The People’s Daily Chinese news site is reporting that on August 8, 2003, a secret Pentagon meeting was held outside Omaha, Nebraska, to develop “smaller, more effective special nuclear weapons.” The Chinese are alarmed that this would “…exert great impact on the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty), for the treaty aims to restrict the development and testing of new-type nuclear weapons conducted by related countries.”
Think of all the money the US spends on weapons delivery platforms, from SSBN submarines with Trident C4 & D5 MIRV missiles, to stealth B2 bombers and other cruise missile launchers that must go within 1,000 nautical miles or so of the target. Billions and billions of dollars.
Now think how the British learned from the Colonists who hid behind trees and won the war of rebellion against their ‘superior’ combat forces. Today, British troops fight just like Americans, because there are no rules. “The only way is no way,” said Bruce Lee, who is still centuries ahead of his time.
We might consider that the US, like Britain, has learned from terrorists. In the modern lesson, Muslim fanatics are widely rumored to be sneaking suitcase nukes into America to detonate inside cities and military targets. Searching for such devices is a logistical nightmare.
We can speculate that is not a great leap of Pentagon imagination to plant a higher-yield suitcase nuke anywhere in a foreign city hostile or potentially hostile to US interests, then perhaps even years later send the ‘launch codes’ directly to it, wiping out that city. No muss, no fuss. No billion-dollar middleman SSBN or B2. No fifteen-minute warning. And think of all the money that could be saved.
It’s no wonder that China is alarmed. To their way of thinking, the US already has the means and the motive. All it needs is the opportunity.
Looking down the road, we can imagine every major city on earth with scores of suitcase thunder-eggs nesting in its dusty basements, all from different governments with different agendas but with the exact same solution for political problems: death to dissent.
When is this madness going to end? Probably never. Even if we all destroy ourselves by hatching thousands of eggs, the few survivors will only raise up to do it all over again.
Luke 18 says that “…when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” But I am now forced to think further of a new world using hidden shortcut nuclear weapons, that if and when Jesus bothers to come again, will he find any humans at all.
August 15, 2003
Jack Duggan [send him mail] lives in Fort Apache (Hamilton, New Jersey, site of the anthrax mailings) with his family. He thinks everyone who loves their country and not the government should honor only the original U.S. Colonial flag with its thirteen stars and stripes.
