Christopher Hitchens Goes Nuclear On Pakistan

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i can't, in a sober state of mind, even dub this an article. It's prose.

 

[desioptimist]

are the indians still denying that the perpetrator of the Samjhota train blasts included active indian army personnel? These were links which Hemant Karkare (who was 'conveniently' killed during the mumbai whole mumbai drama) was working to uncover.

There was no allegation from any side that indian army guy was involved, where is the question of denying it.
Indian police found the possible culprits including the army guy, and that is how you got to know all this.
You should applaud GoI for openly investigating this case. Contrast that with pakistani reaction to mumbai attack.

Sorry, I assumed you dont know the sequence of events. If you knew it already and somehow want parity in lies for argument's sake, forgive me for replying.

 

[Solomon2]

i can't, in a sober state of mind, even dub this an article. It's prose.

Exactly. And because of that, if not successfully challenged it will remain after all the articles in the world have crumbled to dust.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Exactly. And because of that, if not successfully challenged it will remain after all the articles in the world have crumbled to dust.

well i think Pakistan has handled it pretty welll....all we do is just rubbish these garbage reports

no need to go deep into it or pay much attention to it at all.

 

[Solomon2]

well i think Pakistan has handled it pretty well -

Pakistan hasn't handled it well at all. In the absence of demonstrable improvement at home, I guess your ambassador is wise not to even try.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Pakistan hasn't handled it well at all. In the absence of demonstrable improvement at home, I guess your ambassador is wise not to even try.

I think it has. You see, it's simple:

the nuclear weapons and components are safe in Pakistan....therefore, there is no need to even bother talking about it. Going on the defensive makes it look like we are actually being affected by it (the baseless yapping and criticism).

But, we aren't.

If you have an issue with it -- take it up with your outgoing Defence Secretary, NATO chief, Adm Mullen, Secretary of State, etc. who all state that they (Pakistan's nuclear arsenal) are safe.


no amount of pro-indian lobbying or other running of the beak will change this reality. So for your own sake, leave the issue and don't worry about our internal affairs.



thanks!

 

[JonAsad]

This article is funny- I can write a bigger- baddest and meaner article on USA in the same tone- and it doesn't require any talent or knowledge- All you have to do is have few beers make things up continue drinking and dont stop (Writing/ Drinking until you are completely wasted- Wake up in the morning have a coffee and the article is ready-

To write some thing about India- i dont even need a Beer- Now thats talent --

On Topic-- Honestly i cannot comment on the article- People like him should be left to deal with their own miseries-

 

[unicorn]

Pakistan hasn't handled it well at all. In the absence of demonstrable improvement at home, I guess your ambassador is wise not to even try.

Talking about handling nukes from you makes me laugh.You should give some prove instead of writing just two lines dumbo.Although about American history I do know there are times when the handling was once very shaky.

 

[unicorn]

The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs

In a 1968 plane crash, the US military lost an atom bomb in Greenland's Arctic ice. But this was no isolated case. Up to 50 nuclear warheads are believed to have gone missing during the Cold War, and not all of them are in unpopulated areas.

It was a little early to be swimming in the Mediterranean that year. But in early March 1966, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, the Spanish information minister at the time, and Biddle Duke, the American ambassador in Madrid, together with their respective families, plunged into the chilly waters off the Costa Cálida. Journalists from around the world had gathered on the beach of the small village of Palomares to report on the two families' spring bathing outing. Their interest would have been surprising, if it hadn't been for the hydrogen bomb lying on the ocean floor only a few kilometers away, a bomb with more than 1,000 times the explosive force of the one that flattened Hiroshima.

Only a few weeks earlier, on Jan. 17, 1966, the worst nuclear weapons incident of the entire Cold War had taken place off Spain's southeastern coast. During an aerial tanking maneuver, an American B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanking aircraft collided in mid-air at 9,000 meters (29,000 feet), and both planes exploded in a giant fireball over Palomares. There were four hydrogen bombs in the hold of the B-52. One landed, unharmed, in tomato fields near the village. The non-nuclear fuse detonated in two others causing bomb fragments and plutonium dust to rain down on the impact site. The fourth bomb fell into the water somewhere off the coast, burying itself in several meters of silt. But where exactly did it fall?

