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Define "Divine"
Apr. 30th, 2006 12:03 amOn June 2, 2006, the Pentagon is planning to detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil emulsion in a 36 foot deep hole near the center of the Nevada Test Site. This operation, called "Divine Strake" will be the largest chemical weapon ever detonated at the Nevada site. This bomb is intended to simulate a nuclear "bunker buster", a weapon used to penetrate solid rock. In itself, it is not a real weapon. We don't have a plane that could carry or deliver such a payload. Many worry that this is a cheap way of getting around nuclear testing conventions. Others cast it in a far more sinister light: as a prelude to nuclear war in Iran.
Look carefully at this report from DefenseNews.com, part of the Army Times Publishing Group. "'I don’t want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you’ll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons,' said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency(sic)." Excuse me? Glib is not the word I would have chosen. He seems to be nearly slipping in his own drool with glee over the thought of seeing a mushroom cloud over Vegas!
Blogger Milan posted this nightmarish series of annotated satellite images of the Nevada desert. This is the area wherein they propose to test this bomb. Think about what happens to the soil in a nuclear testing area. Even if the test is non-nuclear, there may be irradiated soil cast high into the atmosphere. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch is now voicing concern over what will happen to downwinders.
Even more controversial is the fact that the US government may not own the land they are using for the test. Officials of the Western Shoshone tribe dispute the ownership of the test site. This dispute won international attention last month when the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or CERD, "called on the United States to halt the destructive land-use practices it has allowed on some of the 60 million acres the Western Shoshone claim as theirs until a settlement is reached on the status of that land" according to an Oxfam press release.
The Stop Divine Strake Coalition is calling for an International Day of Action on May 28th at the Nevada Test Site Peace Camp on Hwy 95 across from the Nevada Test Site. At the bottom of the link is a list of contacts to whom you can send your remarks on this upcoming event.
Look carefully at this report from DefenseNews.com, part of the Army Times Publishing Group. "'I don’t want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you’ll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons,' said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency(sic)." Excuse me? Glib is not the word I would have chosen. He seems to be nearly slipping in his own drool with glee over the thought of seeing a mushroom cloud over Vegas!
Blogger Milan posted this nightmarish series of annotated satellite images of the Nevada desert. This is the area wherein they propose to test this bomb. Think about what happens to the soil in a nuclear testing area. Even if the test is non-nuclear, there may be irradiated soil cast high into the atmosphere. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch is now voicing concern over what will happen to downwinders.
Even more controversial is the fact that the US government may not own the land they are using for the test. Officials of the Western Shoshone tribe dispute the ownership of the test site. This dispute won international attention last month when the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or CERD, "called on the United States to halt the destructive land-use practices it has allowed on some of the 60 million acres the Western Shoshone claim as theirs until a settlement is reached on the status of that land" according to an Oxfam press release.
The Stop Divine Strake Coalition is calling for an International Day of Action on May 28th at the Nevada Test Site Peace Camp on Hwy 95 across from the Nevada Test Site. At the bottom of the link is a list of contacts to whom you can send your remarks on this upcoming event.
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