|
June 5, 2002
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
June 2, 2002
Fidel Castro
From FDR to Mister "W.":
Cuba, the US and Democracy
Arundhati Roy
Under the
Nuclear Shadow
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
May 31, 2002
Rev. Sandra Olewine
Land Grabs and Occupation:
Silent Destruction of Palestine
James Dunlop
Russian
Colonel:
"Insane But Fit for Duty"
Chomsky / Bennett
Debating "Terrorism"
May 30, 2002
Steve Perry
Jim Carrey:
"Love Me!"
Tom Turnipseed
Sex Among the Sacred
George Monbiot
Corporate
Phantoms
Web of Deciet over GM Foods
Robert Jensen
Are You a Journalist
or a Patriot?
Gary Leupp
Georgia
and the War on Terror
May 29, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Age of Inequality
Philip Farruggio
The
Cleaning Lady
Bill Christison
Disastrous US Foreign Policy:
Part 2, Globalization
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
June 5, 2002
Where Are the
"Moral" Leaders Now?
For What Do We Fight?
by Ardeshir Cowasjee
Reacting to my column of last week in which I
quoted Albert Einstein's (probably apocryphal) remark after
he had seen the effects of the atom bomb on Japan about wishing
he had been a shoemaker rather than a scientist, a reader responded
saying that it should be clockmaker.
However, one observation of Einstein's
which is not apocryphal, but a recorded fact is: "If relativity
is proved right, the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss
will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a
great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will
call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans
will call me a Jew."
This calls to mind our physicist, the
Ahmadi, Professor Abdus Salam, my contemporary. When he was
awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979, he was recognized and lauded
as a Pakistani and a Muslim, although the 1973 Constitution
did not admit to the latter. When I met him in the mid-1980s,
I asked him whether he was still considered to be a Pakistani
and a Muslim. He held my hand, smiled, and replied, "Does
it matter?" But, then, I was talking to a profoundly educated
human being.
Another reader has forwarded to me a
paper published in 1999 by Russell D. Hoffman on 'The Effects
of Nuclear Weapons'. It sets it all out very neatly. This paper
has been checked by our present nuclear physicist, Dr Pervez
Hoodbhoy, who confirms its contents to be reasonably accurate,
qualifying at the same time that the effects described therein
are for a 1,000 kiloton bomb and that Pakistan and India profess
to only possess bombs ranging from 20 to 25 kilotons.
Let us remember how, during the latter
half of May 1998, there was much joyful dancing in the streets
of both India and Pakistan. Why? Because, in all probability,
nine out of ten of the people of both countries had no idea
of the effects of a nuclear blast. They still do not know, because
the leaders of both countries, irresponsible and self-serving,
have not bothered to tell them. They do not know there is nothing
to dance about in either the possession or the use of nuclear
weapons - they are not known as weapons of mass destruction
without valid reason.
The US, the sole world superpower and
the sole possible intermediary in the dangerous game now being
played on the subcontinent, knows well that as many as nine
out of ten who die from a nuclear blast do not die in the explosion
itself - they are not simply and neatly instantly vaporized.
The State Department is now considering
the evacuation of some 63,000 of its citizens (amongst whom
are my three lovable Jack Russell terriers of Virginian origin)
who now reside in South Asia. There is, naturally, no reason
why any foreigner, and for that matter any Pakistani or Indian,
should be vaporized merely because of the shenanigans of stupid
men.
Current estimates are that 12 million
will be killed outright in a nuclear exchange between the two
warring countries, and countless more millions will linger on,
dying slowly, painfully, horribly. Taking Hoffman's 1,000 kiloton
blast as an example, those within a radius of, say, six square
miles will be killed by the gamma rays emitted by the blast.
They will be the lucky ones. They will have no warning, no idea
as to what it was that cooked them. Outside the circle, for
another ten miles or so, every living thing, human or animal,
will be instantly blinded by the bright light from the explosion,
many times hotter than the sun, whether their eyes be open or
closed. And from fifty miles away from the epicentre, those
who happen to be looking towards the detonation will lose their
sight.
The initial gamma burst will be followed,
a tenth of a second later, by a multi-spectral heat blast, followed
over the next few seconds by a pressure wave which will cause
all living things in its way to bleed from every orifice of
their bodies. The wave will be accompanied by high-velocity
winds, as great as 70 miles per hour as far away as six miles
from the epicentre, which winds, carrying dangerous debris,
will cause multiple wounds and injuries. The wave and the winds
will cause the death of many, and those that survive, over perhaps
an area of a hundred square miles, will later suffer from vomiting,
skin rashes, and an unquenchable thirst. Their hair (dyed or
natural) will fall out in clumps, their skin will peel off.
After all this, there is more to come.
The next immediate threat is a firestorm of intense heat and
hurricane force, that can, in the case of a one megaton blast,
cover a hundred square miles, driving towards the centre where
the mushroom-shaped cloud is rising, miles up into the skies,
reaching out to cover an area of almost ten miles across. The
cloud will dissipate within an hour, and then comes the invisible
untrackable spread of death and disease. The cloud's drift will
carry a deadly cargo for thousands of miles, over international
borders into countries which have no involvement in the India-Pakistan
dispute.
More fun to come. Further death and destruction,
and no dancing in the streets in which the asphalt is melting
and burning as burning people try to run along them. Those on
fire who can find water in which to jump will catch fire again
when they surface. Survivors of the initial blast who have lived
through all these subsequent horrors will die over the next
few weeks as their bodies begin to break down internally, at
the molecular level, life ebbing away painfully as they slowly
bleed to death from each and every orifice and pore. Other deaths
will occur much later from the widespread release of radioactive
materials into the environment. Cancer, leukemia and other genetic
damage will strike generations to come.
For the first day or so after the blast,
visible pieces of fallout will appear, some like great chunks
of marble. Later, and continuing on and on, the fallout will
be invisible and trackable only with geiger counters carried
by men in moonsuits which, under the circumstances, would be
unobtainable.
The final manifestation is the Electro-Magnetic
Pulse caused by the nuclear blast, which can be as large as
the subcontinent and as deadly. It can electrify metallic structures
in such a way that an entire country can seem to have been struck
by lightning in one fell swoop. To cite just a few of the happenings,
pacemakers will cease to work, aircraft will fall from the skies,
train tracks and telephone wiring will carry the charge, and
whatever does not explode will cease to function.
There are no benefits, none at all, to
be had either from the possession of, or from the use of, nuclear
weapons of mass destruction. Our jihadis may console themselves,
and fool others, by propagating that so far the Indian nuclear
arsenal is far inferior to ours.
Nuclear physicist, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy
(hoodbhoy@Ins.mit.edu>),
has prepared a 35-minute video documentary film which takes
a critical look at what the bomb has done for the two countries.
He has suggested to our moribund PTV that it show this film
so that the people know what is what when it comes to their
precious nuclear arsenal, but typically PTV has refused. Obviously,
its useless mandarins are too afraid. Should anyone, prior to
their impending possible vaporization, wish to see this video
they may obtain a copy from Pervez.
All going well, I should be writing again
next week.
Ardeshir Cowasjee writes a column for Dawn. He can be reached
at ac@xiber.com.
|