The Art of War
Nuclear parcel bomb from the USA
Manlio Dinucci
The new B61-12 nuclear bomb - which the US is preparing
to send to Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland and probably other European
countries - is now in its final stages of development.
This was announced by General Jack Weinstein, deputy
chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, responsible for nuclear operations,
speaking on May 1 at a symposium of the Air Force Association in Washington, in
front of a select audience of senior officers and military industry executives.
"The program
is doing extremely well," the general noted with satisfaction, specifying
that "we have already conducted 26 engineering, development, and guided
flight tests of the B61-12." The program provides for the production of
about 500 B61-12's, beginning in 2020, for a cost of approximately 10 billion
dollars. (This means that each bomb will cost twice what it would cost if it
were built entirely of gold).
The many components of the B61-12 are designed in the
Sandia National Laboratories of Los Alamos, Albuquerque and Livermore (in New
Mexico and California), and produced in a series of plants in Missouri, Texas,
South Carolina, and Tennessee. The bomb is tested (without nuclear charge) in
the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.
The B61-12 has entirely new "qualities"
compared to the current B61 deployed in Italy and other European countries - a
nuclear warhead with four selectable power options; a flight system that guides
it with precision onto the target; the ability to penetrate into the subsoil,
even through reinforced concrete, and explode at depth.
The greater precision and the penetrating ability make
the new bomb suitable for attacking command-center bunkers , so as to "decapitate" the
enemy country. A 50 kt B61-12 (equivalent to 50 thousand tons of TNT, three
times the Hiroshima bomb) that explodes underground has the same destructive
potential as a nuclear bomb of over one megaton (one million tons of TNT) that
explodes on the surface.
The B61-12 can be dropped from the US F-16C/D fighters
deployed in Aviano, and from the Italian PA-200 Tornados deployed in Ghedi. But
the new F-35A fighters are needed to exploit all the capabilities of the B61-12
(especially its guidance system). This involves the solution of other technical
problems, which are added to the numerous problems that occurred with the F-35
program, in which Italy participates as a second-level partner.
The complex software of the fighter, which has been
modified over 30 times so far, requires still further updates. Modification of
the 12 F-35's will cost Italy approximately 400 million Euros, which must be
added to the still unassessed sums (estimated at 13-16 billion Euros) for the
purchase of 90 fighters and their continuous modernization. This money will be
State-funded (i.e. using our money), while the money from the production of the F-35 will end up in the
coffers of the military industries.
The B61-12 nuclear bomb and the F-35 fighter, which Italy
receives from the US, are therefore part of a single "parcel bomb"
that will blow up in our faces. Italy will be exposed to further dangers as a
forward base for the US nuclear strategy against Russia and other countries.
There is only one way to avoid this:
v by
asking the US, on the basis of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to remove all
nuclear weapons from our territory;
v by
refusing to provide pilots and nuclear attack fighter-bombers to the Pentagon
in the framework of NATO;
v by
exiting the NATO Planning Group;
v by
adhering to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Is there anyone, in the political world, willing to stop
practicing ostrich politics?
NO WAR NO NATO
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