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TechnoratiThe west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new NATO by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Calling for root-and-branch reform of NATO and a new pact drawing the US, NATO and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to NATO's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a NATO summit in Bucharest in April.
"The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
The authors -- General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and NATO's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of NATO's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defense staff in the UK -- paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.
The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:
- Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
- The "dark side" of globalization, meaning international terrorism, organized crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
- Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
- The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, NATO and the EU.
To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of NATO decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and NATO leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with NATO. Among the most radical changes demanded are:
- A shift from consensus decision-taking in NATO bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.
- The abolition of national caveats in NATO operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.
- No role in decision-taking on NATO operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.
- The use of force without UN security council authorization when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".
In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defense secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that NATO's future is on the line in Helmand province.
"NATO's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan," said Van den Breemen.
"NATO is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure," according to the blueprint.
Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country's performance in Afghanistan. "The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner." By insisting on "special rules" for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to "the dissolution of NATO".
Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as "a wake-up call". "This report means that the core of the NATO establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."
Naumann conceded that the plan's retention of the nuclear first strike option was "controversial" even among the five authors. Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".
Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the west's cold war strategy in defeating the Soviet Union. Critics argue that what was a productive instrument to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.
Robert Cooper, an influential shaper of European foreign and security policy in Brussels, said he was "puzzled".
"Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."
Another senior EU official said NATO needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".
Naumann suggested the threat of nuclear attack was a counsel of desperation. "Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this."
NATO needed to show "there is a big stick that we might have to use if there is no other option", he said.
The Authors:
John Shalikashvili
The US's top soldier under Bill Clinton and former NATO commander in Europe, Shalikashvili was born in Warsaw of Georgian parents and emigrated to the US at the height of Stalinism in 1952. He became the first immigrant to the US to rise to become a four-star general. He commanded Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq at the end of the first Gulf war, then became Saceur, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, before Clinton appointed him chairman of the joint chiefs in 1993, a position he held until his retirement in 1997.
Klaus Naumann
Viewed as one of Germany's and NATO's top military strategists in the 90s, Naumann served as his country's armed forces commander from 1991 to 1996 when he became chairman of NATO's military committee. On his watch, Germany overcame its post-WWII taboo about combat operations, with the Luftwaffe taking to the skies for the first time since 1945 in the Nato air campaign against Serbia.
Lord Inge
Field Marshal Peter Inge is one of Britain's top officers, serving as chief of the general staff in 1992-94, then chief of the defense staff in 1994-97. He also served on the Butler inquiry into Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and British intelligence.
Henk van den Breemen
An accomplished organist who has played at Westminster Abbey, Van den Breemen is the former Dutch chief of staff.
Jacques Lanxade
A French admiral and former navy chief who was also chief of the French defense staff.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
171 Comments so far
Show AllThe altar of Mars the God of War (and Profit) that the Five Permanent Member Arms Manufacturing Nations of the UN worship at, pretending to secure the world, while in reality they terrorize us all keeping this world in a teeter, totter and titter state of fear.
And these are the a'holes that are running our world? "War isn't about who is right, war is about who is left" and with nuclear weapons...no one will be left: not winners, not losers.
COCO
Glad you learned from the show. I was out all day, away from the radio and the computer. I did read something about the French bank scandal. We almost need one of those big 'refrigerator size' IBM computers to feed all this fraud, criminal activity, and the endless scandals revealed these past eight years.Unbelievable!
'The Morning Show on KPFA is good to start off with. As you begin listening to the various programs, you'll enjoy the station. I send $$$ every year as they are commercial=free and listener sponsered. BTW, Bonnie interviewed Prof. Hudson last year. One was on the Allen Greenspan myth. Please check them out. COCO, you get an A for initiative on your report card.
[i]"....By insisting on "special rules" for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to "the dissolution of NATO".
....."This report means that the core of the NATO establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."
.....Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".
....."Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."
.....NATO needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".
....."Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this."
.....NATO needed to show "there is a big stick that we might have to use if there is no other option"....."[/i]
_______________________________________________
This sounds awfully like something which will be instantly re-interpreted by Israel to justify any unilateral action it now wants to take.
