Americans no longer possess the visceral understanding of nuclear warfare possessed by inhabitants of the '60’s, '70’s and '80’s. Gone too are the days of Dr. Benjamin Spock climbing over nuclear facility fences preaching unilateral disarmament. The current generation of Americans, not seeing, not understanding, do not know they risk everything.
The Complicit Press and D.C. politicos share the blame in this. Following Mr. Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, not one commentator addressed in a substantive or meaningful way the implications for the U.S. and the world were Iran to detonate a nuclear device over a major city such as New York, D.C., or Tel Aviv.
Most Americans do possess a vague intuition about the realities of nuclear warfare, but they do not feel the realities.
In contrast, during the 1960s through 1980s, most Americans survived despite the background radiation of almost constant discussion of and controversies about nuclear warfare. Was nuclear war survivable? Could there be a “winner?” Should we disarm unilaterally? How powerful should our weapons be? How many should we have? How many people would be killed? Would MAD, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, keep us safe? Would the Soviets develop technology that might prevent us time to react? How dangerous would enduring radioactivity prove to be? And so on.
Everyone lived their lives afflicted with the reliable knowledge that at any time their whole world might end, and with no more than fifteen to thirty minutes’ warning, i.e. the time required for a Soviet-launched missile to reach the United States.
Those of us fifty-five and older have directly experienced innumerable debates on these topics, over years and years. We just haven’t experienced them in a long time. Younger generations haven’t experienced them at all.
In the absence of a legitimate national dialogue about the nuclear threat, our political leaders and their acolytes in the media feel free to speak glibly about Iran’s inevitable construction of nuclear weapons, as if that were the end of the matter, as if inevitability signified acceptability. They trivialize the need to address the true risks of a 40-kiloton nuclear strike (the likely limit of Iranian yield) over Tel Aviv or New York City.
Such a strike would kill 200,000 on the first day and 400,000 in the following days and weeks. If any of our leaders or media pundits gave serious thought to these numbers, or merely a passing thought, the idea of a full-scale invasion of Iran – to prevent such a catastrophe – would no longer seem so outrageous.
Of course, this requires taking the threat posed by Iran seriously. Obama’s indelible narcissism, however, constrains him from acknowledging the threat. Instead, because of collusion between our brain-challenged leaders and the Complicit Press, intentional or no, the Obama regime feels no pushback when it claims partial success in negotiating a ten-year delay in Iran’s ability to create a nuclear weapon. Iran’s leaders’ own words betray any agreed upon delay, however. The nature of Iran’s leaders precludes any lessening of its threat regardless in which ten year period they obtain the bomb.
It is obvious to anyone even marginally conscious that a negotiated delay is no better than no delay at all. Iran must never be permitted to possess a nuclear weapon, with or without delay.
From the moment an Iran with a bomb emerges, 200-400,000 Americans will become reasonably at risk for instantaneous annihilation. Star Wars was never completed. We possess no effective Anti-Missile Defense system (ABM). It should be easy to understand this is a game changer: The U.S. is entirely impotent once Iran pushes the button. The U.S. possesses enviable counterstrike capacity of course. But what good will this do when NYC or D.C. are smoking ruins?
Because of this, because we are not safe, any policy relevant to a nuclear Iran must guarantee Iran can never use a nuclear weapon. It should be obvious negotiations can never provide such a guarantee. Worse, relying upon MAD cannot provide such a guarantee.
The American public has a right to know the particulars of the unprecedented danger we face. And they will only understand the particulars if they are informed of them. The American public should know at minimum:
- Without ABM we are sitting ducks.
- Without confidence MAD is relevant to Iran we cannot be safe (the Iranians’ devotion to destruction of the West outweighs any fears of destruction by the West).
- Conclusion: We can only be safe if we can guarantee Iran is never capable of using a nuclear weapon. This permits few options for our safety. Again, it should be ridiculously obvious negotiation is not an option.
To lend perspective, let’s review what happens, exactly, when an Iranian 40 kiloton nuke detonates above Manhattan. First, a new sun erupts. Within milliseconds a fireball vaporizes everything within a 1,000-yard radius from ground zero. The explosion produces an air blast and lethal radiation that kills everything and levels most buildings within a 1.5-mile radius. A heat radiation blast consumes everything within a 2-mile radius and sparks huge fires over a much larger area. Finally, the delayed effects of radiation from radioactive fallout take many more lives over the following days, weeks and months. All in all, a 40-kiloton blast over Manhattan will kill about 200,000 Democrats.
For perspective, consider the bomb dropped over Hiroshima – a 15 kiloton bomb - about one-third the size of the likely 40 kiloton bomb Iran will use. In 1945, this small 15-kiloton Hiroshima bomb killed 100,000.
Consequently, the earlier fatalities figures are conservative. Using a more liberal estimate, in the event of a 40-kiloton NYC blast, we should reliably lose at least 500,000 Democrats.
If our leaders and media elites continue to fail to illuminate the true nature of the nuclear threat we face, Americans will remain blind to the most realistic means for extinguishing those threats.
We must see if we are to survive.
