Month: April 2006

You may excuse me for my recent non-scientific posts. I try to write more about science and my scientific thoughts soon, but I think these political posts are still going to appear here in near future. The reason is simply that in my opinion, human-being is more important than human-made things; and right now, I do feel bad about the possible future war and killing of many people.

If you are concerned about global peace, and if you want to take an action against the possible future war, you may sign this petition:

Dear President Bush and Vice President Cheney,

We write to you from all over the United States and all over the world to urge you to obey both international and U.S. law, which forbid aggressive attacks on other nations. We oppose your proposal to attack Iran. Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, just as Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons. If Iran had such weapons, that would not justify the use of force, any more than any other nation would be justified in launching a war against the world’s greatest possesor of nuclear arms, the United States. The most effective way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons would be to closely monitor its nuclear energy program, and to improve diplomatic relations — two tasks made much more difficult by threatening to bomb Iranian territory. We urge you to lead the way to peace, not war, and to begin by making clear that you will not commit the highest international crime by aggressively attacking Iran. (sign)

Having a missile that can penetrate the Earth is important for armies as it enables them to destroy their enemy’s deeply-buried strategic targets. A sample of those strategic targets is Iran’s nucliear facilities that many people are talking about these days.

Fortunately (or might be unfortunately as you will see), it is not easy to penetrate the Earth much as it absorbs most of the energy of any rocket quickly. Practically, it is not possible to go more than a few meters underground even with the fastest missiles with very hard casing. One possible solution is using a nuclear warhead to compensate this problem by producing much more energy than conventional warheads. However, as it is shown in [Nelson03], even if you use a nuclear warhad, you need a very powerful one to destroy things deeply buried. For instance, if you use nuclear weapon with the power of Hiroshima’s bomb, you can just destroy stuff buried 30-40m deep. If you increase that power ten times, you cannot still destroy anything more than a hundred meters below the Earth’s surface (well! rougly speaking!). The important issue is that you cannot increase the yield of you nuclear warhead that much because if you do, you would ruin the whole area and hence kill thousands of people (I assume that you just want to destroy some special target and not the whole country).

If Bush wants to destroy nuclear facilities of Iran using his Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrating weapons, he would kill many people alongside. There is no safe way for destroying those with a missile (or you may propose a one and get DARPA’s fundings! (; ). And I think you, like me, do not want people get killed.

I want you to talk about this whole problems with your friends, write about it in your weblogs, write in your journals, and any other possible way. I know that no single one can do anything special about it, but I believe that if we talk about it much for a long time, and persuade others to talk about it too, we can spread the word to the world (remember the small-world network). If the world becomes concerned about the consequences of this possible act, those silly politicians may not think more about this hazardous option anymore.

Anyway, if you are not concerned about it at all, or you think that there is no use in talking/thinking about that possible nuclear disaster, you may still want to read [Nelson03] paper. It is fun specially for those who is/was interested in weapons, destruction, bombs, explosions, and etc. (;

-Robert Nelson, “Nuclear Bunker Busters, Mini-Nukes, and the US Nuclear Stockpile,” Physics Today, Nov. 2003. ((html) – (pdf))

P.S: You may also like to see this clip

Nuking Iran: Jorge Hirsch interviewed by Foaad Khosmood
…
FKh: What will be the likely Iranian response to a conventional air strike? What about a nuclear strike?

JH: Iran is likely to respond to any US attack using its considerable missile arsenal against US forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. Israel may attempt to stay out of the conflict, it is not clear whether Iran would target Israel in a retaliatory strike but it is certainly possible. If the US attack includes nuclear weapons use against Iranian facilities, as I believe is very likely, rather than deterring Iran it will cause a much more violent response. Iranian military forces and militias are likely to storm into southern Iraq and the US may be forced to use nuclear weapons against them, causing large scale casualties and inflaming the Muslim world. There could be popular uprisings in other countries in the region like Pakistan, and of course a Shiite uprising in Iraq against American occupiers.

Finally I would like to discuss the grave consequences to America and the world if the US uses nuclear weapons against Iran. First, the likelihood of terrorist attacks against Americans both on American soil and abroad will be enormously enhanced after these events. And terrorist’s attempts to get hold of “loose nukes” and use them against Americans will be enormously incentivized after the US used nuclear weapons against Iran.

Second, it will destroy America’s position as the leader of the free world. The rest of the world rightly recognizes that nuclear weapons are qualitatively different from all other weapons, and that there is no sharp distinction between small and large nuclear weapons, or between nuclear weapons targeting facilities versus those targeting armies or civilians. It will not condone the breaking of the nuclear taboo in an unprovoked war of aggression against a non-nuclear country, and the US will become a pariah state.

Third, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will cease to exist, and many of its 182 non-nuclear-weapon-country signatories will strive to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent to an attack by a nuclear nation. With no longer a taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, any regional conflict may go nuclear and expand into global nuclear war. Nuclear weapons are million-fold more powerful than any other weapon, and the existing nuclear arsenals can obliterate humanity many times over. In the past, global conflicts terminated when one side prevailed. In the next global conflict we will all be gone before anybody has prevailed. (+)