Listen to this article--Not good: Burlington earned a spot on the Nuclear Target Map

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says Burlington is one of the places targeted for nuclear missile attack

Dec 23, 2022

Article voiceover

1×

0:00

-11:27

The article and the podcast voiceover are updated from the version posted on December 21, expanding on several points.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data shows the Burlington area targeted in a full-scale nuclear exchange. It was the F-16 jets but now it’s the twenty F-35 jets that make the Burlington International Airport (BTV) a prime military target for Russian and Chinese nuclear-tipped missiles.

The maps below are based on FEMA data, and they identify military, civilian and infrastructure targets. They also show that Burlington would be as far as 150 miles from the next-nearest nuclear ground-zero blast, fireball, and mushroom cloud if those F-35 jets were properly located remote from Vermont’s densely populated areas.

Magnified Version:

Air Policing

In case the departure of the last F-16 in April 2019 caused the Russians to stop targeting BTV, the ocean transit, forward deployment, and “air policing” of Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe conducted by 8 Vermont Air National Guard F-35 jets from May through August 2022 put Russian strategic planners on notice to resume targeting the airport with their nuclear-tipped missiles.

The F-35 was designed for delivering nuclear bombs

The US Government officially designates the F-35 as part of the nuclear “Triad,” along with land-based and submarine-based missiles in the 2018 and also in the 2022 US Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review. If they are not already, each F-35 at BTV can be quickly upgraded to be capable of delivering a pair of B61-12 nuclear bombs.

Human Shielding

Particularly now, as the US is ramping up its proxy war to “weaken Russia,” tens of thousands of Vermonters living, working, or going to school within blast or fallout range of the airport are human shielding those nuclear-capable F-35 jets.

The military’s most fundamental regulations require separation of military forces from populated areas. It’s called “distinction.” The training with the F-35 jets in the densely populated cities surrounding BTV violates express terms in DoD Directive 2311.01.

Shielding the F-35 jets with cities full of civilians is a war crime. Human shielding also violates federal law 10 U.S. Code § 950t(9). The crime is particularly heinous as the offense is being committed in the context of and associated with a proxy war with a nuclear-armed adversary. And the President of the United States warned that this could escalate to nuclear war. So why are the F-35 jets still located in a city?

The Perpetrators

The Governor is the perpetrator in chief, along with the Adjutant General and the Wing Commander. They are the ones who order the daily F-35 training flights of the Vermont Air National Guard in an illegal location: a city location where commanders blatantly violate military regulations and US law.

Vermont has authority over its National Guard training

Because the US Constitution and federal law reserve full authority to the states to conduct national guard training, the federal government cannot force the civilian-damaging training to continue in that location. But the same constitution and federal law require the states to conduct their national guard training according to the federal regulations that protect civilians from military operations.

State law delegates power to local governments

Fortunately for Vermonters, we need not wait for election of a different governor who would obey the law, exercise state authority to enforce the federal regulations, and halt the F-35 training in Vermont cities. Vermont state law 24 VSA 2291(4) delegates authority to cities, towns, and villages to regulate the operation and use of vehicles of every kind to protect the public health, safety, welfare, and convenience of the people.

That means local governments all have state-delegated authority to adopt ordinances prohibiting Vermont National Guard F-35 training flights that hurt or injure, or just even inconvenience their residents.

Burlington is the airport owner

As airport proprietor, the City of Burlington has even more authority. FAA grant assurances expressly allow airport proprietors to set standards, so long as they apply to all aircraft. The City can adopt an ordinance that prohibits using civilians as human shields. And it can adopt an ordinance that sets a reasonable CO2 emission per passenger-mile standard. And it can adopt an ordinance for military training, too, including regulating the noise.

Local governments can regulate the noise, too

That’s because the FAA lacks authority to regulate the noise of military aircraft. And they say so right on their website. And there is a federal court case confirming that called Westside Property Owners v. Schlesinger 597 F.2d 1214 (9th Cir. 1979). So it’s not preempted for a local government to regulate the noise of Vermont Air National Guard jets directly. Burlington can adopt an ordinance that covers the gap in federal regulations because congress did not give the FAA power to regulate the noise of military aircraft, leaving that authority to local governments.

For example, Burlington can require state-national guard military training aircraft at the city’s airport in a densely populated area to meet the same noise standard the FAA applies for civilian aircraft. That would mean that the Vermont Air National Guard would have no advantage, no distinction, from the the civilian aircraft. It would have to meet the same noise standard. The airport would be treating the Vermont Air National with no special privilege and would not be discriminating against civilian aircraft. It would be treating them all the same. And that is exactly what the FAA grant assurances require of the airport.

South Burlington, Winooski, and other local governments in the area can adopt noise ordinances that regulate the noise of the military training activities, too. And that is what state law demands local governments do. The state has passed on the authority to regulate vehicles of every kind to protect the health, safety, welfare, and convenience of the people of each town, village and city. If they don’t do it, the local governments aren’t doing their jobs.

Time for local governments to take action

Now is the time for members of the public to press their local governments in Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski, Williston, Essex, Richmond, Shelburne, Colchester, and Charlotte to take action to abolish human shielding. To protect the health, safety, welfare, and convenience of the people. Passage of ordinances that, in multiple ways, force a halt to the training with the F-35 jets in any populated area, as required by the military’s own regulations.

Cancel the F-35

Discussion about this post