From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: A modest suggestion to all residents of India and Pakistan...

To: ALL RESIDENTS OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN,

We sympathize with the powerful emotions brought about by generations of war.

We know you have strong feelings and opinions -- on both sides of the conflict.

We understand that you hope extreme measures of war will finally bring you an everlasting peace, because you are tired of 50 years of killings, burning of villages, bombardments, assassinations, terrorism, etc..

All THAT never brought you peace, and nor will a nuclear horror.

Before deciding that nuclear war is right for YOU, those of you most urgently thinking it's a good idea should have a very clear understanding of what's to come.

In order to have some concept of what you are proposing, here's what you need to do:

Go outside your house, kill all the animals on your property (painfully), pull up all your plants, pour rat poison all over your torn up, bloodied yard, and then pour gasoline all over all of THAT, and then light it all on fire and immolate yourselves, your family, your surroundings.  Get your neighbors to do this too, and their neighbors, and their neighbors, and their neighbors, for miles and miles around.

Then you will have a foretaste of what nuclear war will bring you and your neighbors, and perhaps 100 million others.

We know that right now, many of you think that killing millions of them -- and of you (for there surely will be a nuclear retaliation to any nuclear strike) -- will at last bring peace.

But you are wrong.

Only running out of nuclear weapons will bring you peace if you start down that road.  And the only peace you'll get is the peace of the grave.

Oh sure, you might get lucky.  Some remaining general (or private?) might NOT push the last button in the last row of nuclear buttons.  But you can't count on it.  More likely, the first salvo will be the whole shooting match.  Insert two keys, say a prayer for your soul for what you are about to do, and fire off all the guns.  If after doing that, there is some human decency in you, I suppose you will next say a prayer for your victims.

It's a sure thing no one left on Earth will be very happy with what you've done, and we don't believe any God or Gods anyone might worship will be very pleased, either.  You neighbors will be dying from your spat -- in fact, people all over the world will die, because the full spectrum of health effects -- cancer, leukemia, and worst of all, birth defects, occurs at any dose in a percentage of people who get that dose, which (fortunately, or we'd all be dead) decreases as the dose decreases.  But the percentage never goes to zero.

This planet you are contemplating irradiating does not have room for nuclear waste.  You must stop testing these awful weapons, and stop threatening to use them.

I know.  My country, right now, is threatened with nuclear annihilation, in part for nuclear attacks we have committed.  I wish I was not speaking from the grotesque voice of experience, but as an American, I am.

The use of nuclear weapons will annihilate you, slowly or quickly, but surely.  It will cause your neighbors to despise whoever's left of you, as they die slowly from fallout from your weapons.  For those of you who survive, your dispute will not be resolved -- it will be multiplied a million-fold.  The Himalayan mountains that surround you will become radioactive, and the radioactive snow melt will pour down your streams and rivers, into your lakes, and into your fields and gardens, and then into the world's oceans.

The fallout will also blanket the world.   Fifty years from now, or 50 million years from now, scientists (if there are any left) will be able to bore through the world's soils and know exactly when you set off your bombs.

For more information on what you will go through, please read this document we wrote after your two nations tested nuclear weapons a few years ago:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm

Citizens of the world beg of you to put your nuclear "toys" away, and go to the negotiating table.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA, USA
with
Pamela Blockey-O'Brien
Douglassville, GA, USA

cc:
London Times
Reuters
The News With Brian Williams at MSNBC
Aaron Brown, CNN

Anyone with contacts in India or Pakistan -- please forward this letter to them!

NO NUCLEAR WARS ON THIS PLANET, PLEASE!!

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