Mushroom Cloud over Nevada scheduled for June 2, 2006

This is not a joke. The mushroom cloud will not come from a nuclear explosion, but it's a big step in that direction: An April 14 AP story reports:

LAS VEGAS - A huge non-nuclear explosion expected to generate a mushroom cloud in the Nevada desert will meet state air quality regulations, officials said Wednesday.

State regulators have raised questions about pollution and hazardous materials from the planned June 2 detonation of 700 tons of an ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, an official with the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection said.

But the Nevada Test Site has a blasting permit, and state officials said they had no plan to try to block the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's experiment, dubbed "Divine Strake.''

When even Sen. Orrin Hatch questions the sanity of this move, you know there's a problem:

SALT LAKE CITY U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch wants reassurances that a massive explosion test planned for Nevada this summer won't disperse radioactive material from past nuclear weapons tests.

Hatch, R-Utah, has joined a group of Congress members voicing concerns about "Divine Strake," the detonation of a 700-ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb scheduled for June 2 over the Nevada desert.

Although the bomb isn't nuclear, there are concerns that it could shake loose radioactive material from past tests at the Nevada Test Site, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Can we say Bad Idea Jeans?

I got my start in activism at the Nevada Test Site. I went with my poetry class, of all things, on a field trip. I saw my first "men in black" who drove by us protestors, filming us. (Somewhere in some vault, the government has a picture of what I looked like at 20.) It was right before Easter, and Daniel Ellsberg was there, tall, handsome, and somewhat stiff and imposing. He gave a marvellous speech that moved me, the details of which have long since been forgotten. But the gist was that nuclear weapons make us less--not more--safe.

I couldn't agree more, especially since this particular test seems related to our upcoming actions regarding Iran. The entire world outside the Bush administration and a few defense contractors opposes the use of any and every kind of nuclear weapon. But Bush and his cronies are determined to try out their new toys, even if they have to destroy the last shred of America's credibility as a compassionate nation to do so.

Could they really be that insane? Iran does not have nuclear weapons. It will not have them for many more years even if we did nothing at all in the immediate future. There is plenty of time to seek diplomatic solutions.

But Bush doesn't have plenty of time. Thanks to Presidential term limits, we will finally be free of the worst president ever in 2008. Unless, that is, he finds a way to declare himself Chancellor (see V for Vendetta for the reference). Remember how his administration floated a balloon to cancel the 2004 elections if a terrorist event happened? I can't help but wonder if somewhere, someone isn't working on a plan to keep Bush in office past his time. Whatever the case, he seems determined to be not the "education president", but the "nuclear president."

But back to "Divine Strake." (And how dare they declare a device whose purpose is to destroy "divine" - I can't think of anything more oxymoronic!) According to Global Security:

The DIVINE STRAKE full scale test is planned to be a large-yield, buried burst detonated at the Nevada Test Site. Divine Strake would appear to be associated with the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator RNEP, or possibly the B61-11 Earth-Penetrating Weapon, a fact that is obscured in most press coverage. Divine Strake is a high-explosive (HE) test sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The test is a detonation of a 700 ton buried heavy AN/FO charge above a tunnel structure. The main purpose of the test is to study ground shock effects on deeply buried tunnel structures. Of secondary interest is the airblast produced by a buried charge and its modification as it propagates over the local terrain. Scheduled for the summer of 2006, as of 01 April 2006 the test was planned for 02 June 2006.

In other words, this is clearly a test related to the planned upcoming use of the infamous nuclear "bunker buster bombs." This was hinted at in the budget for 2006. According to the same site:

DTRA's FY2006 budget request including funding to "Conduct the Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration(s) (ACTD) Full-Scale tunnel defeat demonstration using high explosives to simulate a low yield nuclear weapon ground shock environment at Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site. Deliver validated analysis and planning tools to conduct the end-to-end use of nuclear planning tools to characterize and "weaponeer" the full-scale Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration(s) (ACTD) event. ... The Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration(s) (ACTD) will develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage. The focus of the demonstration is to reduce the uncertainties in target characterization and weapon effect/target response. Target characterization uncertainties include those related to determining the target function, layout, operational status, and the geological and geotechnical features. Weapons effects/tunnel response uncertainties are associated with predicting ground shock and tunnel response in layered and jointed media."

Translation: They really are that insane. They are hellbent on using their nuclear weapons. They think if they make them smaller they will be okay.

And why should that be a surprise? This is the team that doesn't believe in science, that believes that reality is whatever they want it to be.

And if they lived in a padded cell, that would be perfectly fine.

But their belief now imperils hundreds of thousands if not several million, because make no mistake - if we use nuclear weapons offensively for any reason, they will be used on us. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives, because radiation is forever, nearly. Just ask the people from Chernobyl.

Or, for that matter, Scotland.

20 years later and 1500 miles away, the radiation from Chernobyl keeps 10 farms in Scotland under quarantine from still too high radioactivity from the fallout of that explosion.

Maybe we should ask Bush to have a meal at one of those farms. Or several. He should know what it's like to live with radiation sickness personally, before he inflicts it on another innocent populace. Hey, if it's so safe, maybe he should move his family there. Plant a garden there. Drink the water there...Okay, enough fantasizing...

And maybe it's not stupidity. Maybe they're just really that evil. Maybe they want a way to thin out the world's population. Maybe they think it's their personal duty to bring about the apocalypse.

Whatever their reasons, the Divine Strake test should be read as the most serious indication yet that this administration is determined to use nuclear weapons offensively on a first-strike basis.

And that is an idea that should make us take to the streets in very large numbers to protest.

Using nukes offensively under any circumstances should never, ever, be an acceptable option to any true American. If you feel otherwise, there's some farmland in Scotland I'd like to show you.