Last week, some of us were distracted from the unending fulminations of Mr. Imran Khan to note a remark made in Parliament by Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qader Baloch, former governor of Balochistan under General Pervez Musharraf and currently a member of Nawaz Sharif’s government. Commenting on the provocative aggressiveness of our eastern neighbour, General Baloch inter alia stated, “If any country processes nuclear capability for defense, it does not keep it in cold storage, but in time of need this capability can be used.” (Italics are mine).
Now, as if this kind of statement from someone who is reputed to be a close advisor to the Prime Minister was not enough to make the blood run cold, an interview with an Indian TV Channel by General Baloch’s former boss saw General Pervez Musharraf blustering, “Our guard on the eastern borders are (sic) never down. Pakistan will never shy from using the nuclear weapons against India.”
Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy (no less of a Nuclear Physicist than anyone and certainly more than, say, Dr Qadeer Khan, whose Doctorate was in Metallurgical Engineering) writes, “The most significant reality was that the Bomb promoted a culture of violence which... acquired the form of a monster with innumerable heads of terror. Because of this Bomb, we can definitely destroy India and be destroyed in its response (my italics). But its function is limited to this.”
Cinema buffs may recall Stanley Kubrick’s extraordinary 1960 film, “Dr Strangelove”. The film is a black comedy that imagines the unleashing of a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union by a fanatical General, who succeeds in bypassing the US command-and-control procedures. The Soviet retaliation triggers a massive holocaust. In the climactic final minutes of the film, the screen is filled – repeatedly, sickeningly, frighteningly, again and again and again – with images of atomic explosions in progress across the globe, while the syrupy voice of the singer Vera Lynn intones about the tiny remnants of the human race hiding in caves and Bomb shelters:
“We’ll meet again, some sunny day.
We’ll meet again, when the clouds have rolled away.”
What is a nuclear explosion like? Put briefly, it produces light, heat, blast – all in mega-astronomical quantities, for such reactions are the fuel that powers the sun and the other stars. The intense white light of the explosion can cause immediate blindness in people, even through closed eyelids, as much as twenty or thirty miles away. The monstrous heat flash vaporises anything nearby and causes raging fires at distances of many miles. Two things follow the flash: a massive shock wave, which spreads destruction as it moves out at supersonic speeds, and a huge fireball of incandescent gases. The shock wave completely disintegrates everything within a radius of six kilometres of ground zero. The fireball melts everything beneath itself, ignites firestorms for many miles around and, because of its enormous size and ferocity, sucks all the oxygen out of the air below and around it.
As the gigantic mushroom-shaped cloud rises, displaced air strikes back into the near-vacuum and generates tornadoes that rage through the devastation. And then, from the mushroom cloud, rain and ash begin to fall – deadly, radioactive rain and ash. The upper levels of the mushroom cloud dissipate into the stratosphere, as high winds carry the radioactive particles to settle onto distant places.
The rain, the ash, the smoke, all emit hard radiation. So does the ground they fall on, or the water or the air carrying the particles. This radiation comprises alpha, beta and gamma rays, all of which are lethal for living things.
Physical contact with radioactive ash or dust causes deep burns and sores that penetrate to the bone and kill within a matter of days. Exposure to high doses of radiation causes no immediate symptoms; but, within the first week, there is diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and nosebleed, leading to internal haemorrhaging, emaciation and death within the second week. There is no survival. All those so affected will die.
Median doses of radiation also result in nausea and vomiting; by the end of the second week, there is loss of hair, haemorrhaging and emaciation leading to death in the third week by half the people so exposed. Children are obviously in greatest danger.
Beyond radiation sickness, come genetic alterations, mutations and changes. Whole generations are doomed to distortion. Children are born severely deformed, crippled or grossly mutated into monstrosities. The incidence of leukaemia and other forms of cancer among people otherwise unaffected, increases manifold.
The observations above relate to what happened at Hiroshima, where 300,000 people died from the single, relatively small bomb used. Today’s bombs can be many times larger...and more lethal. The core point about these weapons, dear Reader, is that they are not primarily targeted against installations or meant to be used by combat forces against one another, as other weapons are. These are weapons of mass destruction that are primarily targeted against civilian populations.
The only nation so far to suffer a nuclear attack has been Japan. And it is interesting to note that their subsequent policy choice was to not acquire this Hell Weapon for themselves. The Japanese have made the dignified, highly principled choice of a proud nation. In the nearly 70 years since the event, the very potent “revenge” they have sought has been to build the peaceful prosperity of their own people.
However, at home, we had the example of our present Prime Minister who, during his previous term in office, tastelessly sought to lecture Japan on what its nuclear choices should or should not have been. That says something about our know-nothing-and-be-proud-of-it mindset. That the Indian mindset is no better – and, on the evidence, may even be worse – is neither consolation nor excuse.
Knowing what we know today, it is supreme irresponsibility to threaten the use of nuclear weapons, even by implication. When confronting an aggressive zealot like the present Indian PM, such threats could easily act as goads rather than deterrents. In the general devastation that would follow a nuclear exchange, no-one will care to count which side has suffered more.
