The 'Developed World' Estimates Effects of S.Asian Nuclear War Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Remember when the US leaked boasts about how the "Special Forces" would take out Pakistan's nuclear war capability if Musharraf's shadowy intelligence spooks helped the Taliban? So what are they prepared to do now? NOTHING... The "Special Forces" aren't THAT special. All the criminals of the US War Machine will do is scramble to get their asses out of the region as fast as they possibly can, to get out of "harm's way," just like their "Commander in Chief" did on 911. We can't have US casualties in any numbers, after all. Maybe a few dozen here, a few dozen there, all disguised as one or two soldiers, but taking any REAL risks for peace -- to prevent a "nook-you-lar" war -- is too scarey for the traitorous cowards Dummy and Rummy and their chickenshit generals. The scum running the USA may not be able to pronounce "nuclear war," but they've brought the planet to the brink of it. This would set back the Cheny-Bush pipeline project for a couple of decades, but it might be interesting to see a small-scale dress-rehearsal nuclear holocaust, with the wogs as guinea pigs. Ah, but what if one of those primitive Paki F16s takes a little nuclear dump on a few ships in the US fleet? And the other wild card in the neighborhood is China. Isn't it time for the governments of the "developed" world -- those who are selling all the death-dealing goodies -- to own up to their greed, indifference, racism and savagery? Wouldn't it be refreshing if the men in suits, with all their words, at the United Nations admitted to the reality of their impotence and and simply resigned -- dissolving their bloated, useless, toothless bureaucracy? Shouldn't WE ALL simply turn off our appliances (especially our TeeVees), stop paying our bills, stop paying our taxes, stop going to work, turn off our WalkMans and go stand silently in the streets on strike until there is some possibility of genuine planetary peace?] AFP via Yahoo Asia - June 1, 2002 http://asia.news.yahoo.com/020601/afp/020601030200asiapacificnews.html Saturday June 1, 11:02 AM Up to 12 million dead in "worst-case" Indo-Pakistan nuclear war: Pentagon WASHINGTON (AFP) - Between nine million and 12 million people would die in a "worst-case" nuclear war between India and Pakistan, a US defense official said, citing a classified Pentagon assessment. That projection does not take into account subsequent deaths from disease, famine and contaminated water supplies, only the immediate casualties of a nuclear conflagration between the South Asian neighbors, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The classified assessment was updated last week by the Defense Intelligence Agency amid soaring tensions between India and Pakistan as they squared off over Kashmir. In the worst case scenario, the official said, "the fatalities would be between nine (million) and 12 million and the injuries between two (million) and six million" in the short term. "Long-term you would be talking about starvation, pollution of the water tables, birth defects, and all that other stuff," the official said. The scenario took the number of nuclear weapons each side was believed to have, and matched them to their most likely target list, then assumed all weapons would be successfully delivered and all would burst on the ground, sending up clouds of radioactive fallout, the official said. Because of the greater fallout, such ground-burst nuclear explosions would likely produce several million more casualties than if nuclear weapons were detontated in the air. An airburst nuclear explosion produces "more damage on structures but it doesn't produce the fallout that a surface burst does," the official said. Jane's Strategic Weapons Systems estimates that India has between 50 and 150 nuclear weapons, and Pakistan between 25 and 50. The US defense official said the Indian nuclear weapons were estimated to be in the low 10-kilotonne range while the Pakistanis' were in the 20-kilotonne range. The atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima at the end of World War II was approximately 14 kilotonnes. The official said the DIA assessment was based on a "worst-case scenario" that made some liberal assumptions. For instance, it assumed Pakistan would likely deliver its nuclear weapons with F-16 fighters and that all would get through India's integrated air defenses, the official said. Pakistan also has two nuclear-capable ballistic missiles -- the Shaheen and the Ghauri, with ranges of 700 kilometers (420 miles) and 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) respectively. India, for its part, was judged most likely to use Soviet-made MiG-27 fighters to deliver its nuclear weapons. It also has nuclear-capable British-made Jaguar aircraft. India has only one nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the Prithvi-I, with a range of only 150 kilometers (90 miles), the official said. It is testing a longer range Prithvi-II missile. