Brookings pastor Kline: We must continue to oppose, and monitor nuclear weapon sites as the danger remains
You don’t hear much about it in the news these days. Maybe we are so used to the prevalence of cancer and the threats of warrior nation states that it’s hardly news. But now and then it might be wise of us to assess the wisdom of continuing to develop and deploy nuclear weapons.
Some of us used to travel to Ellsworth Air Force Base on Easter Sunday, to gift nuclear missile sites with Easter lilies. The idea was to place symbols of life and resurrection on those underground tombs. Each site had a 1-megaton nuclear weapon. There were 150 of those missile silos spread across the western South Dakota plains.
If the power in one of those nuclear warheads were used for good, it could power the average American household for 103,000 years. Used in war, you can only imagine! The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted from weapons in the kilotons, or 1,000 tons of TNT. We had the privilege in South Dakota of hosting weapons in the million tons of TNT.
Of course, we were not allowed to place the lilies on the tomb. We couldn’t even get close enough to climb the fence. We were simply arrested if we tried to cross the police line.
The missiles in our state are gone now. Perhaps our protests and arrests did some good. God only knows! Other sites remain in North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming. And land based missiles are just one part of the strategic triad. There are nuclear weapons at sea and in the air. 1,770 of those nuclear weapons are presently deployed. We have a total U.S. arsenal of 3,700 nuclear warheads.
We need to remember that you don’t survive these weapons, even 100 miles away. The blast and heat would be less at that distance, but the radiation levels would still be lethal. Imagine exploding 150 of them at one time, any place on the globe. That’s what the commander of the missile wing at Ellsworth threatened to do, if he was told a missile was incoming from Russia.
When asked by one of our group what he would do should he get that message, he said, “I will be right here and all our missiles will go!”
This past July, the U.S. secretly delivered new H-bombs to Britain. Earlier, about 100 H-bombs were transferred to NATO bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. These transfers were in violation of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which we are a signatory. Perhaps our transfers were related to the action of Russia, also a signatory, moving nuclear weapons into Belarus at the beginning of their conflict with Ukraine.
There are presently nine nuclear states. President Trump decided to keep number 10 from arriving on the world scene when he ordered dropping “bunker-busting” bombs on Irans’ nuclear sites. Opinion is divided as to whether this action will deter further development of nuclear weapons in Iran, and other states, or increase it.
Now some are talking about a “Golden Dome.” The U.S. helped Israel in the building of an “Iron Dome” defense system that has helped them in the war with Hamas. Many, not all, incoming missiles are destroyed before they are able to reach their target. President Trump, of course, prefers gold to iron, so he is proposing such a shield for the U.S., with an initial cost of $175 billion.
A dozen Congresspeople have objected to Golden Dome, as it will be “much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than countering missile attacks.” The Congressional Budget Office estimates the system will cost up to $542 billion to complete. Imagine the cost of a projected nuclear plant on the moon, also in the works!
It is worrisome that we have a Department of War secretary and a president who feel free without any congressional action, to bomb boats in international waters and bomb Iran in cooperation with an ally, Israel. One remembers an earlier Trump administration where the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by Gen. Mark Milley, was so concerned President Trump would misuse our nuclear arsenal, he felt it necessary to call his counterpart in China and assure him the “American government is stable” and “We are not going to attack.”
Of course, President Trump has now called Milley guilty of “treason,” and he should be put to death. Secretary Pete Hegseth has removed his security detail and security clearance.
The Progressive Foundation publishes a quarterly called Nukewatch. Someone is watching nukes for us. Did you know about the shrimp recalled across 29 states because of radioactive contamination? Did you know the U.S. is planning to produce 80 new plutonium cores or “pits” per year, at a cost of $50 million (enough to pay 1,000 teachers a livable salary).
Did you know 200,000 barrels of nuclear waste were buried in the Atlantic in seriously deteriorating barrels? Have you seen an update on the problem at Fukushima or the cutbacks at dealing with nuclear waste at Hanford?
I’m certain by now you want to ignore the whole nuclear issue. It’s not normally news, because it’s bad news. Nevertheless, it deserves our attention and action!
At heart, the whole nuclear weapons and nuclear energy program is destructive. It simply enriches some and endangers all. Whatever we can do to support alternatives, like negotiating with the “enemy,” to having greater respect for the natural world, is useful. In the meantime, let’s give thanks for peaceworkers on Thanksgiving, provide Christ-filled mangers to warmakers on Christmas, and fill the nuclear missile fields, air fields and naval bases with lilies on Easter!
Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.
Photo: nuclear destruction at Hiroshima, 1945, public domain, wikimedia commons
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