Excerpt:
John Bolton, former ambassador to the U.N. under the Bush administration, apparently has a novel idea of “ensuring peace” in the middle east. A nuclear first strike on Iran.
During a conference at the University of Chicago sponsored by the University Young Republicans and Chicago Friends of Israel, ironically entitled “Ensuring Peace,” Bolton stated once again:
Negotiations have failed, and so too have sanctions. So we’re at a very unhappy point — a very unhappy point — where unless Israel is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran’s program, Iran will have nuclear weapons in the very near future.
The mere mention of a nuclear first strike should wake people up to the fact that maniacs like Bolton, who would risk starting World War Three, are given air time in our media and access to our young minds.
Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-23316-Madison-Independent-Examiner~y2009m10d16-John-Boltons-idea-of-peace-A-nuclear-first-strike-on-Iran
Bolton and his fellow neocons, desperate to drop the ‘Big One,’ show their alarming ignorance of atomic weaponry. When Chernobyl had a meltdown in 1986, cows in Sweden a thousand miles away were giving irradiated milk from the radioactive fallout, and that was just from a slow leak.
Dropping an H-bomb on Iran would release radiation over a widespread area, and it would be impossible to confine it within Iranian borders. Ironically, such radiation could even end up making Israelis sick, but it’s certain that our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the people of those countries, would be poisoned from the fallout, short and long term. I’m always amazed that when one of these pinheads like Bolton starts babbling about nuclear attacks, someone doesn’t ask them where they think the fallout will be deposited.
As we found out from our aboveground nuclear tests in New Mexico and Nevada in the ’40s and ’50s, the radioactive particles are sent into the upper atmosphere where they can ‘float’ thousands of miles on the winds at high altitude. One AEC scientist said that every major American city has received fallout in this manner from atomic testing decades ago, and it’s likely the cause of the upsurge in soft tissue, bone and lung cancers in the US in the past 40 years.
Apparently, maniacs like Bolton don’t realize this or, worse, they do and just don’t care.
Comment by RS Janes — October 16, 2009 @ 6:35 am
This one generated my first “monkey mail” comment. Check it out: I agree 100% with Mr. Bolton, Israel has no choice, either they wipe out Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons immediately or they wait until Tehran vaporizes Tel Aviv and by that point they lose upwards of a million citizens. Israel does have about 200 F-16s and F-15s and some ballistic missles but these assests armed conventionally just do not pack enough punch to completely destroy Iran’s 4 nuclear sites. We are all waiting for Israel to do the right thing. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com
Comment by Greg in cheeseland — October 16, 2009 @ 1:33 pm
Our own government has never been truthful regarding illness and atomic testing.
But I am struck by the fact that we do not have any idea what kind of maniacs exist in Iran who would be as bad as Bolton or worse on the use of an atom bomb.
At least Israel is usually on our team.
Comment by Sel — October 17, 2009 @ 9:39 pm
Sel, the ‘Iranian maniac’ is a fiction invented by radical right-wing US and Israeli fearmongers like John Bolton and repeated by our brainless Big Media. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979, the Iranians have never shown themselves to be particularly crazy — for example, they haven’t preemptively invaded other countries. The only war they’ve been involved in since 1979 was started by Iraq, with the US supplying arms and aid to Saddam Hussein, the bloody dictator who was then our good friend.
Separate the political rhetoric from the facts — Iran has nothing to gain from a nuclear attack on Israel, just as the US, USSR and China had nothing to gain from a nuclear exchange during the Cold War.
Comment by RS Janes — October 18, 2009 @ 6:33 am