While the world sympathizes with the tragedy in Pakistan, the Atlantic Monthly’s esteemed journalism has a cover story on The Wrath of Khan.
How A. Q. Khan made Pakistan a nuclear power—and showed that the spread of atomic weapons can't be stopped
Mr. William Langewiesche opens his article with heart warming imagery of a beautiful lake, something he probably observed from the air conditioned confines of Mercedes as he was whisked away with Police escort, then he continues on the corruption of the Islamic state, the greed of the Dr. Strangelove aka Dr. A.Q. Khan, the pollution of Rawalpindi, a city close to the devastating earthquake, and his observation that A.Q. Khan is considered a demigod (how little he knows about Pakistan).
He writes (and the ‘u’ after ‘q’ is his because God darnit that the way God intended it to be), ‘…Dr. Abdul Quadeer Khan, the metallurgist who after a stint in Europe had returned to Pakistan in the mid-1970s with stolen designs, and over the years had provided the country—single-handedly, it was widely believed—with an arsenal of nuclear weapons.’
Now wonder of all wonders, when James Bond ‘steals’ it is called spying. When the US smuggles secrets from Cuba, USSR and Egypt it is not stealing, when the British MI6 Cambridge ring gave away cold war secrets it is spying. But if a Pakistani brings back centrifuge design to compete with a legitimate enemy, who was ‘given’ the nuclear technology under a program called ‘Atoms for peace’ by President Eisenhower, then he is stealing.
Nuclear proliferation CANNOT stop while the US builds burrowing nuclear bombs. Mankind will end up destroying the world if we continue building these devices, but how can the US expect sovereign nation to accept their please and threats when they keep building up their own armament.
The article has one motive. In short,
‘You brown people should not have a nuclear bomb, only we can have the bomb, why don’t you do some civil disobedience, dance a Bhangra, teach us Yoga, and cook us some Chicken Tikka Masala.’
Logical analysis will only predicate that the country most likely to use a nuclear bomb will be
a) one that has many
b) one that has used one before
c) one that has participated in more wars than any other in the last 60 years
d) one that continues development of nuclear, biological, chemical and cluster bombs, napalm and air-fuel bombs
I wonder what country that would be?
1 Comments:
When I was a little girl I was paralyzed by fear about nuclear war. It was the height and end of the cold war. Sting sang a stupid song about how the Russians must love their children too. I asked my father one day why we didn't have a nuclear bomb shelter. He told me about the Cuban Missle Crisis. He said that at the time, very few Americans realized how close the world was to its own end, and even fewer to the fact that we as a people, that our so-called democratically-elected government was the ones behind us, pushing us over that cliff. You're right; there is only one nation on this planet with the delusional ability to destroy itself because we of the false strength of our own conviction that we are invincible. My father said that day, as the news came out, he and my mother realized that for all their desires, they knew that when people chose destruction, it is all of our choice. Two years later he became a conscientious objector, shortly before my uncle jumped out of a plane to shoot Charlie in the shit in Vietnam. My father told me when I was scared of the mushroom cloud, that there was a strong likelihood that the world would be destroyed by men, that we would have but minutes to hold close each other before obliteration. And that there was no God, no afterlife, no hope, and mostly, nothing to be gained from fighting the inevitability of our demise besides accelerating it. I still haven't processed his thoughts. My parents raised me to be quiet. To duck and cover, even though it is hopeless. To be ashamed to be cogs in the great wheel of all-consuming destruction, but never a sabot. I didn't know where to go from there. I still don't.
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