Sylvia Boyes Jailed for 3 Months for Nonviolent Resistance at Fylingdales Star Wars Base, England

by JoeMc Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:29

That’s what they always used to say in CND , Unity Jack , but the pro-nuclear side said it as well. Throughout the Cold War , military leaders and governments of nuclear-armed countries insisted on the deterrent value of MAD , using the fear generated by it to justify building more and more nuclear weapons . Right-wing commentators at the time (and since) invariably mocked calls for disarmanent with boasts about how pacifism had failed while the fear inspired by MAD had brought peace to the world .

This is how it is supposed to work . Britain has lots of nuclear weapons . Were they to shoot off only a few of thier missiles in the direction of Russia , the Russians would fire back aiming to hit the silos in Britain where the other British nuclear missiles were stored so as to prevent Britain firing off any more of them . Were the Russians to be successful , Britain's entire nuclear arsenal would explode on home base. So they have to get all of their weapons off first. . Since the Reagan years there have been various futile attempts to build a defence system that is capable of outsmarting Russia's ability to retaliate in the event of a NATO nuclear first-strike . .

This is from the wiki entry on MAD .

The doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side; and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate without fail with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate irreversible escalation of hostilities resulting in both combatants' mutual, total and assured destruction. The doctrine further assumes that neither side will dare to launch a first strike because the other side will launch on warning (also called fail-deadly) or with secondary forces a (second strike), resulting in the destruction of both parties. The payoff of the MAD doctrine is expected to be a tense but stable global peace..

In the event of an attack from an aggressor, a state would massively retaliate by using a force disproportionate to the size of the attack.

by Unity Jack Mon Dec 05, 2011 05:05

Where it is said 'any successful Nuclear Attack would have to destroy its enemy first'.  The fact that Dr. Cauldicott makes is that a Nuclear Winter would set in anyway around the world, and that would be the end of its livability, so even if the so-called enemy did or did not set off all their weapons.  What we are talking here about is the fact that any nuclear war is a lose, lose sittuation where literally there is no winners.  The fact that nuclear weapons kill organic plants, animals, peoples equally, and all inorganic matter becomes in-oped by radiation poisons that destroys the living planet for thousands and millions of years of poison polluton shows that it kills all, and that to every clear thinking persons is not successful, it is total failure.  Best to ban the bomb, not the peoples.  1st cdn. div. says that.

by JoeMc Fri Dec 02, 2011 16:43

The cold-war balance of terror concept known by the acronym MAD -i.e mutually assured destruction in the event of the use of nuclear weapons - was predicated on the military calculation that a nuclear armed country would be compelled to fire off its entire nuclear arsenal in the event of a nuclear engagement with another nuclear-armed country. Any successful nuclear first strike would have to start with the destruction of all the enemy's nuclear arsenal before the opposing country had a chance to retaliate . A country responding to a first-strike attack likewise had to send off all their hardware or else they would be destroyed on that country's own territory.

The people who sent this brave woman to prison need to be warned that there will come a time when they will be punished for their support for a war machine that threatens the future of humanity. I’m no fan of law and order and I’m not talking about the gallows here, but surely these magistrates need to know that some form of sanction will eventually be applied to them.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri Dec 02, 2011 15:16

for this bit about the nulear nuts

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27987

Russian roulette takes on fresh nuance?

by MacE Sat Dec 27, 2008 18:31

I seem to remember a lot of protests in formerly Stalinist Eastern Europe during the 1980s. Change didn't come there from the barrel of a gun, it came from people refusing to accept that change can only come from the barrel of a gun.

by lulu Fri Dec 26, 2008 09:14

Some people have a conscience too strong to muzzle for the sake of a quiet life, & the world is the better for their struggle & example. Without people like Trident Ploughshares, who would be speaking for the innocents bombed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc., & against the greedy warmongers who raise the risk of terrorist attacks on more innocent people in Europe?
By your reasoning, no-one would have opposed Hitler, Stalin, or any murderous despot.
If you think prison is an easy option, you are lucky enough to be in ignorance about these bins of society; not to say that all gaols are hell-holes, but it's no holiday, & leaves a black spot on your CV.

by newsmedia - newsmedianews Thu Dec 25, 2008 22:03

If only you people and others like you would realise that your protests do nothing grander than get you sent to jail.

You are battling a lost cause by protest. You may as well stop a tank with a daisy. Grow up - does the fact that this system can send someone to jail on Christmas Day not tell you anything about its complete indifference?

I am recalled of the phrase 'change must come from the barrel of a gun'. Anyone who takes any time to study history will know that.