PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

PRESS RELEASE 3DEC2012

MASSIVE HYPROCRISY OVER PLANNED DPRK MISSILE TEST

NOV 14 VANDENBERG US ICBM TEST WENT WITHOUT A MURMUR

When on 14 of last month, the United States tested a Minuteman-III ICBM at Vandenberg Airforce Base, apart from a hardy team of perennial demonstrators and the worthy souls at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, nobody raised an eyebrow. Even our press-release had not a single bite.(appended.)\


But a DPRK launch of what is supposedly a satellite is, it seems, a potentially 'world-ending' event that should be regarded by the rest of the world as 'provocative', and dangerous in the extreme.

Bluntly, the worlds reaction to the proposed DPRK space launch is ridiculous and counterproductive.

The DPRK has around 10-12 dodgy and dubious nuclear warheads that may or may not work at all, and that may or may not be able to be fitted onto missiles. (though Pakistan uses DPRK origin missiles to launch its nuclear warheads.)

The DPRK missile may or may not fly for more than ten seconds or so. The DPRK's last two or three launch attempts have been complete failures.

Indeed, one wonders why the DPRK has decided to try to launch anything at all, so hopeless is its actual record of putting anything at all let alone anything as heavy as a nuclear warhead, into space.

If they truly wanted to thumb their noses at the world whilst being as irresponsible as possible, at least risk of appearing ridiculous even to regime 'insiders', they might have been better to do another nuclear test, as at least the likely failure of that test can be more effectively concealed!  

As it is, the regime now runs the risk of being made to look foolish once more in front of the world. One wonders how often it can do this without internal consequences.

However, it is the hypocrisy and double-standards of the rest of us over these launches that is absolutely breathtaking.

The US and Russia maintain nuclear capabilities that can literally end civilisation and 95% of complex land – based life forms in less than an hour. Both the US and Russia have come within a minute or less of doing so by pure computer or human error.  

The Minuteman-III tested on 14 November was not a space launch vehicle.
It was unambiguously a nuclear-tipped ICBM. It had no other possible function.  It is part of the over 1000 nuclear warheads that the US keeps on high alert. And of course it worked perfectly as did all the previous launches from Vandenberg, and as also did Russian TopolM and SS-18 and 19 launches.

Yet only a tiny band of protestors opposed it. Apart from a bland 'routine' announcement it went unnoticed.

The DPRK's rocket is supposedly a space launch vehicle. It is most likely to blow up seconds after takeoff as the previous ones have done.

Yet we have the US State department and Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, and otherwise intelligent man, hyperventilating over it, thereby ensuring positively that the DPRK persists in its folly.

The Russian and US nuclear arsenals really can end the world.

The DPRK launch is best ignored completely.

John Hallam
People for Nuclear Disarmament NSW
499 Elizabeth Street Surry Hills NSW Australia 2010
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61-2-9810-2598