Today’s Potential Targets for US Nuclear Attacks

More than 2000 nuclear explosions have occurred since 1945 as part of nuclear weapons’ testing.

Officially only two nuclear bombs (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 6 and 9, August 1945) have been used in an act of war.

The media consensus is that a nuclear holocaust is an impossibility. 

Should we be concerned? 

Publicly available military documents confirm that nuclear war is still on the drawing board  of the Pentagon.

Compared to the 1950s, however, today’s nuclear weapons are far more advanced. The delivery system is more precise. In addition to China and Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea are targets for a first strike pre-emptive nuclear attack.

Let us be under no illusions, the Pentagon’s plan to blow up the planet using advanced nuclear weapons is still on the books.

War is Good for Business: Spearheaded by the “defense contractors” (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, British Aerospace  et al), the Obama administration has proposed a one trillion dollar plan over a 30 year period to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, bombers, submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) largely directed at Russia and China.

A new arms race is unfolding. Russia has in turn responded to US threats through a major modernization of its strategic nuclear weapons arsenal.

Political Insanity

The use of nuclear weapons is casually endorsed by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who believes that nuclear weapons are instruments of peace-making. Her election campaign is financed by the US military industrial complex which produces the WMDs.

Meanwhile, scientists on contract to the Pentagon have endorsed the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which are said to be “harmless to the surrounding  civilian population because the explosion is underground.” The tactical nukes are bona fide thermonuclear weapons, with an explosive capacity between one third and six times a Hiroshima bomb. They have been cleared for battlefield use (in the conventional war theater) by the US Senate and their use does not require the approval by the Commander in Chief.

The people at the highest levels of government who make decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons haven’t  the foggiest idea as to the implications of their actions.

Cold War versus Post Cold War Nuclear Doctrine 

A recently released classified Pentagon document (1959) confirms that during the Cold War, 1200 cities extending from Eastern Europe to the Far East were targeted for systemic destruction.

Source: National Security Archive

According to 1956 Plan, H-Bombs were to be Used Against Priority “Air Power” Targets in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe.

Major Cities in Soviet Bloc, Including East Berlin, Were High Priorities in “Systematic Destruction” for Atomic Bombings.  (William Burr, U.S. Cold War Nuclear Attack Target List of 1200 Soviet Bloc Cities “From East Germany to China”, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 538, December 2015

Excerpt of list of 1200 cities targeted for nuclear attack in alphabetical order. National Security Archive

Today’s List of Targeted Cities 

This policy of nuclear bombing of targeted cities is still on the drawing board of the Pentagon. While today’s list of targets remains classified, cities in Russia, China, the Middle East, North Korea are on the target list. An Associated Press report quoting Pentagon sources (June 4, 2015) confirms that:

The Pentagon has been actively considering the use of nuclear missiles against military targets inside Russia, …  Three options being considered by the Pentagon are the placement of anti-missile defenses in Europe aimed at shooting Russian missiles out of the sky; a “counterforce” option that would involve pre-emptive non-nuclear strikes on Russia military sites; and finally, “countervailing strike capabilities,” involving the pre-emptive deployment of nuclear missiles against targets inside Russia.

The AP states: “The options go so far as one implied—but not stated explicitly—that would improve the ability of US nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory.” In other words, the US is actively preparing nuclear war against Russia.

Robert Scher, one of Carter’s nuclear policy aides, told Congress in April that the deployment of “counterforce” measures would mean “we could go about and actually attack that missile where it is in Russia.” According to other Pentagon officials, this option would entail the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles throughout Europe.

The criminality and recklessness of the foreign policy of Washington and its NATO allies is staggering. A pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russian forces, many of them near populated areas, could claim millions of lives in seconds and lead to a nuclear war that would obliterate humanity.

Even assuming that the US officials threatening Russia do not actually want such an outcome, however, and that they are only trying to intimidate Moscow, there is a sinister objective logic to such threats.” (Niles Williamson, Military Madness: US Officials Consider Nuclear Strikes against Russia, World Socialist Website, June 5, 2015, emphasis added)

Nuclear Tests Worldwide

Over 2000 Nuclear Tests have been conducted since 1945. Scroll down for video

 Source: Wikipedia, click to enlarge

Undeclared Nuclear States under NNPT:India, Pakistan, Israel, DPRK

Source Wikipedia

The Deployment of Nuclear Weapons by Nine Nuclear States

Source: www.Sipri.org

Nuclear Sites in the US  

“Map of major U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure sites during the Cold War and into the present. Places with grayed-out names are no longer functioning and are in various stages of environmental remediation.” (Wikipedia). Scroll down for Google Map.

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Google Maps and Daily Mail 

‘The map was produced from data suppled by the Defense Department and nuclear watchdog groups.