In the weeks after the accident, Palomares looked like the set for a film about the apocalypse. On land, men wearing white protective suits and blue facemasks used Geiger counters to scan the ground for radiation. The fields were sealed off, and an entire harvest of tomatoes and beans rotted on the vine. The US government had the fields dug up and 1,400 tons of earth removed. The contaminated soil was then shipped to the United States for disposal. Dozens of American warships patrolled the coastline to seal off the area where a fisherman had seen the bomb landing in the water. It took 81 days to recover the nuclear weapon from a depth of 800 meters (2,600 feet). Expressing its shock over the events in Spain, the German daily Hamburger Abendblatt wrote: "More than any sandbox scenario, the bomb incident makes it clear what it means today to be 'living with the bomb'."

Greenland's Stray Atomic Bomb

The prospect of a stray, possibly damaged atom bomb lying somewhere on the ocean floor is truly horrific. Britain's BBC is currently causing an uproar with a report on the loss of an American atom bomb in 1968. When an American B-52 bomber crashed into the ice off Greenland, the conventional explosives in the bombs exploded, causing a large area to become radioactively contaminated by the plutonium that was released in the process. But what the US government kept secret for decades was that a reconstruction of the bomb components found at the site had revealed that a nuclear warhead was missing. It had apparently drilled its way through the ice in North Star Bay. It was never found.

The loss of an atom bomb is not as rare an occurrence as one would hope. "The American Defense Department has confirmed the loss of 11 atomic bombs," says Otfried Nassauer, an expert on nuclear armament and the director of the Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security. "It is believed that up to 50 nuclear weapons worldwide were lost during the Cold War."

Most of these highly dangerous weapons are still lying on the ocean floor. In April 1989, a fire on board the Komsomolez resulted in the sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine to a depth of 1,700 meters (5,500 feet) in the North Atlantic Ocean, together with two torpedoes and their nuclear warheads. On May 22, 1968, another nuclear submarine, the USS Scorpion, sank to a depth of 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) about 320 nautical miles south of the Azores. There were two nuclear warheads on board. Because of the considerable depths involved, neither the weaponry nor the nuclear reactors on both submarines have been recovered to date.

Absurd 'Broken Arrow'

A much larger number of atom bombs disappeared in plane crashes over the open ocean. "In the early days of the Cold War, the aircraft lacked sufficient range to cross the Atlantic on one tank of fuel," explains nuclear expert Nassauer. "Some bombers collided with their tanker planes, while others simply missed the tankers and, after running out of fuel, plunged into the sea."

Between the late 1950s and mid-1960s, the most explosive part of the Cold War, US bombers carrying atom bombs were in the air around the clock, 365 days a year. Their four main routes passed over Greenland, Spain and the Mediterranean, Japan and Alaska. Only when the bombers became capable of flying across the Atlantic or Pacific on one tank did the frequency of accidents diminish.

Probably the most absurd "broken arrow" (the Americans' code word for accidents involving nuclear weapons) happened on Dec. 5, 1965 on board the USS Ticonderoga. The aircraft carrier was en route from Vietnam to Yokosuka in Japan when a fighter-bomber emerging from one of the giant elevators that carry the aircraft from the ship's hold onto the deck plunged into the ocean. The pilot, the aircraft and the nuclear bomb on board sank to a depth of five kilometers (16,400 feet) and were never found.

That incident was also kept secret for many years, partly because, when it was finally made public in 1981, it proved that the Americans had stationed nuclear weapons in Vietnam, after all. It also revealed that the United States had defied a treaty with Japan, under which the Americans had agreed not to bring any nuclear weapons onto Japanese territory.