Where does that take us? Bombing Syria? Beirut? Amman? Given this week's events, it could lead to re-starting a war with Egypt.
Inevitably, it will mean that Iran and Teheran are under direct threat from Israel now. Bush won't have to do a thing!!!!
Sadly, it also means that Neocon puppet states like France and Britain can deploy their nuclear-armed submarines with the full expectation of being able to use their missiles, uhh!!!
Why take this position and why release this paper? Despite its military expenditures, America probably hasn't the resources to wage a conventional war effectively. It hasn't the troops or weaponry and all that money has been sucked into a bureaucratic sinkhole. It is not a question of waging a war by any means necessary but waging a war by the only means available. What's more, these weapons have a limited shelf life and if people were to look closely at the current round of saber-rattling they might realize that the sabers being rattled are rusted through.
EARTHIAN
thanks for the link. i've downloaded it. should make for 'jolly' reading when i have an hour or two to spare...........
PEACEMAN
the things we don't know................thankyou for that link. i shall certainly be tuning in often. btw, have you seen the fraud scandal with the french bank, 'societe generale'. it's apparently the biggest fraud in financial history. (apart from the one i just heard on kpfa....)
If the Human Race or any part of it is ever to become its own, reliable Better Angel, then at some point the mass of average people who perform honest human work every day, and reasonably treat their fellows with 'Do Unto Other' respect, will have come to a re-defining point.
Such point will have to be a mass- empowering [re]recognition that:
Most humans remain inherently wobbly-but-decent, if not allowed unaccountable personal or political power over their fellows.
And that:
Those individuals who by definition have become indecent because their control of the Organizing Law has given them such unaccountable personal and/or political power, must be disempowered, and not allowed to politically maintain, re-design, or ever again, by any argument, allowed rule or lay claim to rule, society.
It is a measure of how easily we humans backslide thatThese recognitions were woven into the US Constitution, 200 years ago, by Enlightenment-inspired, privileged, but also privilege-wary believers in Reason and responsible individual freedom.
But today, America's Experiment has withered to its near-opposite. The ancient Greeks had a name for such upending: Enantiodromia. Those Greeks are dead and dust. But we are advised to live by their elemental warnings.
In America, clinically insane oligarchs and plutocrats are popularly sanctioned by the mass media and allowed to usurp democratic rule.
Civil government lackeys thereof, increasingly prepare a disempowered citizenty for 'pro-active' uses of nuclear weapons [in the citizens' name]; so that any political or moral challenge to the presumption of unaccountable power-gone-mad can be annihilated, either by manufactured moral/political consent or, in the end, if that fails, by the executively-privileged use of mass-murderous force -- the screen of manufactured consent being easily dispensible in a phoney democracy.
Even if the maddness of NATO-Amerika's nuke planners never gets further than the most recent 'position paper' described above, America's claim to moral leadership, or indeed to any kind of functional sanity-in-the-world, will now remain bottomed-out until its citizens boot the demons who rule in their name, and, in credible unison, fully disavow such a worldview.
I alternate between feeling that the moral guts of my country are fully rotted, versus feeling that we are on the verge of a new enlghtenment-rooted assertion of decency and sanity.
But frankly, I no longer can trust either of these feelings.
In order to save the world we may need to destroy it!
Thinking that the authors of the report are "out of uniform" is merely an illusion. They are eternally connected to their gang because of what they know and because of what crimes they have participated in as full uniformed members of their respective services. They are no different in their life-time adherence and loyalty to their "gang" as any member of any mafia. If they are speaking on such terms then they are conveying the view of the corporate government scum who controls them without it having to be "official". Those morons are all about "plausible deniability", a psychological affectation that allows them to delude themselves into believing that other people cannot see through their curtain of lies and that delusion gives them a measure of comfort, like Linus's blanket or the sucking on thumbs. I'm sure it will be distressing for them when they learn that their "plausible deniability" has, and always has had, less substance than an exhaled puff of B.C. bud.
So these military commanders acknowledge that the real threats come from: political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism, international terrorism, organized crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
And their solution to these threats(drum roll, please)is preemptive nuclear strikes?
