by mike Evans
There were lots of naked people who were so badly burned that the skin of their whole body was hanging from them like rags. (Another witness)10
A tremendous blast wave struck our ship…. Observers in the tail of our ship saw a giant ball of fire rise as though from the bowels of the earth, belching forth enormous white smoke rings. Next they saw a giant pillar of purple fire, 10,000 feet high, shooting skyward with enormous speed…. Awe-struck, we watched it shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space…. It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes…. It was a living totem pole, carved with many grotesque masks grimacing at the earth. (War Department press release)11
I looked at the face to see if I knew her. It was a woman of about forty. A gold tooth gleamed in the wide-open mouth. A handful of singed hair hung down from the left temple over her cheek, dangling in her mouth. Her eyelids were drawn up, showing black holes where the eyes had been burned out. (Testimony of Fujie Urata Matsumoto)12
A blinding flash swept across my eyes. In a fraction of a second, I looked out the window toward the garden as a huge band of light fell from the sky down to the trees. Almost simultaneously a thunderous explosion gripped the earth and shook it…. There seemed no alternative to death as the earth heaved. (Testimony of Hideko Tamura Friedman)13
One U.S. naval officer said of Nagasaki: “Like the ancient Sodom and Gomorrah, its site has been sown with salt and Icabod is written over its gates.”14
J. Robert Oppenheimer had been absolutely correct. While witnessing the first nuclear test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer was reminded of a line from the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”15
In their book Endgame, Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney and Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely have this to say when discussing the threat of weapons of mass destruction being used in a terrorist attack:
Many of the scenarios about terrorism concern “weapons of mass destruction,” otherwise known as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons…. As grave as the threats posed by biological and chemical weapons are, however, they are not as grave as that posed by nuclear weapons…. A biological attack would not destroy the infrastructure that our country depends upon. Telephone lines would be working. Electricity would be generated and transmitted. Highways and railroads would remain open. Computer networks would remain functioning. However frightening a biological attack might be in theory, it is unlikely to achieve much in fact….
Even if terrorist groups were given chemical weapons from the arsenal of a country, there is no guarantee that they would be able to transport them safely to the target cities or gather them in sufficient quantities to kill and injure large numbers of people….
Chemical weapons, like biological weapons, do not destroy buildings or bridges or any other vital infrastructure or interfere seriously in the operation of the government.
From a military perspective, therefore, using nuclear weapons just makes more sense. Mounting a terrorist operation using weapons of mass destruction would be expensive, even if the most expensive item—the weapons themselves—were “donated” by Iran or North Korea. If would be extremely wasteful for the web of terror to expend immense manpower on an operation that would not deliver a crushing blow to the United States.16
Today even a relatively small atom bomb—say, 20 kilotons, roughly the explosive power of what was dropped on Nagasaki, though now capable of being transported in a much more compact container—would kill hundreds of thousands almost instantly, and many more would die from the radiation exposure in the days following. Millions would suffer the effects of the blast for the rest of their lives. Were such a bomb strategically placed—say, in the Library of Congress, for example—the blast would destroy the Capitol Building and the Supreme Court as well as a great number of governmental office buildings, including the Department of Health and Human Services—the very office that would have otherwise organized the rescue and emergency care operations for just such an attack. Thousands of key government officials would be dead in a split second. When the attacks of 9/11 took place, the entire U.S. economy shuddered—what would happen after a nuclear attack in Washington? Or what if the attack hit Wall Street instead? Or even both?
According to former CIA director James Woolsey:
Hassan Abbasi—I believe his name is—a chief of strategy for Ahmadinejad—said sometime…that there were twenty-nine sites in America and the West that if they were destroyed—and he knew how to destroy them—they would “bring the Anglo-Saxons to their knees.” And that once that was done, nobody else would fight.17
In a meeting with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz in 2006, I asked him about Iran’s threat to the United States. Dr. Dershowitz said:
Iran is a major, major threat to the United States. Iran, if it’s not stopped, will get a nuclear bomb, and it will use that nuclear bomb to blackmail America and other countries…. A nuclear weapon, whether used or hung, is the sword of Damocles—it changes the entire structure and balance of power…. You can deter people who don’t want to die—but many of Iran’s leaders welcome death. They are part of the culture of death. They see life on earth as only a segue to Paradise with their seventy-two virgins—or whatever the rewards are going to be—and it’s very hard to deter a culture that welcomes death. So Iran would be a great threat to the United States.
