@therevcoms
When people are confronted with the danger of nuclear war coming out of the current proxy war with Ukraine, they sometimes say that “yes, but Russia is the country threatening this.” To be clear, the Russian threats are real and they are unconscionable. Taken together, the U.S. and Russia own and control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons! Russia has slightly more nuclear weapons, while the U.S. has more that are actively usable (deployed). But let’s not forget who has been “number one” in nuclear use all along.
The U.S. was the number one in using nuclear weapons. In 1945, at the end of World War 2, they bombed two cities in Japan. There was no “military advantage” to be gained by wiping out the people who lived in these cities—the U.S. had basically at that point won the war, with the U.S. occupying virtually the entire Pacific. They bombed these two cities to impress upon the world the tremendous destructive power of these weapons and the merciless character of the U.S. rulers, who had a monopoly on them. In fact, not only are they number one, there is no number two—as no other nation has ever used such a weapon.
Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. Photo: AP
The U.S. was number one in developing other, even more destructive, nuclear weapons. The U.S. was the first nation to develop the hydrogen bomb, which had 700 times the power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The U.S. was first nation to test nuclear weapons. And it has refused to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, insisting on preserving its “right” to test new generations of nuclear weapons, if and when it deems that necessary.
Two Japanese fishermen, among 23 showered with radioactive ash from the thermonuclear explosion at Bikini on March 1, 1954, show burns they suffered. Photo: AP
The U.S. reserved to itself—and continues to reserve to itself—the right to use nuclear weapons to strike first: “first use” is an explicit part of its military doctrine. Even after the “Cold War” with the Soviet Union—a decades-long conflict in which nuclear weapons were brandished by both sides and the threat of a war capable of destroying all of humanity became ever-present—the U.S. has refused to give up this “right.” So, it is the utter height of hypocrisy—yes, U.S. number one here—for Biden to denounce Putin for his threats to use tactical nuclear weapons “first.”
October 6, 2022, U.S. Army officer military aide follows President Biden carrying the nuclear launch codes known as the "football." Photo: AP
The U.S. is number one in withdrawing from nuclear treaties that it has signed—exiting from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and withdrawing as well from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 and the treaty signed with Iran whereby Iran would suspend nuclear development (which they did) in return for an American lightening of economic sanctions. These treaties did not wipe out nuclear forces, they only controlled their spread—but even those limited moves proved to be too much for good old Number One!!
Credit: Arms Control Association Credit: Arms Control Association
The U.S. is the number one—indeed, the only—country that stations nuclear weapons outside its own national territory. The U.S. has nuclear weapons, yes tactical nuclear weapons, stored in Western Europe and Turkey—in close proximity to Russia.
For the U.S. to now act as if it is the Russians who are threatening all of humanity is the logic of a gangster who has controlled his turf by terror for decades reacting to an upstart who now intends to use the same tactics and same weapons.
Don’t indulge yourself in collective amnesia. You are being softened up to go along with the possible extinction of humanity by a covering over of reality with talk of how Russia is an “out-of-control” threat. You are living in the homeland of gangsters who have been out of control since Day One. Wake the hell up before it’s too late!
