History is repeating itself. According to a Washington Post article by John Mintz, experts are critical of evacuation plans in the event of nuclear terrorism, and point to a lack of preparation on the part of our government.
The public, Congress, and the media seem to have forgotten the scientific studies and political motivation that occurred during the 1970s and 1980s that lead to this nation’s elimination of the pre-emptive first strike policy. The point of all that data and political movement was that there is no way to adequately prepare for a nuclear event. Lives “saved” downwind are still at risk from residual fall-out, and winds blow in sometimes unpredictable directions for days at a time. Those not killed in an immediate blast would die a slow and painful death from radiation poisoning, with decay continuing to spread radiation for many centuries into the future. Want to build an underground facility for you and your loved ones? Forget it—you can’t move fast enough to benefit from it.
Could it be that the reason government has trained only small numbers of first responders is that it fully recognizes the current futility, and that money spent in that effort is money not available for war? Even Richard Falkenrath, the former Deputy of Homeland Security advisor, recognizes we do not have the “ability to [rapidly] generate and broadcast specific, geographically tailored evacuation instructions across the country.”
Let’s suppose that we had exactly that capacity. How effective would it be? How fast could you get far enough away to escape bodily harm during a nuclear event? Entire cities and states can’t even get it together to construct mass transit systems to move large numbers of people to and from work, much less implement a comprehensive evacuation plan for a nuclear event. No real wonder that government has not communicated well with the public regarding the capacity or training of first responders.
The zeitgeist of the previous decades was that, because there is no reasonable protection from nuclear events of any kind, the best way to prevent a nuclear event was to increase this country’s allies, negotiate with its enemies, and become as self-sufficient as possible with regard to energy, including finding ways to better dispose of, and utilize, radioactive waste. Instead, we have bullied nations, increased our consumption of gas, oil, and coal, and marginalized those who pursued conservation and alternative energy goals.
Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine sister and international author and lecturer, sums up our forgotten wisdom in Called to Question:
“...men everywhere are threatening wholesale slaughter in the name of defense. Violence on the scale it is practiced now and here and by us—two hundred fifty wars in the twentieth century alone, most of them with a religious component—is clearly a sin against the sacrament of life… What’s wrong with us? We stand on the brink of human extinction boasting that we seek the God of life. We invoke religion as a justification for oppressing other religions. What clearer proof do we have that our differences are not about religion; they are in the name of religion, but are founded on reasons that are totally irreligious. And what can women do about it, if anything?”
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