Can't help but recall the old adage that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Earthian: - thanks for the link
This 'Unified Grand Strategy' reminds me of nothing less than the now discredited 'Wolfowitz Doctrine' which later morphed into 'the Bush Doctrine'.
Is it possible that the Neocons have taken over the international stage now that they dominate America? wow - BUMMER!
The Full Monty of Warmongering might include:
1- 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm'
2- The Wolfowitz Doctrine - later the Bush Doctrine - of Preemptive War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine#Pre-emptive_Intervention]
3 - and now - 'This Nato Unified Grand Strategy for Killing a Billion Muslims'
salmonhound,
Good point. You don't always have to fight fire with fire and conventional weapons are not nice but may be able to take out a nuclear facility.
My question is, who decides what facilities are "taken out?" Should the country that used two atomic bombs already, which threatens other nations with a nuclear attack have their facilities which also include ships at sea and aircraft always on alert be neutralized. How about the tiny Middle East country with (never acknowledged) nuclear warheads? They also like to threaten their neighbors. And for these European reptillian high-ranking military officers wanting to start WW3...should their nuclear facilities be taken out with conventional weapons also?
With due respect, we on Common Dreams are not at all "gnashing teeth and wailing." We are trying our darnest to save this planet from a REAL HOLOCAUST!
Well I just want to add a different slant to all the gnashing of teeth and wailing. Let's offer a (sensible?) alternative: conventional bombs are not nice but won't they take out a nuclear facility just as well as a nuclear bomb? You don't always have to fight fire with fire.
COCO
Stick with the brewskies and the vino. Better for your lungs.
I was listening to Dr. Michael Hudson, the economist on 'guns and butter, on www.kpfa.org a little while ago. He is one fantastic economist! If you have audio streaming, Coco, go to the web site I just posted and hit the program logo at the top and scroll down to 'guns and butter'. Click on the archives and clich onto Jan.23, and listen. You'll want to hear his other interviews (I think), after you hear today's show.
I'm sure glad these guys are no longer in uniform. Their logic astounds me, as did the Viet Nam classic "It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."
By that 'reasoning' it would follow that the way to immortality is to commit suicide.
… smoke 'em if ya got 'em …
The rapturists, are licking their chops.
"the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
What the hell are these war criminals smoking?
They must use nuclear waepons to prevent the use of them....WOW!!!
The arsonists parade
KEM
Everyone's looking for an excuse not to vote for John Edwards.
My favorite him saying to Obama and Hillary "Both of you have taken in excess of 100 million dollars from Insurance, Drug, Energy, and Banks etc."
someone replied to that "Yeah John, but half of your money has come from claims lawyers associations."
So you basically have the choice flat our in front of you. You can vote for Hillary and Obama, a vote for their financiers, the wealthy, for the Insurance, Drug, Energy, and Oil conglomerates... or you can vote for Edwards, who's financiers are the people who hold the afformentioned corperations accountable (in an age of waining corperate accountability).
Not to mention Edwards, unlike Hillary, took responsibility for his war vote, and admitted it was a huge mistake.
Typical Right Wing.
Which is grade-school bully writ large.
"If we can't beat up anyone we like, we'll just blow up the building."
With all the serious bad guys out there, we have to have THESE too?
Unfortunately, it is real --
The patriarchy is suicidal and they are taking us with them!
This is Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld...PNAC... without doubt ---
and it's about Iran, without doubt ---
and any other "evil empire" they designate.
Getting the already co-opted and ineffective United Nations completely out of their way is yet another step by this insane administration to bring us nuclear war.
Also note the reasons:
1. Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
2. The "dark side" of globalization, meaning international terrorism, organized crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
3. Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
4. The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, NATO and the EU.
Nos. 3 and 4, especially ---
Global Warming is a big nothing according to the neo-cons and Bush -- yet the PENTAGON has warned him that it is a bigger threat to our security than terrorism. Again, a fight for resources. When you're finished bombing the hell out of Iraq to control ME OIL, then start nuking for the veggies!!
And No. 4 reflects their paranoia about losing control over populations.
I don't think we're going to make it to the next election, folks --- !!!
