News Gloss

"Lingering" nuclear weapons?

"The Hunt for Nazi Scientists", a show tonight on PBS's "Secrets of the Dead", does a pretty nice job of presenting the post-war competition for important Nazi military technology: jet fighters, ballistic missiles and nuclear fission. The Nazis define militarism to this day.

One of the nicest moments was a slave laborer, near-starved in Werner von Braun's V2 factory, commenting on his disgust when von Braun was celebrated after his success with Apollo 11. Von Braun is the classic "tech visionary for hire". He worked hard to kill civilians for the Nazis, and then he worked hard to build the US missile program, which backed the killing of millions of civilians by the US after WWII, and constantly pushed forward the arms race.

The program talks about these missiles in their nuclear silos, a von Braun legacy "that still lingers today".

The US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons, against civilians. It has more than anyone, and refuses to reduce its stockpile. It is planning on building more. US nuclear weaponry is the bulwark of small-country bullying by hawks like Bush, and is the most likely future cause of a human holocaust. That's quite a heavy bit of "lingering".

posted by Greg Bryant @ 5:56 PM