Countdown to Zero

"There's no doubt in my mind that if terrorists had acquired a nuclear weapon, they would not hesitate to use it." Former CIA covert operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson

Countdown to Zero is as apocalyptic as An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on global warming: It is fear-mongering enough that it hurts the effort to bring a necessary return to Cold- War thinking.

Countdown to Zero is single minded in its effort to have zero nuclear weapons, of which there are more than 23,000 in the world. When the documentary arrives at calling for a popular movement, by which President Kennedy admitted he was influenced, it loses some credibility. No amount of popular demand will, for instance, change Osama bin Laden's resolve to exact the deaths of millions of Americans should he gain the necessary ingredients. The documentary's point can't be denied: Nuclear proliferation is so possible now that it seems almost impossible to stop it. The sloppy Russian storage of enriched uranium and plutonium is scary. Although over a hundred countries have disavowed nuclear weapons, hundreds like the US and Russia jealously retain them and some sell the theory if not the ingredients.

In a film almost devoid of light moments, the sometimes amusing Boris Yeltsin in 1995 inadvertently showed how serendipity can be a force in our favor. He questioned if the US had launched a missile toward Russia even though his advisors said it had. He prevailed, Russia did not retaliate, and the world discovered that only a scientific rocket had been launched. Whew!

Countdown to Zero makes a manipulative point by showing people in the street calling for zero weapons. Where are those opposed to zero? Most of us agree to a total ban except those security-minded who know deterrence is still a trump card impressive to diplomats and terrorists. While this documentary adds a little to the race to disarm, it lacks the balance a fair documentary should have. But then, Al Gore and Michael Moore haven't been accused of being balanced either, and they both live in nice houses.

Fox News abandoned its balancing act long ago in the face of soaring ratings. Who said life is fair? or balanced?

This documentary takes a look at nuclear weapons and the rise of terrorism. Various terrorist groups try to buy, steal, or build a nuclear bomb. Russia is a source of many stolen nuclear material. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the safeguards seem to fade away and many attempted smuggled nuclear material has been caught. It's unknown how much have not been caught. Then there are the nukes that is kept by the nuclear powers. There are accidents. There are close calls. There is proliferation. There is the possibility of war. There is an ever-rising possibility of nuclear weapon use in today's complex world. Filmmaker Lucy Walker is not subtle about its anti-nuke message. She's also convincing in her logical, thorough examination of the issue. There is not a lot of new investigations. However, the regular guy on the street would probably be shocked at some of the presentation.

"Every man woman and child, lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness." John F. Kennedy

This quote taken from a speech by the former US president, forms the basis for the thesis of this bleak, and sometimes alarming documentary on nuclear weaponry. Outlining a history, from the splitting of the atom, to the creation of the a-bomb by Robert Oppenheimer, the film shows the growth of nuclear armament through many countries, many of whom still have today. The film displays the devastation that such a catastrophe could have on world cities (we have seen the images of Hiroshima before). We are told of near-misses due to "mishaps" and calculations that have gone awry, even by the US military throughout the weapons history.

To the general public today, there seems to be no concept of a nuclear threat. A number of people are interviewed on the streets, asking if they feel threatened by an attack of this nature; the majority simply do not feel this threat. Since the cold wars of the 1950's, '60's and 1980's, the concept of nuclear threat has dissipated in the public view. It is no longer a focus of media attention. And yet, whilst the material (Uranium, plutonium) necessary to complete a nuclear weapon is difficult to attain, it is certainly acknowledged that middle-eastern terrorists have absolutely attempted to purchase such raw materials.

Lucy Walker's film uses some fantastic archival footage to paint a picture of the threat to our world that still exists. She managed to employ some highly notable talking heads to maintain integrity in her argument (Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Robert McNamara). She manages to highlight how easy it is to smuggle such devastating materials into countries. This is a powerful documentary, however, the threat of such an attack is so limited, that the film seems just too late to create such intrinsic paranoia (I mean, does a scared person, or country - i.e. the backwaters of the USA - really need more to worry about?) The threat just isn't as urgent as, say, in the 1980's when such films posing the question, what if...? where broadcast on television, such as the frightening Threads (1983), made and broadcast by the BBC. It is still a good documentary, with some interesting 'facts', and should certainly be watched by anyone interested in modern history.

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While the movie goes into great details about the dangers of nuclear weapons, it neglects to mention an important possible beneficial aspect of them.

There are massive objects traveling in the space called NEO (near-Earth object) which come dangerously close to the Earth from time to time. Then there are those called Earth-Crossers whose orbits actually intersect that of the Earth. Astronomers tell us that a collision with such an object is inevitable some time in the future and it could be catastrophic for all life on our planet.

If such an object is ever spotted coming at us (Jupiter had such an event only a few years ago) then those much-maligned nukes and ICBMs may be the only weapons in our arsenal with which to defend ourselves and we will not have a whole lot of time to manufacture them from scratch if we do not have some already on hand. While it may not be possible (or even desirable) to destroy such an object altogether, its trajectory may be deflected just enough to make it miss the Earth.

Therefore it might be wise for us to think things through before taking any drastic measures for their total elimination.

Firstly I understand how many people will feel after watching this movie. That another liberal agenda is being played up and the end to nuclear armament is just asking for terrorism to advance within our country, you couldn't be more wrong. Being in the military for almost ten years it was my experience that most folks get three things wrong when they think about someone using such a device in our country. One, they believe that it comes from a country. This kind of terrorism has no country and has no head to govern it, merely opportunity. The idea that you can "nuke them back" gets a little complicated when the bomb may come from a diplomatically friendly country or even from within our own. Two that such a device is complicated and needs teams of people and money to create, not so. Such a device can be crudely manufactured with a lead pipe 4gm of enriched plutonium and a shotgun shell. The devices themselves do not need to be complex to kill several thousand people, and the people setting them off probably have no qualms about killing themselves in the process. A crudely made machine can be made from almost anything you can find in a hardware store and those items are so everyday that they will not raise any FBI flags. Lastly, Three that there is a solution to such a problem. There isn't one. While the film makes a proud gesture at telling us that all we need to do is this... That is a pipe dream and besides we have gone to far down the path of destruction to make it any better. So in all of this what might be the way to make any of these problems go away. Again I'm sorry to say, nothing. We now have to live in a world where this "might" happen any day at any time. The only thing we can do is hope that we find better ways of detecting potential threats than by clandestinely stumbling into them. The movie is a gem in terms of showing that the "human" part of these weapons is the most dangerous part of them. With respect to our last president he finger that could push the button was also attached to the brain of a recovering alcoholic judgment should be reserved for the viewer and their experience but keep in mind that these things however embellished are real and are waiting right within and outside your door.