As Tom Friedman once said, “If terrorists are not stopped in the Middle East, they’re coming to a theater near you”—and they’re coming to the United States, to Europe…[even] Western European countries are vulnerable to an Iranian nuclear threat.18
Former prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu had this to say:
Up until now, nuclear weapons have been in the hands of responsible regimes. You have one regime, one bizarre regime, that apparently has them now in North Korea. [However,] there aren’t a billion North Koreans that people seek to inspire into a religious war. That’s what Iran could do. It could inspire the two hundred million Shiites. That’s what they intend to do—inspire them into a religious war, first against other Muslims, then against the West.
…It is important to understand that they could impose a direct threat to Europe and to the United States—and to Israel, obviously. They don’t hide it. They don’t even hide the fact that they intend to take on the West.19
In June 2002, following the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York City, Suleiman Abu Gheith, bin Laden’s press secretary, made a terrifying announcement on a defunct Internet site: “We have the right,” said Abu Gheith, “to kill four million Americans—two million of them children—and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands.” In the perverted and warped minds of these fanatics, the four million represented the number that needed to be killed to balance the scales. In effect, Abu Gheith was saying that America was responsible for the deaths of four million Muslims. The number would be equal to forty-nine hundred 9/11 attacks.20
When Tom Ridge, secretary of homeland security under President George W. Bush, was asked to define his greatest nightmare, he replied, “Nuclear.”21
THE SUICIDE REGIME
Iran is certainly not constrained by what was called the “MAD deterrent” (mutual assured destruction) during the Cold War of the twentieth century. The theory behind this policy is that each superpower engaged in the Cold War—i.e., Russia and the United States—was sufficiently armed to destroy the other several times over in the event of an attack. The outcome of such an event would bring about the near total destruction of both countries and the world.
This theory was directly responsible for the nuclear arms race that was unleashed during the late 1940s, and lasted through the mid-1980s. Both nations had sufficient incentive not to engage in a direct nuclear conflict, and both were content to employ proxy wars around the world. Could it have been this “proxy war” concept that gave Iran the idea of stationing groups s
uch as Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, and to send proxies into Iraq to foment upheaval in that country?
Perhaps the most pressing question after all is not when will Iran have the bomb, but rather, will the mad Ahmadinejad be deterred by “mutual assured destruction”?
Gen. Yossi Peled, the commander of Israel’s northern divisions in the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, said this about Iran’s having nuclear weapons:
If this moment comes that Iran has nuclear ability, let’s say they decide to make a move in the Middle East to free it from the bad influence of the West. They would take [on] Egypt, Israel, Lebanon—it’s against the interests of the Western world and against the United States. Don’t you think it will limit the reaction of the United States? Everything will change. I wish to be wrong, but I don’t feel so.
The second point is that they think in a different way than you and me and most of the Western world. Maybe they will be ready to sacrifice half of the Islamic world to destroy half of the Western world. It’s possible because they think a different way, have a different religion, live according to a different mentality. And already, they are strong enough to convince their people it is okay to sacrifice a million to achieve control.22
Professor Raymond Tanter, a national security advisor under Reagan/Bush and one of the founders of the Iran Policy Committee, sees Islamofascist extremism and nuclear weapons as a mix the West truly can’t sit by and let happen:
What difference does it make if an Islamofascist regime gets nuclear weapons? It would be a huge boost to the government of Iran in terms of its…diplomatic ability to coerce the neighbors; it would accelerate the arms race in the Middle East where Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel will either acquire or make explicit their nuclear weapons. The threat from Iran is a huge destabilizing factor in U.S.-European relations.
So what then is the nation prepared to do? I say go ahead and try diplomacy but realize that when you are dealing with an Islamofascist regime, diplomacy is unlikely to work. Why not? Because the Islamofascist regime is not a normal regime where you make cost benefit calculations, where you make proposals and counter-proposals, [where] you make compromises. This regime doesn’t negotiate in the same manner that a western government would negotiate. Hence you should try diplomacy, but be prepared for diplomatic failure and have options other than military options. That’s what I call regime change; by empowering the Iranian people through their opposition groups.23
The power of Khomeini’s radical Islamic belief system brainwashed into the mind of every Islamic fanatic has never been more apparent than in the various attacks around the world that have killed American soldiers, civilian bystanders, and even fellow Muslims. The Iranian-backed death squads in Iraq have no compunction about blowing themselves up in crowded marketplaces, outside schools, in busy city centers, all the while shouting, “Allah akbar!”—“Allah is supreme!”