Finally, let us remind ourselves that 45,000 Pakistani civilians and 6,000 soldiers have been killed by the so-called Jihadi terrorists we have finally turned around to combat. None of these victims were killed by India, or any other country against which Pakistan’s warheads could be targeted…unless we aim it at ourselves.
Now, as if this kind of statement from someone who is reputed to be a close advisor to the Prime Minister was not enough to make the blood run cold, an interview with an Indian TV Channel by General Baloch’s former boss saw General Pervez Musharraf blustering, “Our guard on the eastern borders are (sic) never down. Pakistan will never shy from using the nuclear weapons against India.”
Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy (no less of a Nuclear Physicist than anyone and certainly more than, say, Dr Qadeer Khan, whose Doctorate was in Metallurgical Engineering) writes, “The most significant reality was that the Bomb promoted a culture of violence which... acquired the form of a monster with innumerable heads of terror. Because of this Bomb, we can definitely destroy India and be destroyed in its response (my italics). But its function is limited to this.”
Cinema buffs may recall Stanley Kubrick’s extraordinary 1960 film, “Dr Strangelove”. The film is a black comedy that imagines the unleashing of a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union by a fanatical General, who succeeds in bypassing the US command-and-control procedures. The Soviet retaliation triggers a massive holocaust. In the climactic final minutes of the film, the screen is filled – repeatedly, sickeningly, frighteningly, again and again and again – with images of atomic explosions in progress across the globe, while the syrupy voice of the singer Vera Lynn intones about the tiny remnants of the human race hiding in caves and Bomb shelters:
“We’ll meet again, some sunny day.
We’ll meet again, when the clouds have rolled away.”
What is a nuclear explosion like? Put briefly, it produces light, heat, blast – all in mega-astronomical quantities, for such reactions are the fuel that powers the sun and the other stars. The intense white light of the explosion can cause immediate blindness in people, even through closed eyelids, as much as twenty or thirty miles away. The monstrous heat flash vaporises anything nearby and causes raging fires at distances of many miles. Two things follow the flash: a massive shock wave, which spreads destruction as it moves out at supersonic speeds, and a huge fireball of incandescent gases. The shock wave completely disintegrates everything within a radius of six kilometres of ground zero. The fireball melts everything beneath itself, ignites firestorms for many miles around and, because of its enormous size and ferocity, sucks all the oxygen out of the air below and around it.
As the gigantic mushroom-shaped cloud rises, displaced air strikes back into the near-vacuum and generates tornadoes that rage through the devastation. And then, from the mushroom cloud, rain and ash begin to fall – deadly, radioactive rain and ash. The upper levels of the mushroom cloud dissipate into the stratosphere, as high winds carry the radioactive particles to settle onto distant places.
The rain, the ash, the smoke, all emit hard radiation. So does the ground they fall on, or the water or the air carrying the particles. This radiation comprises alpha, beta and gamma rays, all of which are lethal for living things.
Physical contact with radioactive ash or dust causes deep burns and sores that penetrate to the bone and kill within a matter of days. Exposure to high doses of radiation causes no immediate symptoms; but, within the first week, there is diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and nosebleed, leading to internal haemorrhaging, emaciation and death within the second week. There is no survival. All those so affected will die.
Median doses of radiation also result in nausea and vomiting; by the end of the second week, there is loss of hair, haemorrhaging and emaciation leading to death in the third week by half the people so exposed. Children are obviously in greatest danger.
Beyond radiation sickness, come genetic alterations, mutations and changes. Whole generations are doomed to distortion. Children are born severely deformed, crippled or grossly mutated into monstrosities. The incidence of leukaemia and other forms of cancer among people otherwise unaffected, increases manifold.
The observations above relate to what happened at Hiroshima, where 300,000 people died from the single, relatively small bomb used. Today’s bombs can be many times larger...and more lethal. The core point about these weapons, dear Reader, is that they are not primarily targeted against installations or meant to be used by combat forces against one another, as other weapons are. These are weapons of mass destruction that are primarily targeted against civilian populations.
The only nation so far to suffer a nuclear attack has been Japan. And it is interesting to note that their subsequent policy choice was to not acquire this Hell Weapon for themselves. The Japanese have made the dignified, highly principled choice of a proud nation. In the nearly 70 years since the event, the very potent “revenge” they have sought has been to build the peaceful prosperity of their own people.
However, at home, we had the example of our present Prime Minister who, during his previous term in office, tastelessly sought to lecture Japan on what its nuclear choices should or should not have been. That says something about our know-nothing-and-be-proud-of-it mindset. That the Indian mindset is no better – and, on the evidence, may even be worse – is neither consolation nor excuse.
Knowing what we know today, it is supreme irresponsibility to threaten the use of nuclear weapons, even by implication. When confronting an aggressive zealot like the present Indian PM, such threats could easily act as goads rather than deterrents. In the general devastation that would follow a nuclear exchange, no-one will care to count which side has suffered more.
Finally, let us remind ourselves that 45,000 Pakistani civilians and 6,000 soldiers have been killed by the so-called Jihadi terrorists we have finally turned around to combat. None of these victims were killed by India, or any other country against which Pakistan’s warheads could be targeted…unless we aim it at ourselves.