Blown Fuses

The US military's rather nonchalant handling of its most dangerous toys was not limited to foreign countries. In fact, seven of the 11 nuclear warheads that are officially missing were lost at home in the USA. On Feb. 5, 1958, bomber pilot Howard Richardson had to jettison the hydrogen bomb he was carrying after colliding with a fighter jet. The bomb then disappeared in the shallow waters of Wassaw Sound, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Savannah, Georgia, a city of 100,000 people. Richardson, an experienced pilot, barely managed to land his aircraft at nearby Hunter Army Airfield.

The crew of a B-52 that exploded on Jan. 24, 1961 as a result of a defective fuel line was less fortunate. Before the aircraft broke apart, the men managed to eject their dangerous cargo. One of the two hydrogen bombs was parachuted safely into a tree, while the other one went down in a swamp near the small city of Goldsboro, North Carolina, where it plunged an estimated 50 meters (165 feet) into the marshy ground -- and where it still lies today. The crash site remains a restricted military zone.

But what made this incident famous was the bomb that landed in a tree. Five of its six fuses designed to prevent a detonation failed, with only the last one averting a nuclear explosion. After this near-disaster, the security systems in US nuclear weapons were revised, and Washington asked the Soviet Union to do the same.

Could Terrorists Find a Bomb?

To this day, these two incidents are a hotly disputed topic among experts, military officials, conspiracy theorists and the concerned citizens of Savannah and Goldsboro. Do the two bombs still pose a danger to the residents of these cities? "Weapons that are on the ocean floor are hardly unlikely to explode," says Nassauer. Nevertheless, he cautions, "perhaps this risk is somewhat greater with the bombs that were lost on land. But virtually nothing is known about whether such bombs can explode spontaneously."

A completely different fear has taken hold since the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001. What happens if terrorists acquire one of the lost bombs? An unfounded fear, says Nassauer, noting that even the military, after using all means at its disposal, has failed to find or salvage the bombs. "Quite a few weapons are located in places that are still completely inaccessible with the means available to us today," says Nassauer. The real dangers lie in the area surrounding a crash site, and they include the possibility of explosion at the time of the accident and the effects of corrosion, which could allow radioactivity to escape over decades.

In Palomares, for example, the nightmare continues after more than four decades. The sleepy village his since become part of a thriving tourist region. But in 2004, two pits containing radioactive soil were discovered at the site of future golf courses and luxury hotels. Extensive soil studies revealed that other areas were still contaminated. The Spanish government has confiscated the affected land, and in 2009 US troops will be deployed to decontaminate the area once again. More than 40 years after the first bomb fell on Palomares, several thousand tons of contaminated earth will be shipped to America once again.

 

[Solomon2]

Talking about handling nukes from you makes me laugh.You should give some prove instead of writing just two lines dumbo.

You have been impaled upon the horn of Abu Zolfiqar's sophistication, unicorn. Hitchens' article has nothing to do with nuclear security, the expression "goes nuclear" referring to his writing as an expression of anger. It was AZ who purposely confused this (once he found his position indefensible) with nuclear security itself.

You may take this lesson to heart as an example of how easily and cynically Pakistanis are manipulated by their "betters".

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

You have been impaled upon the horn of Abu Zolfiqar's sophistication, unicorn. Hitchens' article has nothing to do with nuclear security, the expression "goes nuclear" referring to his writing as an expression of anger.

Pakistan (as noted in Grace Wyler's excellent interview with CFR's Daniel Markey) is expanding its nuclear arsenal rapidly. The fear is that one of those weapons will end up in the hands of terrorist organizations, which will in turn detonate one of those weapons in London or Berlin or Washington or New York.

Read more: Pakistan: a failed and treacherous state

It was AZ who purposely confused this (once he found his position indefensible) with nuclear security itself.

my position is very clear...if you are STILL confused, then sorry kiddo I cant make it any simpler. My grasp of the English language must be a bit limited in that case.

You may take this lesson to heart as an example of how easily and cynically Pakistanis are manipulated by their "betters".

always the one to comment on Pakistani psyche.

another Steven Cohen in the making

 

[waz]

I'd take the article seriously if he stopped getting off on making sensationalist claims that "rape is not a crime, it's a punishment". From what I know if you rape someone in Pakistan you face the law and not nothing else.

