William Adler of the Austin Chronicle reports
from Omaha with a chilling piece on Bush's plans for
preemptive nuclear war. Every president, Democrat and Republican,
from Truman to Clinton has had a policy in place that nuclear
weapons would only be used as a last resort. They would only be
used if the survival of the nation itself was at stake and there
were no other options left. Since 9/11, Bush has quietly and with
with virtually no public debate changed the policy where he can
now alone make that ultimate decision at any time to launch a
nuclear war against anything he sees as a threat. The radical
departure from past policy has given Bush unprecedented and
deadly authority.
Adler looks at Stratcom which controls 2,000 nuclear warheads
loaded and ready to be fired. On order of the President, within
15 minutes thousands of nuclear missles would scream out of
underground silos and be launched from air and sea and be on
their way to their designated targets creating a sea of fire. Another 5,000 warheads could be
moved into into place.
On September 11, 2001, Bush flew to Nebraska and went deep under
the ground at Offutt Air Force Base in a bunker that is built to
withstand a nuclear attack. There was no policy in place on that
date that date that a President could launch a preemptive nuclear
strike. Now now there is, at any time he could literally bring
about the end of the world and the black rain would fall.
Every president since Truman relegated the bomb to a category
unto itself, to be locked away unless the nation's very survival
were at stake. Not so George W. Bush. In the introduction to his
administration's "National Security Strategy to Combat
Weapons of Mass Destruction," Bush wrote that the U.S.
"will continue to make it clear that it reserves the right
to respond with overwhelming force -- including potentially
nuclear weapons -- to the use of WMD against the United States,
our forces abroad, and friends and allies" (emphasis added).
-Offut
Air Force Base, Nebraska
I was small, so I pushed on the river along the small steps. The
water was dead people. I had to push the bodies aside to drink
the muddy water. We didn't know anything about radioactivity that
time. I stood up in the water and so many bodies were floating
away along the stream. I cant find the words to describe it. It
was horrible. I felt fear. Instead of going into the water, I
climbed up the river bank. I couldn't move. I couldn't find my
shadow. I looked up. I saw the cloud, the mushroom cloud growing
in the sky. It was very bright. It had so much heat inside. It
caught the light and it showed every color of the rainbow.
Reflecting on the past, its strange, but I could say that it was
beautiful. Looking at the cloud, I thought I would never be able
to see my mother again, I wouldn't be able to see my younger
brother again. And then, I lost consciousness.
-Yoshitaka
Kawamoto
I noticed the flashing light. It was not really a big flash. But
still it drew my attention. In a few seconds, the heat wave
arrived. After I noticed the flash, white clouds spread over the
blue sky. It was amazing. It was as if blue morning-glories had
suddenly bloomed up in the sky. It was funny, I thought. Then
came the heat wave. It was very very hot. Even though there was a
window glass in front of me, I felt really hot. It was as if I
was looking directly into a kitchen oven.
-Isao
Kita
What impressed my very strongly was a 5 or 6 year-old-boy with
his right leg cut at the thigh. He was hopping on his left foot
to cross over the bridge. I can still record this scene very
clearly. The water of the river we looking at now is very clean
and clear, but on the day of bombing, all the houses along this
river were blown by the blast with their pillars, beams and
pieces of furniture blown into the river or hanging off the
bridges. The river was also filled with dead people blown by the
blast and with survivors who came here to seek water. Anyway I
could not see the surface of the water at all. Many injured
people with peeled skin were crying out for help.
-Akira
Onogi

Slim Pickens' character riding the bomb to oblivion in Dr.
Strangelove
Rob is the
founder and editor of the progressive news site robwire.com and is a
frequent contributor to rob.dailykos.com