Nuclear War Play

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/story/51893/

Nuclear War Play

By Nina Berman, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2007.

Replete with fake blood and hired nuclear fallout victim actors, the Pentagon is in the midst of simulating one of the largest nuclear detonation exercises ever.

Islamic terrorists steal highly enriched uranium from Pakistan, transport it to Somalia then on to Mexico, where they smuggle it across the U.S. border. A 10-kiloton bomb is assembled and detonated, killing 6,000 people instantly.

Several thousand more have serious burns and radiation sickness. Hundreds of thousands flee in panic and seek shelter. Two hundred square miles are contaminated. National Guardsmen from several states as well as the Army, Air Force, Marines, special forces, firefighters, police and the Red Cross are mobilized to rescue the injured and secure the peace.

For Levi Hall, 20, the nuclear detonation couldn't have come at a better time. His girlfriend just told him she was pregnant. He needed money badly. "I work at a factory. I took vacation to actually be able to do this," he said, his arm and face smeared with fake blood as he crouched at the base of Rubble Pile 2, collecting $15 an hour playing a victim at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center (MUTC) in southern Indiana where the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) is simulating one of the largest nuclear detonation (Nudet) exercises ever. The MUTC, a sprawling complex taken over by the Indiana National Guard in 2005 had previously housed and cared for hundreds of mentally disabled residents. The Army recently earmarked $100 million to turn it into a year-round training center for urban warfare.

Making the unthinkable manageable is painstaking work. Yet this is precisely what homeland security officials believe is possible. According to a story last week in the San Francisco Chronicle, "a high-level group of government and military officials has been quietly preparing an emergency survival program" in case of a nuclear attack. Last month, 41 participants met for a strategy meeting in Washington, D.C., dubbed "The Day After," according to the Chronicle. They urged local governments and individuals to build underground bomb shelters, prevent evacuations of attacked areas to avoid traffic jams and the suspension of civil liberties, the Chronicle reported.

more...

[seemslikeadream]

1. USA under Nuclear Attack

http://www.glumbert.com/media/nuclearattack

[Pab Sungenis]

2. Several thoughts occur to me.

(1) We're finally thinking about the training needs for urban warfare if we're dedicating a facility to it. The way we train our soldiers to fight wars today is as outdated as the British model was in 1776. We need to learn urban fighting and counter-guerilla tactics; armies don't advance in lines across fields any more. And let's face it, any defense of this country in the event of an invasion is gong to be urban fighting.

(2) We're actually thinking about preparing for the aftermath of a nuclear attack. Again, our old thinking is outdated. We aren't up against the Soviet model where MAD was a deterrent, we have to worry about tiny tinhorn states like North Korea and extremist groups, which actually makes an attack more likely, harder (if not impossible) to have advance warning for, and won't see any protection from Star Wars-type antiballlistic missile systems.

(3) A nuclear detonation of 10kt, slightly under Hiroshima size, would cause cleanup and refugee clusterfucks that would make Hurricane Katrina look like a kid spilling grape juice on a white carpet. If there's one thing we should have learned from Katrina and Kansas, it's that we are not ready for big disasters. It's time we worked on that, and this is a step in the right direction.

©2007 P. Sungenis, All Rights Reserved

[dave_p]

3. Who said anything about invasion?

"any defense of this country in the event of an invasion is gong to be urban fighting."

No, any defense of the US in the event of an invasion is going to need an invader capable of reaching and occupying US soil. That isn't going to happen. And most countries don't perceive strategic objectives in such terms. Non-state groups certainly don't.

Army expertise in urban fighting is going to be directed against either Americans or people defending their own country against a US invasion. The rest of the world isn't coming. It's busy enough with its own problems.

And I think advancing in lines across fields went out a long time ago.