His ramblings jump from one extreme to the other and his lack of consistency in his own beliefs has whittled away his credibility. Anyone remember his undying praise for Guevara,to then literally renounce him in the late 90's? His determination to stamp sympathies for terrorist endeavours are as hollow as they come, when he himself is a propagator for an interventionist foreign policy. He took this one step further and became an ardent supporter of the Iraq War and went out his way to court the Neocons. Strange actions for a self proclaimed marxist.

Chris, save your energies for your battle with cancer. Devise a bucket list and go out there and live what little you have of your life. Getting yourself worked up over nothing isn't good for you.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

PAKISTANIS trying to retain their pride despite daily developments in the country should read writer Christopher Hitchens’ latest article about Pakistan with caution.

He describes our country as paranoid, self-hating, duplicitous and “permanently mendicant” — and that’s when he’s being gentle. Elsewhere, he suggests that Pakistan is mired in self-pity because it has nothing to be proud of given that it is “virtually barren of achievements”.

This contention deserves to be challenged.

Contrary to what Hitchens argues, Pakistanis are incurably proud and patriotic.

Even those who no longer approve of the country’s trajectory will leap to defend it when pressed. This adamant pride can be blamed in part for the nationwide state of denial that is contributing to Pakistan’s current litany of woes — as a nation, we are just not hardwired for introspection and self-critique.

Not surprisingly, then, after the miseries of May — from OBL to PNS, retaliatory attacks and point-blank murders — the Pakistani blogosphere was littered with positive posts about those aspects of Pakistani society that one can still pride in. Adil Najam, blogging at All Things Pakistan, posted one of the more compelling versions of such a list.

He thinks the following phenomena should help Pakistanis sleep better at night: innovative and socially pertinent music; the vibrant, if freewheeling media; an activist youth; endless reservoirs of resilience that have helped the nation overcome natural disasters and the IDP crisis; and an awakening sense of responsibility for Pakistan’s problems, and less readiness to blame foreign hands for all that goes awry.

To Najam’s list I would add the revolution in the telecommunications sector, the growing numbers of women in the workplace and a strengthening culture of social entrepreneurship (Najam sees social entrepreneurship, along with philanthropy, as a manifestation of Pakistani resilience; I believe it is a trend that deserves emphasis in its own right).

List the abovementioned positive developments to hardened cynics such as Hitchens and they will guffaw. In their estimation, these evolutions are feeble and irrelevant in the face of Pakistan’s daunting problems: terrorism, water scarcity, economic kamikaze, endemic illiteracy, poor governance, etc. What can a few pop stars do to reverse Pakistan’s downward spiral?

Meanwhile, nitpicky analysts and journalists (such as myself, in previous columns) will take apart each of the positive developments, showing that things are not as rosy as they first seem. Coke Studio may have helped Pakistani popular music hit the high notes, but the rest of the industry is flagging.

The same can be said of the telecom sector: while the number of cellphone subscriptions in Pakistan hit the million mark last year, the industry has reached a saturation point. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, the industry contributed Rs2.5bn less to the national exchequer in 2010-11 than the previous year.

This may be true, but it detracts from the game-changing propensities of positive developments. Trends listed here have soft power, but they also have profound political implications.

The independent media is an obvious example. Created by the military establishment to help counter the reach of Indian programming, the industry has become a linchpin of Pakistani democracy. News programming has helped depose dictators, support an independent judiciary and generate public support against extremist violence.

More importantly, the media has initiated the national conversation we’ve been trying to have since our inception. In its own frothing-at-the-mouth way, it is addressing the existential questions at the crux of Pakistan’s socio-political problems: how should religion and the state interact? What role should the army play in governing Pakistan? What is the true extent of Pakistan’s geopolitical vulnerability?

Like the media, the music industry is helping to mobilise the public; songs increasingly carry political messages, and lyrics offer recommendations for social development. When the world thinks that Pakistan deserves a second chance (whether in the form of an economic lifeline, or the decision not to declare the country a terrorist state), it is responding to the images of what ought to be as projected by our musicians, artists and filmmakers.

