NATO Nuclear Weapons

Europe is heavily armed with nuclear weapons. Both Britain and France possess their own nuclear forces and the United States has a long history of keeping nuclear weapons on European soil. Britain’s nuclear force is estimated at under 200 weapons, with approximately 150 deployed on four Vanguard submarines and the remainder kept in reserve. France is thought to have approximately 350 nuclear weapons in its Force de frappe (strike force). The US keeps some 200-350 nuclear weapons in six countries: Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, Turkey and the UK. Recent unconfirmed reports indicate that the US has pulled its nuclear weapons out of the UK. If this is correct, approximately 240 US nuclear weapons remain in five European countries.

On the NATO website, it states, “NATO has radically reduced its reliance on nuclear forces. Their role is now more fundamentally political, and they are no longer directed towards a specific threat.” This is a rather enigmatic statement, leaving one to ponder how nuclear weapons are used in a “fundamentally political” role. The NATO website adds, “NATO's reduced reliance on nuclear forces has been manifested in a dramatic reduction in the number of weapons systems and storage facilities. NATO has also ended the practice of maintaining standing peacetime nuclear contingency plans and as a result, NATO's nuclear forces no longer target any country.”

Given the fact that NATO does not target any other country with nuclear weapons, one wonders what role they still serve. Again, the NATO website provides an answer, which is “to maintain only the minimum number of nuclear weapons necessary to support its strategy of preserving peace and preventing war.” But this still leaves one wondering with whom one is “preserving peace and preventing war.” Although nothing is stated, it would seem that the answer is likely to be Russia. This might explain why NATO has expanded up to the Russian western border, despite earlier US promises to Russia not to do so, and also why the US continues to pursue the placement of missile defense installations in new NATO states Poland and the Czech Republic, despite continuing Russian protests.

NATO reasoning for maintaining nuclear weapons seems very flimsy. If there is anything that is clear about nuclear weapons, it is that they cannot protect their possessors. All of the nuclear weapons in Europe cannot protect any European city from a nuclear attack by an extremist organization. Reliance upon these weapons provides an incentive for nuclear proliferation, increasing the possibilities that these weapons will fall into the hands of such an organization and will be used.

If European nations want to provide true security to the citizens of their countries, they should end NATO’s reliance upon nuclear weapons by taking the following steps:

• Call for the removal of all US nuclear weapons from Europe.

• Call for the US to remove its missile defense installations from the Russian border

• Negotiate the removal of all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and the western regions of Russia.

• Create a global treaty to bring all weapons-grade fissile material under strict and effective international control.

• Call for the NATO nuclear weapons states (US, UK and France) to fulfill their obligations under the
  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

• Take a leading role in initiating negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, setting forth a roadmap for the phased,
  verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

• Join Russia and China in negotiating a ban on space weaponization.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a councilor of the World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org).

Iran Executes Sixth Juvenile Offender This Year

Zare is the sixth juvenile offender Iran has executed this year. No other country is known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008. Since January 2005, Iran has executed at least 26 juvenile offenders. During the same period, only four other countries – Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Pakistan – are known to have executed any juvenile offenders, with a combined total of six such executions in the four countries.

"Iran leads the world in executing juvenile offenders" said Clarisa Bencomo, researcher on children's rights in the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. "Everywhere else, countries are moving to end this abhorrent practice, but in Iran the numbers of death sentences seem to be increasing."

Branch 5 of the Fars Criminal Court had sentenced Zare to death on November 13, 2005, for a murder committed on April 21, 2005, when he was 16. Branch 33 of the Supreme Court upheld the ruling on May 14, 2007. Authorities at Shiraz Prison executed Zare on August 26, 2008.

Zare's family and his lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, only learned of Zare's execution after the fact, although Iranian law requires that the lawyer be notified 48 hours before the execution. Zare's family and lawyer had been trying to reach a settlement with the victim's family at the time of the execution.

Zare's execution closely follows the execution of juvenile offender Seyyed Reza Hejazi at Isfahan Central Prison on August 19, 2008. Branch 106 of the Isfahan General Court had convicted Hejazi of murder on November 14, 2005, for his role in a 2003 fight involving several people. Hejazi was 15 at the time of the crime, and repeatedly told authorities that he had not intended to kill the victim.

As in the case of Zare, the authorities did not notify Hejazi's lawyer, also Mohammad Mostafaei, 48 hours prior to the execution. Instead, Mostafaei learned of the pending execution from a journalist the night before. Prison authorities refused to allow Mostafaei to visit Hejazi the morning of the execution, and he eventually left after a prison official told him the execution had been stayed. Instead, prison officials executed Hejazi an hour later.
"Killing people for crimes committed as children provides neither justice nor safety for Iranian society," Bencomo said. "The Iranian authorities' willingness to lie to lawyers and to deprive families of a last chance to see their loved ones only underscores the depravity of these executions."

Climate Change and Nuclear Testing

We hear a lot about climate change in every form of media. Have you noticed that all of the Nuclear Testing was quickly dismissed as a problem?

The Hiroshima bomb was a very small one compared to the power of the newer, faster, greater and best kill ones today. Everyone of them was tested at some point along the way. The largest ever tested was 110 Megatons. The Hiroshima bomb was 22 Kilotons. In other words the biggest Nuclear Test was 5,000 times the size of Hiroshima.

In general classifications of bursts: air, high-altitude, underwater, underground, and surface bursts. Temperatures of a nuclear explosion reach those in the interior of the sun, about 100,000,000°.

Sent into the high stratosphere includes the Ozone Layer, which we were told was being destroyed by our underarm spray. Here is how it works in the Nuclear digests; 70% of the scientists believe that 30% of the Ozone Layer was destroyed by Nuclear testing, while the other 30% of the scientists believe that 70% was destroyed. Is anyone surprised that the ice is melting at higher altitudes and at the North and South poles of our planet?

The cows were blamed because they fart too much, humans for breathing and trees for dying. Yes, the furnaces of industry are causing a problem that we always called pollution. Not good for breathing and makes a mess of the water and just about everything.

This is what I found in a Nuclear Testing report written during the time when tests were being made almost every day. "Nitric oxides. These oxides are carried into the upper atmosphere, where they reduce the concentration of protective ozone depletion produce changes in the Earth's climate. This would allow more ultraviolet radiation from the Sun through the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth, where it could produce dangerous burns and a variety of potentially dangerous ecological effects..."

What does 5,000 tons of Nitric Oxide produced from every Megaton mean? We are talking an estimated 2,000,000+ tons of this deadly substance in the higher atmosphere. It takes 1000s of years for it to disappear, although nobody knows for certain that it will ever disappear.

Plutonium 239 has a half-life of "24,400 years" so what does that mean? This particular poison is in our Water, Air and Ground forever.

It is easier for the media and the climate change groups to tell a lie, rather than tell the truth. All of the talks are a terrific joke when looked at through a simple childhood experience.

Was it not much easier for a parent to give us a slap in order to tell us we had done something wrong? We were too busy crying than ask the question "why did you do that to me?"

Here is a short 5 minute video that puts Nuclear Testing to the question. What did the 1000s of Nuclear Tests truthfully do to our planet? What you are hearing is an edited version of an actual Al Gore speech.

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