attack is not just ‘on the table’ but being readied for deployment in what could be a few short weeks?

Quite correctly, this writer goes on to state that such tactics could also be deployed against China and/or the Soviet Union, a foolish maneuver in the extreme but consider who has their finger on our nuclear trigger, Mr. Foolish himself.

It seems four decades of MAD have given way to making the ‘unthinkable’ turn into the inevitable.

Consider MAD and it’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy. The use of nuclear weapons under MAD was expressly forbidden, launching a strike insured a counter strike. How much would the nuclear powers of today’s world be willing to ‘turn their head’ to the second use of nuclear weapons in combat by the only nation ever to use them, not to end a war but in a ‘pre-emptive’ strike?

What is the definition of a ‘rogue’ state? Is it a nation working to develop their own weapons or a nation that has them and isn’t afraid to use them?

Mini-nukes: "Safe for Civilians"
The press reports, while revealing certain features of the military agenda, largely serve to distort the broader nature of the military operation, which contemplates the preemptive use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The war agenda is based on the Bush administration's doctrine of "preemptive" nuclear war under the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review.

Media disinformation has been used extensively to conceal the devastating consequences of military action involving nuclear warheads against Iran. The fact that these surgical strikes would be carried out using both conventional and nuclear weapons is not an object of debate.

According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or "low yield" "mini-nukes", with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered "safe for civilians" because the explosion is underground.

Through a propaganda campaign that has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for "battlefield use"; they are slated to be used in the next stage of America's "war on Terrorism" alongside conventional weapons:
Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this; thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent. ( Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)
In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage". The Pentagon has intimated, in this regard, that the ‘mini-nukes’ (with a yield of less than 5000 tons) are harmless to civilians because the explosions ‘take place under ground’. Each of these ‘mini-nukes’, nonetheless, constitutes – in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout – a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Estimates of yield for Nagasaki and Hiroshima indicate that they were respectively of 21000 and 15000 kilotons.

Mini-Nukes

The earth-penetrating capability of the [nuclear] B61-11 is fairly limited, however. Tests show it penetrates only 20 feet or so into dry earth when dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet. Even so, by burying itself into the ground before detonation, a much higher proportion of the explosion energy is transferred to ground shock compared to a surface bursts. Any attempt to use it in an urban environment, however, would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area. Http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm

Gbu 28 Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28)
The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons:
'It's a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons). The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox,' said Kristensen. (Japan Economic News Wire, op cit)
We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe their own propaganda.

At the end of the day the only thing that has saved the planet from being consumed in a nuclear fireball is trust, trust in mutually assured destruction that made the use of any nuclear weapon ‘unthinkable’.

Making nukes smaller by no measure makes them ‘safer’ and then we have the ‘trust’ thing…how small is small and what is an ‘acceptable’ level of casualties/destruction?

Understand what is acceptable to the White House may not be acceptable to Beijing or Moscow…or Paris for that matter.

Once the nuclear cat is out of the bag, even through the use of tiny nukes, the ‘precedent’ is established and every flock of birds picked up by NORAD sends us instantly to DEFCON 1.

"The new unit [JFCCSGS] has 'met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability' as of Nov. 18. A week before this announcement, the unit finished a command-post exercise, dubbed Global Lightening, which was linked with another exercise, called Vigilant Shield, conducted by the North American Aerospace Defend Command, or NORAD, in charge of missile defense for North America.
'After assuming several new missions in 2002, U.S. Strategic Command was reorganized to create better cooperation and cross-functional awareness,' said Navy Capt. James Graybeal, a chief spokesperson for STRATCOM. 'By May of this year, the JFCCSGS has published a concept of operations and began to develop its day-to-day operational requirements and integrated planning process.'
'The command's performance during Global Lightning demonstrated its preparedness to execute its mission of proving integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM,' he added without elaborating about 'new missions' of the new command unit that has around 250 personnel.
Nuclear specialists and governmental sources pointed out that one of its main missions would be to implement the 2001 nuclear strategy that includes an option of preemptive nuclear attacks on 'rogue states' with WMDs. (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005)

CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022
JFCCSGS is in an advanced state of readiness to trigger nuclear attacks directed against Iran or North Korea.

The operational implementation of the Global Strike is called CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022. The latter is described as "an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,' (Ibid).

CONPLAN 8022 is 'the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre-planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.'
'It's specifically focused on these new types of threats -- Iran, North Korea -- proliferators and potentially terrorists too,' he said. 'There's nothing that says that they can't use CONPLAN 8022 in limited scenarios against Russian and Chinese targets.'(According to Hans Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project, quoted in Japanese economic News Wire, op cit)

The mission of JFCCSGS is to implement CONPLAN 8022, in other words to trigger a nuclear war with Iran.

The Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush would instruct the Secretary of Defense, who would then instruct the Joint Chiefs of staff to activate CONPLAN 8022.

Don’t see any congressional involvement here so one suspects that the single authorization to enter Iraq is being ‘extended’ to nuke Iran or pretty much anywhere else he decides is a threat.

With this single action MAD become irretrievably broken. There may not be a ‘response’ right away but it starts a new age where the threat of nuclear annihilation could once again come at any time.

How will Moscow know for sure that the plane dropping tiny ‘bunker busters’ on one of its neighbors doesn’t also have a planet buster on board enroute for an unknown destination in the Motherland?

Imagine the scene:

BUSH: Hello Vlad, George here. I’m just calling to let you know your people will be picking up some nuclear detonations out around Uzbekistan…got us some terrorists holed up in caves over there, thought we'd go ahead and wipe ‘em out for ya...

What do you suppose would be going through Putin’s mind?

PUTIN: Comrade Bush! Glad you called. My people have tracked down some terrorists also. They’re hiding in caves on Wall Street. You should be seeing the nuclear detonations shortly…

As is always the way, little nukes will lead to bigger nukes, which will be declared as ‘safe’ as the smaller ones.

The aftermath of this attack bears close scrutiny. What other nations do or fail to do will be rather telling. What would a failure to react on the part of other nations say to you?

I, for one, would be shocked if some nation didn’t file with the World Court to have the US declared a rogue state…although I admit I’m somewhat surprised this hasn’t already happened.

Not that we pay any attention to the World Court.

The breaching of the MAD pact could have some very dire consequences that may not appear right away. Is the world ready to accept the idea that any nation at any time is free to use nukes without fear of the retaliation that MAD promised?

Or will MAD be triggered when we attempt to ‘pre-empt’ Iran’s nuclear ambitions by using nuclear weapons?

If you care to don your tinfoil hat for a moment I’ll share what a global ‘non-reaction’ to the US use of tactical nukes means to me…

It means the global multinational corporations have cemented their hold over the governments of the world and now have control of their nuclear capabilities.

Kinda gives a new meaning to the term ‘don’t piss off the boss.’

That said, I found several excellent web sites with tons of information regarding what you need to know in the event of a nuclear attack.

And okay, I admit it. I’m rigging up a shelter and stockpiling food and water. We only have a couple of weeks.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner