June 25, 2018

Counter Punch

Kings Bay Plowshares Action Names the Trident with Blood

By John LaForge

Seven Plowshares activists snuck into the Kings Bay Trident Submarine Base in Georgia on April 4th, the 50thanniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Once inside, they put up banners and poured blood on the base, and have been charged with four federal felonies each. In a statement announcing their daring action, the seven anti-nuclear activists said that “The ultimate logic of Trident is Omnicide.”

The reference is to the US Navy’s unimaginably destructive Trident submarines, each of which can carry up to 192 separately targeted nuclear warheads – that is, up to eight nuclear warheads on each of 24 missiles. Each warhead, at 475 kilotons, is 31 times the explosive force of the Hiroshima bomb. As 140,000 people at Hiroshima were killed by that 15-kiloton US atomic bomb, the incineration factor of today’s Trident submarines is potentially “omnicidal.

Each warhead can theoretically destroy 4,340,000 people (31 times the 140,000 killed at Hiroshima). Each missile with its eight warheads can potentially destroy 34,720,000 people (8 times 4,340,000). With 24 missiles on a sub, one Trident can possibly destroy 833 million people, give or take (24 times 34,720,000).

Not satisfied with threatening over 833 million people in 192 different places, the US government has 14 Trident submarines. Fourteen times 833 million is around 11.6 billion people that can be incinerated by the Navy. With only 7.6 billion people on Earth, it’s no exaggeration to call the Trident system “omnicidal.”…

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/kings-bay-plowshares-action-names-the-trident-with-blood/