John LaForge

Threatening to make attacks with nuclear weapons is known as "deterrence" when the United States does it, but it’s called madness, blackmail, or "terrorism" if Russia, China, or North Korea does. U.S. Air Force thermonuclear weapons, about 100-to-150 of them known as B61s, are stationed at two NATO bases in Italy, and at one NATO … Continue reading “Deterrencelessness: Nuclear Threats Neither Credible Nor Viable”

Hiroshima was "a military base." The US atomic bombings "ended the war," and they "prevented an invasion and saved lives." Our government’s tests of atomic weapons on people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 76 years ago were rationalized using these myths which transformed indiscriminate destruction into a "good thing." This mythology stands as a roadblock to … Continue reading “Rejection of US Hiroshima Myths Long Overdue”

It gets harder to commemorate World War I, because of time and the public’s embrace of, or indifference to, a permanent war economy. About the Great War British novelist H.G. Wells wrote on August 14, 1914, "This is already the vastest war in history. … For this is now a war for peace. It aims … Continue reading “Armistice Day First”

While much of the world pursues the abolition of nuclear weapons – embraced by the adoption July 7 by 122 nations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – the militarized Trump White House is pursuing plans for a trillion-dollar rebuild of the entire US nuclear weapons complex. The enormous, extravagant program is … Continue reading “US Bomb Tests and Bidding Wars Herald New (Unlawful) $1.5 Trillion Nuclear Weapons Complex”

"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off, what, 20 percent of the population?" ~ General Curtis LeMay, in Strategic Air Warfare, by Richard H. Kohn The US public wants … Continue reading “‘We Burned Down Every Town in North Korea’”

Twice in seven days the United States shot nuclear-capable long-range missiles toward the Marshall Islands, but the same government refused in March to join negotiations for a new treaty banning nuclear weapons. Tests conducted April 26 and May 3 from Vandenberg Air Force Base launched modernized Minuteman-3 ballistic missiles, and the US Air Force said … Continue reading “US Says ‘Yes’ to Nuke Tests, ‘No’ to a Nuke Ban Treaty”

An explosive cocktail of political instability mixed with 90 U.S. H-bombs raises the specter of accidental or suicidal nuclear detonation in or near Turkey. This risk was brought into sharp relief by the attempted military coup there in mid-July. In June, I warned that the Pentagon’s 180 thermonuclear B61 gravity bombs deployed across Europe – … Continue reading “Wild Turkey With H-Bombs: Failed Coup Heightens Calls for Denuclearization”

“A little more than 60 miles from Brussels airport,” Kleine Brogel Air Base is one of six European sites where the United States still stores active nuclear weapons, William Arkin wrote last month. The national security consultant for NBC News Investigates, Arkin warned that these bombs “evade public attention to the extent that a post-terror … Continue reading “Undeterred: Amid Terror Attacks in Europe, US H-bombs Still Deployed There”

In 2010, three high-ranking military officials including Air Force Colonel B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of the US Air Force’s Strategic Plans and Policy Division who had worked directly for the Secretary of the Air Force, published a major policy paper suggesting that the US should unilaterally cut its nuclear arsenal by more than 90 percent. … Continue reading “Voices of Reason vs. the Doomsday Lobby”