Operation Liberty Shield is in place, and I am not sure how that is supposed to make me feel.
The Homeland Security department...doesn't that sound like a rather paranoid department? Anyway, the Homeland Security Department has raised the bar once again to level Orange. We, Americans, are once again on high alert.
This new level is in direct response to our President Bush's declaration of "get the hell out of Dodge." Logic says that if we give an 'evil' leader a 48 notice to move him and his sons out of his very own country, then we can pretty much expect this 'evil' man to do a preemptive attack.
I wonder if we really need this alert system to put us on "readiness," a.k.a 'scaring the shit out of Americans so that they will completly de-humanize Saddam and back Bush's war like good Americans should?"
I am so confused about this situation. So, our biggest beef with Hussein is we believe he is in possession of weapons of mass destruction and weapons of chemical and germ warfare. Well, now I have to admit I, too, am against the idea of anyone have chemical weapons, or nuclear weapons, for that matter. However, I can't really say no other country can have nuclear weapons since my country has them, and is the only ones to have used them. Chemical weapons no, Nuclear weapons, no comment until we destroy ours.
On a side note regarding nuclear weapons. I remember in one of my Anthropology classes in college we watched a movie about the Marshall Islands, focusing mostly on the Bikini Island testing. I remember it told the story of when we tested our nuclear weapons there after had already dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I guess we were still not convinced by all of the Death and cancer that it was truly a Weapon of destruction beyond the normal destruction we see with bombs of the non-nuclear variety.
During the period from June 30, 1946, to August 18, 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, all of which were considered atmospheric. The most powerful of those tests was the "Bravo" shot, a 15 megaton device detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini atoll. That test alone was equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.
We had told the natives there that their cooperation in these testings was very important to the world, and keeping the world peaceful. The islanders were moved out of the their homes on Bikini Island and relocated to a 'safer' Island that just happened to be down wind from the "Bravo" shot blast.
There were many stationed officers on ships in "safe zones" around the perimiter of the blast. I remember there was a "ghost ship" close to where the bomb was to go off above it in the atmosphere with goats in cages. They wanted to see what the effects would be on these goats from the nuclear explosion. Of course, when they went to check on them after the blast they were dead.
I have added here a time line of the Marshall Islands testings. Read through it if you want. I think it is good we know some of things we have done with weapons of mass destruction in the past before we start saying who should or should not possess them. In my opinion no country should have them. It is too much in the nature of man, this self-destruction, to allow any person, or group of people the access to destruction of us all.
If we destroy ourselves daily in our thoughts why would we not destroy an enemy, or an ally just the same?
I remember the thing that haunted me the most about the movie in Anthro. class was when a radio announcer was talking to America about this new weapons testing at this far away place, Bikini Island. He said that it was God's will that we received this weapon, because God knew we would be the only country to use it justly.
We are a country that believes a Nuclear Weapon is God's will.
Peace.
Marshall Islands Still Burdened with Legacy of American Nuclear Testing and Radioactive Poisoning
By Catherine Payne
Staff Writer
On Jan. 18, the United States conducted a missile test in the Marshall Islands, a small Pacific island nation that was a U.S. nuclear testing site from 1946 to 1958.
The following chronology of events highlights important dates in the history of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands:
1946- The U.S. evacuates Bikini, one of the Marshall Islands, to conduct the first post-World War II nuclear weapons tests.
1947- The Marshall Islands and most of Micronesia become a U.N. Trust Territory to be administered by the U.S. S
1948-1951- The U.S. conducts seven atomic tests at Enewetak, one of the Marshall Islands.
1952- Operation Ivy includes the test of a thermonuclear device that is estimated to be 750 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. The device vaporizes an island.
1954- The Bravo hydrogen bomb, which is 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, is detonated at Bikini. Within hours, a white ash envelops Bikini and nearby islands. Islanders exposed to the radioactive fallout immediately suffer nausea, vomiting and skin burns and later lose their hair.
Project 4.1, "Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation due to Fallout from High Yield Weapons" establishes a medical group to monitor and evaluate the islanders.
1956- Operation Redwing includes 17 nuclear tests, including several hydrogen bombs.
The United States gives the people of Enewetak and Bikini a total of $50,000 in compensation.
1958- Operation Hardtack consists of 32 nuclear tests.
1963- Medical professionals detect thyroid tumors among the islanders.
1975- The people of Bikini file a lawsuit in U.S. federal court for a complete scientific survey of the Marshall Islands.
1976- The U.S. Congress approves $20 million and military logistic support for a nuclear cleanup of Enewetak.
1980- The U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency announces the completion of the Enewetak nuclear cleanup, which cost $218 million.
1986- The Compact of Free Association between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States goes into effect. Under the terms of the Compact, the United States will provide economic assistance to the Marshall Islands in grants that range from $26.1 to $19.1 million per year over a 15-year period. In return, the Republic of the Marshall Islands gives the United States the right to use its lands, waters and airspace for military activities and operations. In addition, "The Compact includes an espousal provision, prohibiting Marshall Islanders from seeking future legal redress in U.S. courts and dismissing all current court cases in exchange for a $150 million compensation trust fund," according to a Republic of the Marshall Islands report.
1994- U.S. Reps. George Miller and Ron de Lugo write to the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, "There is no doubt that the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) intentionally returned (Marshallese) to islands which it considered to be "by far the most contaminated places in the world, but which it told the people were safe. Nor is there any doubt that the AEC, through the Brookhaven National Laboratory, then planned and conducted test after test on these people to study their bodies’ reaction to life in that contaminated environment."
In the past few years, the people of the Marshall Islands made personal claims that totaled $43.2 million on the Nuclear Claims Tribunal’s fund which the United States provided under the terms of the Compact. As of today, the $45-million trust fund is nearly exhausted.
In 2001, specific provisions of the Compact of Free Association will be up for renegotiation. Those provisions include the economic assistance the United States will provide to the Marshall Islands as well as the right of the United States to use the area for military activities and operations.
If you made it to the end...what do you think? Are we completly a 'peaceful' nation?
I really wish we were.
Peace.