Working women, for their part, have arguably evolved the Pakistani state’s sense of social justice. There has been a renewed commitment towards women’s rights by passing a bill against sexual harassment. More importantly, the powers that be are increasingly reluctant to see an Afghan Taliban regime reinstated in Kabul, realising the ramifications that would have on Pakistani society, and on the freedoms women enjoy in particular. Perhaps inadvertently, the increased presence of women in the public sphere is making Pakistan a better neighbour.

The telecom sector has played its part too. Access to improved communications technology has spurred cultures of entrepreneurship and revitalised the rural areas. It has also helped empower a justice-seeking citizenry: just think of the many human rights violations, from extrajudicial killings to floggings in Swat and mob violence that have been captured and circulated via camera phones.

The point is, there is little to be gained by undermining or ignoring the achievements Pakistan can boast. These should not, however, exacerbate our ostrich-in-the-sand reactions to the worsening security and political situation. Pakistanis should instead see the far-reaching implications of economic and cultural initiatives and double their efforts to have an impact.

The positive side | Opinion | DAWN.COM

 

[Solomon2]

That's an interesting take on Hitchens' article. How well do you think the author, Hama Yusuf, is cognizant of Pakistani men's issues and thinking as opposed to those of women?

 

[Solo Monk]

That's just a brainless rhetorical diarrhoea, typical Christopher Hitchens egg-laying, that's all. Where is the argumentative consistency ? He's getting sexually over-excited on a baseless fantastical alliance, an hypothetical collaboration between Pakistan's establishment (hint: not the 'ya gowjus Palin', American boots-lover Zardari) and OBL's 'safe heaven', by crackling Khalid Sheikh Muhammed's name, yeah, the dude who's suffering from some American made pro-Humanist tortures right now, thanks to... the ISI.

That's one of the thing that made OBL - Pakistan's best friend after America and before India - saying that Pak. Army was 'Satan's allies'... he merited a big mansion, I guess ?

But, no, despite American claims against such mental distortions (H. Clinton, Michael Mullen), our pen-berserker goes in a holy fury: Pakistan not only protected OBL by putting him in a castle near a military camp (how intelligent), but also rapes women (yes, Pakistan & women are two paradoxical beings) and is pissing off 'brave Afghans' (against whom you supported a military action, my young British lad.)

What is interesting to know is that there is a diversity of ethnicities in Afghanistan: the most important ones are the Tajiks and the Pashtuns. And the second matters: 'Pakistan' helped them because 35.64 million of its inhabitants are Pashtuns who carried about the 13.46 million Pashtuns from Afghanistan. The ISI director at the time, Akthar Abdul Rehman Khan, was a Pashtun, and legitimately wanted to counter Soviet influence, thanks to CIA-director William Casey's financial and technical assistance. And that's what it is: Talibans are Pashtun nationalists, they have nothing to do with Al-Qaida, and so have nothing to do with America, if the liberator of the oppressed cosmos wasn't pissing them off by invading their country. This may be interesting :

And to go even further, these Talibans/Pashtun nationalists even disputed with its so-called friendly Islamabad over the Durrand line (which divides Pakistan & Afghanistan's Pashtuns.) It says a lot about the lovely relationship between Pakistan and Talibans.

If Pakistan (or its Pashtun nationalists inside the establishement) helped Talibans in the pre-2001 Afghanistan, that shouldn't bother Americans, who are keeping making dirty humanitarian murders since now 60 years, post FD Roosevelt (like in Chile by removing democratically-elected Salvador Allende or Iran by kicking out democratically-elected Mossadegh, as Chris talked of these countries.)
And If Pakistan has helped Talibans in post-2001 Afghanistan, and all is proven, so there should be sanctions.

But these kind of emotional pseudo-rational rant à la Chris are just for the sake of Pakistan-bashing, not further debate.

Don't care dear Chris, Pakistan will survive you.