August 27, 2001

Dear Editor:

Was Vice President Cheney's demonization of Saddam Hussein a pot calling a kettle black, or what? Broken U.N. agreements? Sponsorship of terrorism? Control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies? Nuclear blackmail? Investing in ongoing chemical and biological weapons?

Let's look more closely at one of Cheney's accusatory predictions: nuclear blackmail. Who holds the world hostage with its nuclear capabilities? The U.S. has built 67,500 nuclear missiles, 4,680 nuclear bombers, more than 74,000 nuclear warheads, 80 attack nuclear submarines, and 185 nuclear ballistic submarines since the Manhatten Project was a "success" more than a half century ago. There have been 11 U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered. There are approximately 104,000,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste resulting from U.S. weapons activities.

The U.S. military has tested more than 1,000 nuclear weapons in the Pacific and in Nevada. They totally vaporized an island. Nuclear bombs killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Terrorism? Nuclear blackmail?

Our government needs to stand down! Let the U.N. and Iraq's neighbors apply pressure to Hussein to prevent his rise to nuclear superpower status. Let the U.N. and the neighbors of the U.S. apply pressure to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to thwart their continued bent toward violence. Let us, the taxpaying citizens of this out of control corporate/military regime, demand an end to war, an end to first-strike world annihilation capabilities, an end to the empire….for all the children of the world!

Peace,

Glenda Breeden
R.# 3, Box 752
Spencer, IN
47460

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