War Games
Nuclear threat that Trumps all others Steve Leigh and Alan Maass point out that the main source of nuclear tension lies in an arsenal many times bigger than the one North Korean has developed
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he unthinkable possibility of nuclear war is once again in the headlines after US officials reacted with shrill threats to a North Korean government claim to have tested its most powerful nuclear bomb yet. This is the latest escalation in a game of nuclear chicken, with calculated provocations on all sides – though to judge from the mainstream media, it is only North Korea’s Kim Jung-un who is driving the world to the brink of a nightmare. This is false. The North Korean test of what it says was a more destructive hydrogen bomb, along with more launches of missiles supposedly capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, came within days of the annual large-scale military exercises carried out by South Korea, Japan and the US These “war games” are an aggressive threat directed explicitly at North Korea – but US political leaders and media commentators present them as if they are purely defensive, while heaping scorn on anyone who suggests otherwise. North Korea’s latest nuclear detonation, the first since Trump was inaugurated, is a frightening development. Media outlets reported that this bomb was estimated to be as much 10 times more powerful than previous blasts, and the regime claimed the bomb could be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Yet in all the talk of kilotons and missile ranges, the media left out one important statistic: The nuclear arsenal at the command of the warlord-in-chief in Washington, DC, is 700 times bigger than North Korea’s. ——————— One nuclear warhead anywhere in the world – and controlled by unaccountable leaders, as is true of every government that possesses them – is one too many. But the undeniable fact is that North Korea is a bit player among the nuclear powers. According to the Arms Control Association, as of July 2017, North Korea possessed an estimated 10 nuclear warheads. Israel was estimated to have eight times as many warheads in an arsenal it has never publicly acknowledged – but you won’t hear Donald Trump complaining about the reactionary fanatic, bent on the ethnic cleansing of the original inhabitants of Palestine, in charge of those weapons. Regional rivals India and Pakistan are each thought to possess well over 100 nukes. That’s the same India that Donald Trump, in his speech announcing the escalation of the US war on Afghanistan, invited to join in Washington’s colonial war, “a sure-fire way to bring nuclear-armed India and Pakistan [which borders Afghanistan] into a terrifying confrontation,” wrote columnist and author Eric Margolis. The United Kingdom, China and France
Israel was estimated to have eight times as many warheads in an arsenal it has never publicly acknowledged – but you won’t hear Donald Trump complaining about the reactionary fanatic, bent on the ethnic cleansing of the original inhabitants of Palestine, in charge of those weapons
www.coldtype.net | September 2017 | ColdType
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