For the first time since the Cold War, Russia and the United States are confronting each other militarily and have their nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert, peace activist and Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Helen Caldicott warns.
In a speech to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., Dr. Caldicott, a pediatrician and Founding President of Doctors for Social Responsibility, pointed to the cause of the hostile turn in the relations of the two countries:
"Reports say that The present Ukrainian conflict has caused Russian President Vladimir Putin to raise his nuclear launch status to a higher state of alert, a condition that STRATCOM (U.S. Strategic Command) will almost certainly follow." She described the degenerating U.S.-Russian situation as dire in these words:
"Each country has over 1,000 hydrogen bombs on hair-trigger alert and that 1,000 bombs on 100 cities could induce nuclear winter"which would usher in an ice age"during which we would freeze to death in the dark, creating the final epidemic," Dr. Caldicott said.
The Australian woman doctor who has become a world renowned peace figure, goes on to say that Putin and President Obama "each have only a three-minute interval to decide whether or not to press the button to destroy most life on Earth, a terrifying situation that has arisen at least eight times."
Indicating a return to Cold War mentality, Dr. Caldicott continued, is the fact that "The Obama administration has just announced that it plans to replace every single hydrogen bomb, submarine, plane and missile," a costly process that will take an estimated 30 years and consume $1 trillion of taxpayers' money.
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