According to former Palestinian terrorist Walid Shoebat:
[Ahmadinejad] would sacrifice his whole country. When somebody reaches to the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalist like Ahmadinejad, his people don’t matter, just like Hitler. The people do not matter. They’re just elements to establish a goal. With Islamic fundamentalism and Nazism, two things are very similar. The end justifies the means, and there is no respect for borders.24
Apparently in the fanatical Islam mind-set, it is OK to kill Muslim brothers, for they will attain heaven; the hated infidel will, however, go to their reward in hell. For the radical jihadists, the end justifies the murders of innocent Muslim passersby because, after all, they will attain their reward that much sooner. Sadly, young Iranian students are literally brainwashed by textbooks found in their schools. The youngsters are taught that to sacrifice themselves as martyrs for the “cause” is the ultimate goal, and they must be ready at all times for the opportunity to attain that goal.
John R. Bolton, then undersecretary for arms control and international security, said in August 2004:
What we ask for is not much—only what is necessary to protect our security and to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and other WMD. All that Iran must do is to abide by the treaties it has signed banning weapons of mass destruction and stop its program to develop ballistic missiles. We cannot let Iran, a leading sponsor of international terrorism, acquire the most destructive weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe, most of central Asia and the Middle East, or beyond.25
Without serious, concerted, immediate intervention by the international community, however, Iran will reach that goal.
AHMADINEJAD: NOT YOUR ORDINARY MADMAN
We must understand that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not your run-of-the-mill madman. He firmly believes in the soon return of the Twelfth Imam, a character in Iranian mythology that can only be resurrected through an apocalyptic struggle. His grasp of this concept has spilled over into his speeches, including an address to the United Nations where he boldly called for “the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace.”26 It is at the core of his writings and is taught in Iranian schools. This belief has shaped the life vision and the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In discussing Ahmadinejad, Dr. Irwin Cotler, member of the Parliament of Canada and former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, had this to say when I spoke to him recently:
I think that Ahmadinejad is a greater threat than bin Laden…. Bin Laden at this point is a fugitive from justice and people are seeking to find bin Laden, but Ahmadinejad is a world leader in the sense that he is invited by the United Nations to address the general assembly and it confers an immunity upon him if not a legitimacy….
I think Ahmadinejad is a kind of global threat to anyone who does not share his apocalyptic vision of the universe, and therefore he is not only a threat to Israel and the Jews. I know another lesson of history is that while it may begin with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews. We learned that in the Second World War…. I think that the threat here is, in fact, global—that it encompasses even those Muslims who in any way would seek to make peace with Israel. He’s made that intention clear by saying that those Muslims who would recognize Israel will burn in the Uma of Islam. Ahmadinejad is a global threat, and his criminality is global in its intent.27
Ahmadinejad has already laid the groundwork for an attack on Israel by spewing his ire at every opportunity. He has said, repeatedly, that Israel should be wiped “off the map,” that the Holocaust is a myth perpetrated by the Jewish people as a justification to give them Palestine, and that the Jews should be relocated to a colony in Europe, or perhaps Alaska. He chaired a conference in Tehran in October 2005 called, “A World Without Zionism and America.”
During the conference, Ahmadinejad quoted Ayatollah Khomeini and then added, “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury [while] any [Islamic leader] who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.”28 He would not hesitate to launch an attack to obliterate Israel, even if it meant taking out the Palestinians, too. Of course, such an attack would mean immediate counterstrikes by Israel that would decimate Iran.
While such tactics might give the Palestinians and perhaps even the Iranian population pause for thought, Ahmadinejad would count it as the ultimate in martyrdom, and thus the ultimate in self-glory. The indoctrination of the martyr complex has become so ingrained in the radical Islamic psyche that human life has no value except for how the person dies; not even the lives of wives and children, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors matter next to the chance to go out in a glorious explosive strike at the infidels.
One of Ahmadinejad’s heroes is Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. It was he who said:
I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers, meaning anyone that dared to disagree with him] wish to stand against our religion, we will s
tand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.29
With this in mind, the idea of mutual assured destruction is not a restraint that will work with the ilk of Ahmadinejad and his cronies.
The current ruling mullahs in Iran fully believe that Allah has preordained their success; they are determined to tread the path he has laid out for them. And they believe that they will triumph, that they will truly establish an Islamic caliphate worldwide, and that every knee will bow to Islam and every Christian and Jew will be enslaved.
When Ayatollah Khomeini made his triumphant return to Tehran in 1979, the religious fanatics were convinced they would win. Why? They saw Americans as weak. They saw America as having the weapons, but not the will, not the determination, not the resolve to carry out a prolonged war of attrition. The Grand Ayatollah reiterated the belief that the United States lacked the fervor necessary to challenge the Islamic revolution that was willing to fight for centuries if necessary to reach its aims.