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he is prepared to lay out for India and Pakistan the horrific consequences of a nuclear war when he visits the region next week. * BBC Online - June 1, 2002 At the front in Kashmir's 'phoney war' Both sides have vast numbers of troops in Kashmir By Jill McGivering BBC South Asia correspondent The commander was buried deep inside a burrow, artfully disguised with grass and camouflage nets. He jumped up from his camp bed when we walked in, uniform crumpled, feet bare. He crushed our hands in greeting, beaming, jolly - pressing us to drink beer as he rushed to pull on boots and belts. He was our passport to the forbidden border zone, out of bounds to journalists. He drove us there at breakneck speed, setting us bouncing and pitching in the back of his vehicle along pot-holed roads. We were crossing a landscape in fancy dress - armed personnel carriers skulking in the hollows of the fields, draped with grass-covered nets. Fields which just weeks ago were much needed farming land now sown with landmines. A sudden glint of sunlight giving away the pointing barrel of a gun sticking out of a pretend bush. Officers had already shown us the underground chambers they are building, shell-proof, bomb-proof bunkers. We went into the dark, cool depths of one, down steps cut steeply into the mud. Life underground A main room about 12 feet square, walls packed tightly with sandbags, plastered over with earth. A single electric bulb dangled from the centre, casting eerie shadows. It was cool and dank, smelling overpoweringly of earth. The officer showed me round with the enthusiasm of an estate agent - we'll put matting down here, he says, gesturing at the packed mud floor, and here, hang our battle charts and maps. I peered into the pitch blackness of a small annex - emergency sleeping quarters. This burrow is the command centre for when war breaks out. The actual border, when we reach it, is also mud. A rampart maybe 18 feet high, criss-crossed with earth footholes leading to narrow pathways. I scramble to just below the top, and pause, bent double, ready to peer over when the general gives the sign. As I dare to stick my head up and look out, the commander's voice falls to a whisper in my ear. That's POK, he says - how Indians describe Pakistan Kashmir - and he points to metal watchtowers just a few fields away. Shelling and firing The strong sun bouncing off the towers makes it impossible to see who's hidden inside, staring back. There's shelling and firing every day, the general tells me. In the background a cement mixer is droning. As the troops patrol their mud shelf, village women alongside them are walking back and forth through the dust, with baskets of fresh concrete on their heads. They are working within range of Pakistani guns, building another line of defence - a high perimeter fence, mile upon mile of it designed to keep the enemy out. It all strikes me as an echo of war a century ago - troops with hard hats and binoculars in leather cases pointing machine guns through slits in mud walls. Every time I raise the thought of a nuclear strike, people look bemused or downright baffled. Take the Das family. We first saw them as a slowly advancing cloud of dust, rolling away from the border. They were riding a tractor-trailer - mother, father and adult daughter perched on top of everything they owned. Two sons cycled behind, brown with dust. We followed them all the way to their brother's village - safely inside Indian territory. There we watched them unpack, pots and pans, an electric fan, five Indian beds, a handful of embroidered cushions. A young man from their home village hobbled forward on a walking frame to greet them - shot in the leg earlier this year in Pakistani fire. 'War couldn't be worse' Mr Das squatted in his brother's yard, now overwhelmed with uneven heaps of belongings, the complex debris of a second household. A grandma squatted nearby, youngsters crowded round. War? All of them seemed in no doubt. "There should be a war," said Mr Das. "War couldn't be worse than this - shifting here and there." The grandma interrupted him to agree emphatically. "For us, war's already started," he went on. "Our houses are coming under fire, people and animals are dying." Some of the thousands of people now fleeing have nowhere to go. We visited school yards and empty commercial centres turned into makeshift relief camps. Local people stirred vast cauldrons of tea and doled it out from plastic buckets. Women squatted over improvised fires to cook Indian bread. 