In memory and sadness
Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
Nagasaki, August 9, 1945
59 years ago today
When we hear the US regime talking about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and justifing the pre-emptive strikes on Afghanistan and Iraq to prevent them from trying to aquire nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, let us remember what one country has ever had the monsterous arrogance to actually use nuclear weapons in anger... the United States of America.
The 15 kiloton bomb at Hiroshima killed approximately 117,000 people immediately, with another 70-100 thousand dying later. The 2.2 kiloton bomb at Nagasaki three days later killed approximately 70,000 people.
The bombs of today have far more destructive power. Most land-based weapons in the current US arsenal are estimated according to unclassified sources to be in the 300-400 kiloton yeild range, 20-25 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The 18 Trident submarines carry 24 missiles each capable of carrying 8 one hundred kiloton warheads or 5 to 14 four hundred seventy-five kiloton warheads. That means each of the 18 Trident subs carries the equivalent destructive potential of approximately 1,500 Hiroshimas. This is enough to kill approximately one hundred fifty million people per sub within a few hours.
Another frequently quoted figure is that each Trident carries a destructive potential approximately equal to three to four times that of all weapons fired by all sides during all of World War II. World War Three in a Can... just add idiot president and stir.
The US is estimated to have roughly 10,000 nuclear warheads with at least half of those currently deployed.
So what is supposed to happen to countries which threaten to deploy or use "nuke-u-lar" weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Bush?
Never Again
http://www.cdi.org/issues/nukef&f/database/usnukes.html
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YORBA LINDA, Calif. -- The casket seemed too small a container to hold the larger-than-life figure of Richard Nixon.
The four Marines standing motionless around the box stared forward as the crowd of mourners, which had waited eight hours in an unusually cold California evening, paid its last respects.
There was a feeling of forgiveness, of Christian forbearance in the air, as Nixon's remains came home.
For some outside the Nixon Library and Birthplace, emotions heavy and sad ruled the day. "People always make so much of others' mistakes," an almost-tearful teenaged girl told her friend early Wednesday as they waited to file by Nixon's closed casket. "They never talk about their own mistakes. They always want to judge you."
For others, it seemed impossible. Nixon dead? No way. Here was the man who knew Mao and Churchill, whose knack for going straight to the jugular was legendary, whose appetite for revenge was matched only by his endurance. If anyone could cheat death -- or strike some sort of devious bargain to forestall it -- it would have been Nixon. His relentless thirst for knowledge, to engage in debate, to vanquish his enemies, could only be stilled by death.
Outside, the line to see Nixon stretched on and on. Around 42,000 people in total paid their respects to the 37th President of the United States. The so-called Silent Majority was no longer silent in its grief, as Bob Dole noted. Some were there to mourn, others to gawk, and others were just enjoying -- or not, as the temperature dropped into the low 50s -- a night out.
"I'm sure as hell not standing in this line for Reagan, so don't even ask," a middle-aged man told his wife as they took their place at the end of the line, past the Yorba Linda Community Center, near highway 91.
One thinks, passing by the box, that Nixon couldn't possibly be contained there, in that small space; he was too crafty for that. One pictures him watching the scene via closed-circuit camera from a hidden anteroom, no doubt planning his next takeover as part of a caretaker government.