An inconvenient atom bomb explosion

Spoken in the House of Commons in 1952:

asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of further information available, he will order a new inquiry to be made into the dangers to bird and animal life on the Monte Bello islands before the atom bomb explosion is carried out there.

No, Sir.

Is the Prime Minister aware that the recent answer he gave in the House on this question was more picturesque than accurate? Is he also aware that the leading Australian ornithologist has said that there are at least 20 different kinds of wild birds on these islands, and is nothing to be done to prevent this bird life from being blasted out of existence?

Every effort will be made to inconvenience them as little as possible.

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1952-07-24/debates/665c1db3-fb2e-4991-9e7d-e3c3bd1c11f5/AtomExplosionMonteBelloIslands

Nuclear deterrent – Lord Gilbert

Lord Gilbert spoke a few months ago in the House of Lords on how the nuclear deterrent is effective in preventing wars.  At some point I’ll put his argument up here.  Meanwhile, a subset of his words were used in a number of articles online to say he was claiming we should “nuke the Taliban”.  It is ironic he was advocating a solution for maintaining peace to prevent the deaths of huge numbers of civilians and got attacked for it.

Anyway, you’ve gotta love the outraged headlines it produced.  Examples are:

As for what he said, this is taken from Hansard’s proceedings for 22nd November, 2012:

Lord Gilbert: … I draw your Lordships’ attention to what used to be called the neutron bomb.  The main thing was that it was not a standard nuclear warhead.  Its full title was the ERRB: Enhanced Radiation Reduced Blast weapon.  I can think of many uses for it in this day and age. … you could use an ERRB warhead to create cordons sanitaire along various borders where people are causing trouble.

I will give an example.  … nobody lives up in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan except for a few goats and a handful of people herding them.  If you told them that some ERRB warheads were going to be dropped there and that it would be a very unpleasant place to go, they would not go there.  You would greatly reduce your problem of protecting those borders from infiltration from one side or another. These things are not talked about, but they should be, because there are great possibilities for deterrence in using the weapons that we already have.

© Parliamentary Copyright

He did not say we should nuke the Taliban.  He was saying there are options for deterrence that are not being considered because the subject is taboo.  The media reaction proved him right.  If you want to read it in context, which is about how deterrence is preferable to war, he started speaking at 3.42 pm.

One has to be very careful what one says when advocating peace methods other than going to outright war.  Many people don’t like it.  Weird, innit?

As H used to say:

If things don’t change, they’ll stay the same.