It shows where the warheads are (in red on the map), where the civilian nuclear power plants can be found (in green) and the location of labs and nuclear weapons plants (in blue). Daily Mail 

Five “Non-Nuclear States” (Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Turkey)

Possess and Deploy Nuclear Weapons

Five non-nuclear states (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey) have deployed the B61 tactical (thermonuclear) against targets in the Middle East and the Russian Federation.. The latest and more advanced version is the B61-12, which is contemplated to replace the older B61 version.

Source: National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005

 Video: Simulation of More than 2000 Nuclear Detonations Since 1945

Today’s Potential Targets for US Nuclear Attacks

Are countries in the Middle East potential targets for a nuclear attack? (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky,  Dangerous Crossroads: Is America Considering the Use of Nuclear Weapons against Libya? Global Research, April 2011).

The tactical nuclear weapons were specifically developed for use in post Cold War “conventional conflicts with third world nations”.  In October 2001, in the immediate wake of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld envisaged the use of the B61-11 tactical nuclear bomb in Afghanistan. The targets were Al Qaeda cave bunkers in the Tora Bora mountains.

Rumsfeld stated at the time that while the “conventional” bunker buster bombs “‘are going to be able to do the job’, … he did not rule out the eventual use of nuclear weapons.” (Quoted in the Houston Chronicle, 20 October 2001, emphasis added.)

Click image to order book directly from Global Research

The use of the B61-11 was also contemplated during the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq as well as in the 2011 NATO bombings of Libya.

In this regard, the B61-11 was described as “a precise, earth-penetrating low-yield nuclear weapon against high-value underground targets”, which included Saddam Hussein’s underground bunkers:

 ”If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime” (Defense News, December 8, 2003).

The 1996 Plan to Nuke Libya 

The B61-11 tactical nuclear weapon was slated by the Pentagon to be used in 1996 against Libya: “Five months after [Assistant Defense Secretary] Harold Smith called for an acceleration of the B61-11 production schedule, he went public with an assertion that the Air Force would use the B61-11 [nuclear weapon] against Libya… “(http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/B61-11.htm,)

“Senior Pentagon officials ignited controversy last April [1996] by suggesting that the earth-penetrating [nuclear] weapon would soon be available for possible use against a suspected underground chemical factory being built by Libya at Tarhunah.  (David Muller, Penetrator N-Bombs, International Action Center, 1997)

Tarbunah has a population of more than 200,000 people, men, women and children. It is about 60 km East of Tripoli. Had this “humanitarian bomb” (with a ”yield” or explosive capacity of two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb) been launched on this “suspected” WMD facility, it would have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, not to mention the nuclear fallout…  The man behind this diabolical project to nuke Libya was Assistant Secretary of Defense Harold Palmer Smith Junior. “Even before the B61 came on line, Libya was identified as a potential target”. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – September/ October 1997, p. 27 )

Concluding Remarks

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Nuclear war –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.

What we are dealing with is the criminalization of the State, whereby officials in high office are complicit in fostering the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. The media has camouflaged the implications of America’s post Cold war nuclear doctrine, which was formulated in a secret meeting at US Strategic Command Headquarters on Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2003.

On August 6, 2003, on Hiroshima Day, commemorating when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (August 6 1945), a secret meeting was held behind closed doors at Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

Senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex were in attendance. This mingling of defense contractors, scientists and policy-makers was not intended to commemorate Hiroshima. The meeting was intended to set the stage for the development of a new generation of “smaller”, “safer” and “more usable” nuclear weapons, to be used in the “in-theater nuclear wars” of the 21st Century.

In a cruel irony, the participants to this secret meeting, which excluded members of Congress, arrived on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing (August 6) and departed on the anniversary of the attack on Nagasaki (August 9). (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research, Montreal, 2012)

The Hiroshima Day 2003 meetings had set the stage for the “privatization of nuclear war”. Corporations not only reap multibillion-dollar profits from the production of nuclear bombs, they also have a direct voice in setting the agenda regarding the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.

All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped. “Offensive” military actions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of “self-defense”. During the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevailed, namely that the use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union would result in “the destruction of both the attacker and the defender”.

In the post Cold war era, US nuclear doctrine was redefined. There is no sanity in what is euphemistically called US foreign policy. At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable…

Stay informed, spread the word far and wide. To reverse the tide of war, the broader public must be informed. Post on Facebook/Twitter.

Confront the war criminals in high office.

What we really need is real “Regime Change in America”.

from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/there-is-no-danger-of-nuclear-war-or-is-there/5500276

27-second video: US State Department bursts-out laughing at idea they communicate for ‘transparency and democracy.’ Top ten rogue-state US crimes proves our tragic-comedy will continue until public demand for arrests

This post was originally published on this site

hat tip: Prison Planet

Mark Toner is the US State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson (#2 to John Kirby) for theBureau of Public Affairs. Yesterday, he opened their press conference with:

“Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy.”

Mr. Toner then exploded in wild laughter.

A reporter’s retort: “Is that what this is? I thought it was an exercise in spin and obfuscation”:

Five minutes of Toner’s boss, John Kirby, proving spin and obfuscation:

Another tragic-comic minute of Kirby (explanation here) refuting transparency and democratic commitment for truth:

The millions killed, billions harmed, and trillions looted make this farce criminal, not a laughing matter.