'We need war' The conditions are grim, the future uncertain - but even here everyone said they wanted war. "We need war," said one woman. "We're all fed up. Let's get this thing sorted out once and for all." We wondered if they really understood how serious war might be. What if they used nuclear weapons? we asked. They nodded sagely. "Oh yes", said someone. "We had one of those a few weeks back, terrible." The diplomats may be talking peace - but no-one here seems very keen to listen. * BBC News "Analysis" - June 1, 2002 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ Analysis: US ups pressure Both sides have been putting on a show of strength By Jon Leyne BBC US State Department correspondent The US finds itself with a vested interest in South Asia, a region that could easily slip into a disastrous war. The US also has troops stationed in Pakistan, and its jets fly over the country on their way to targets in Afghanistan. And if the war were to involve nuclear weapons, millions would die in India and Pakistan in the opening minutes, according to a study reportedly conducted by the US Defense Department. America and its allies are now engaged in a determined diplomatic effort to show both countries that they have something to gain in reducing tensions and everything to lose if those tensions lead to all out war. Nuclear fears The US is obviously concerned about the conflict in Kashmir pulling Pakistani troops from patrolling the border with Afghanistan on the watch for Taleban and al-Qaeda troops. But apart from the impact on Afghanistan, Americans say that they are concerned about possible war between India and Pakistan particularly the huge fear of a nuclear war breaking out between these two powers. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that neither side would benefit from starting a nuclear war. "The whole world would condemn whoever does that, and I think that is a sobering reality that both understand," Mr Powell said. "It is not just another weapon in a toolbox of weapons," he said, and referred to his own military experience including as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Diplomatic pressure A procession of diplomats and senior figures has been going to the region, including the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld next week. It is a very deliberate policy manoeuvre. It not only keeps the pressure up on both sides but also the US and others believe that war will not break out while such high-profile figures are there. The specific message from the US to Pakistan is clear. General Musharraf must keep his promise to stop militants from passing over the Line of Control. While President Bush has become more direct in his calls to General Musharraf to take action against the militants, there is more subtle diplomacy at work. As the messages to Pakistan have grown louder in public, the US has slightly modified its message to India in private. It is putting more pressure on India to offer something to Pakistan in return. Secretary of State Powell said that if Pakistan acts to stop militant incursions, then India should consider a resumption of dialogue and also should consider pulling its troops back from the confrontation line. The US diplomatic strategy is to give each side something and for each side to give up something. Mr Rumsfeld's role In warning General Musharraf that he must stop militant incursions across the Line of Control, Mr Bush also announced that his secretary of defence would be going to region. There are bound to be suspicions in Washington that Mr Rumsfeld's trip might be another mark of his influence and that of other hawks and hardliners in the Bush administration. Why not dispatch Secretary of State Powell? For one, Mr Powell was just in the region in January, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will be there ahead of Mr Rumsfeld. Also, India and Pakistan must implement confidence-building measures, especially in the nuclear arena, and Mr Rumsfeld as secretary of defence is suited to address these thorny issues. Mr Rumsfeld also may present to both sides a sobering report commissioned by the US Defence Department outlining the devastation that would result from a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. He is also expected to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. The interim leader in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has said a war between India and Pakistan would be a disaster for his country. And of course, the US is concerned about the possibility of losing the use of military bases in Pakistan for its operations in Afghanistan and also about losing over flight rights so that its jets can fly over Pakistan on their way to missions in Afghanistan. The diplomatic challenge The goal of US diplomacy is to show both sides that they have something to gain by not going to war. For the Indians, there must be clear evidence that Pakistani support for violence in Kashmir has ended. And Pakistan wants to see not just a withdrawal of Indian troops but also a resumption of political dialogue with India. The trick for the United States is to show the two sides the benefits of moderation while giving them enough to satisfy fiercely nationalist domestic opinion in the two countries. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.01.02-18:26:36-4283