Professionals can easily explain, document, and prove US rogue state crimes are no joke, with the following providing a definition then a “top ten” list of state crimes requiring arrests in a constitutional republic:

1. Introduction to define ‘rogue state’ as perfect match with US illegal Wars of Aggression, Crimes Against Humanity, dictatorial government
2. The US violated ~600 treaties with Native Americans to steal Native American land. A treaty is signed by a US President, approved by 2/3 vote of the US Senate, and under Article VI of the US Constitution becomes US “supreme Law.” These ongoing “in your face” violations of “supreme Law” became the precedent to typical hypocritical and unlawful US policies of the present.
3. US President Polk lied to Congress (with their approval) to initiate War of Aggression on Mexico. The result was the US illegally stealing 40% of Mexico in 1848. Congress opposed Abraham Lincoln’s crystal-clear explanation as a member of Congress that the Adams-Onís Treaty placed the so-called “border dispute” 400 miles within land forever promised to Mexico and forever promised as outside any US claim.
4. The US violated our treaty with Hawaii and stole their country in 1898.
5. The US reneged on promises of freedom after the Spanish American War to impose colonialism on the Philippines, and install US-friendly dictators in Cuba. US military slaughtered resisters, calling them yesterday’s version of “terrorists.”
6. The US entered WW1 upon no national security threat to the US, and imprisoned the 3rd party presidential candidate for challenging “official reasons” for war.
7. The CIA had several covert wars; perhaps most important in today’s context of war on Iran: “Operation Ajax” that overthrew Iran’s democracy and installed a US-friendly and brutal dictator.  When that dictator was overthrown and Iran refused another, the US aided Iraq to unlawfully invade and attack Iran from 1980-1988; killing up to a million Iranians. If the US lied and acted twice to unlawfully overthrew Iran’s democracy within many of our own lifetimes, shouldn’t we assume first another lie-started unlawful war today?
8. The Vietnam War followed US permission to cancel the election to unify the country. The US stopped democracy to keep a friendly government, and perhaps to have ongoing live weapons testing and development. War escalated with the Gulf of Tonkin incident,  deliberate provocation to manipulate a false-flag event for “defensive” war.
9. Perhaps most disturbing is the King Family civil suit that found the US government guilty in the assassination of Dr. King (and here). Corporate media, including our text publishers, omit this history. The King family’s conclusion is that Martin was assassinated to prevent his “Occupy DC” plan beginning for the summer of 1968 to end his version of today’s wars.
10. We now know from Congressional reports that all “reasons” for war with Iraq were known to be false as they were told.
11. The two “reasons” for war with Iran are as false as the “reasons” for war with Iraq: Iran never threatened Israel, and Iran’s nuclear energy and medicine programs are IAEA-verified as completely safe and lawful.

Demanding arrests as the required and obvious public response:

The categories of crime include:

1. Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit).
2. Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths.
3. Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).

US military, law enforcement, and all with Oaths to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, face an endgame choice:

In just 90 seconds, former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk):

George Washington’s final public message was for “We the People” to recognize if the US devolved into a rogue state:

In the cumulating message of his 45 years of service with his Farewell Address, George Washington wrote an open letter to the American public.

Please give George two minutes of your attention:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion…

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.”

George’s admonition of “impostures of pretended patriotism” to “direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities” is exactly what the US has become: a rogue state, and requires public voice for lawful arrests to end its vicious destruction.

It is also what Benjamin Franklin predicted would be the eventual outcome of the United States. On September 18, 1787, just after signing the US Constitution, Ben met with members of the press. He was asked what kind of government America would have. Franklin warned: “A republic, if you can keep it.” In his speech to the Constitutional Convention, Franklin admonished: 

“This [U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism… when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”  – The Quotable Founding Fathers, pg. 39.

These warnings extend to all social science teachers of the present:

“As educators in the field of history–social science, we want our students to… understand the value, the importance, and the fragility of democratic institutions. We want them to realize that only a small fraction of the world’s population (now or in the past) has been fortunate enough to live under a democratic form of government.” – History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, pgs. 2, 7-8

Do you have the intellectual integrity and moral courage to at least act with the honesty of a child to speak the Emperor’s New Clothes truth?

**

Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board, public audiences of these articles, and international conferences. I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.

**

Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS, for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at Carl_Herman@post.harvard.edu

Note: Examiner.com has blocked public access to my articles on their site (and from other whistleblowers), so some links in my previous work are blocked. If you’d like to search for those articles other sites may have republished, use words from the article title within the blocked link. Or, go to http://archive.org/web/, paste the expired link into the box, click “Browse history,” then click onto the screenshots of that page for each time it was screen-shot and uploaded to webarchive. I’ll update as “hobby time” allows; including my earliest work from 2009 to 2011 (blocked author pages: here, here).