Here is a link to the actual, original 152-page NATO Grand Strategy document:
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/080110_grand_strategy.pdf
How about WE ARE THE LEADERS WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR! Protest only works if everyone is out there.
Remember MAD? I beginning the whole of society has gone completely mad, which is reflected in most of the world leaders. Stay tuned, though, it should get interesting, but not necessarily in a good way.
Not much to say about this one, except that the idea of a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" is just about the most morally repugnant thing I've ever heard, and the people who thought that one up are seriously evil.
Religiously fanatical political conservatives in the United States-with their democratic enablers and co-facilitative legislators-have moved the world dangerously close to the Eve of Destruction.
Mankind needs to "unhook" from the mental illness of George Bush, and his party of empty-eyed robots standing in line for the Kool-Aide.
As a country-as a people-we may never recover from this. They may have cost-not just us; but everyone-everything.
The key threats are:
The United States of America
The US MSM
The European heads of state
OK class! Listen up! Forget the "duck and cover" drill. The new directive is: "ASSUME THE POSITION!!! ON YOUR BACKS!!! HEADS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS!!!"
And...don't forget to pucker up!
"The key threats are:
Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale. "
So if we nuke their lands wont that force the natives that are left to migrate over here even quicker (and in a madder state of mind)?
BYRONW
that's a very graphic, colourful description you portray. sounds like the film 'threads'.
ISHMAEL1
i get the reference now. agree with you totally.
PEACEMAN
yeah, only time will tell but looks like i picked the wrong day for giving up glue sniffing!!!!!!!
Thanks KEM for making me laugh in the middle of these mushroom clouds here...,
No Chit. For years I really thought those blinking headlights just meant: "LoOKOUT.... I don't know how to drive, so let's play chicken."
So I would blink my lights back saying "O.K I see you moron, and I know this means you're going to try to kill me here....."
BRAKE
GAS
BRAKE
GAS
KABOOM!!!
LMAO! :^D
If you're not staring right at the crossing traffic when he blinks his lights way off, he thinks you saw him do it and he thinks you know he's got the right away since he did it way the hell back there..... and no matter who's closest to the intersection, he's going to accelerate and try to enforce his right-of-way..... It's kind of a pineapple-head honor kind of a thing....
too funny...... I used to come around the corner dodging auto and bus parts thinking, yep, another light-blinking chicken fight... sigh (shaking my head,) mad max had nothing on these guys.
Seriously KEM, I wish you were here so I could buy you some dancing girls or something...... I think you saved my freaking life there bro.
and people say I'm PARANIOD ha ha HA HA HA HA HE HE HA AHhhh!
WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Truth is such a brittle thing - who in the world can ever believe what an American says?
Whats the guy doing behind them with the gun? Are they on some republican blackmailers sex dossier like the congress and DOJ? You know who they are in bed with. Its not Sibel Edmonds! She is my new super hero!
bfearn; I looked at the other web site...very good.
Ishmael1; 1;20am post. In the 1974 book, 'Global Reach' written by Ronald Muller and Richard Barnett, (mind you, it was "published" in 1974), they spoke about corporations getting more powerful, unions getting weaker, and Madison Avenue types molding our thinking, and relevant to what you just said, viewing 'national sovereignties as obstacles to trade and tarrif removal. The plan was to dictate to the politicians on the passage of laws for corporate benefit.
That's it for the night.
Why not drop NATO a note letting you know what you think?
natodoc@hq.nato.int
That is the only email I could find on their extensive web site
http://www.nato.int/home.htm
It looks like they don't want to head from the people who pay their bills.
y2kcockroach
Perfectly stated! Both Russia and China know the U.S. game-plan aka 'The Project For A New American Century' and they don't want to play ball.
Perhaps when a few dozen American cities look like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thirty million people are incinerated and the survivors going through what the Japanese victims did, The rest of the country might even shun the 'macho man' imagine and implement a Dept. of Peace like Dennis Kucinich wants to do as our president. NO,FOLKS, I DON'T WANT TO SEE A NUCLEAR EXCHANGE! But I totally agree with y2kcockroach on the "first strike" BS. As our fearless coward-in-chief, the Pentagon, and the morally bankrupt Congress now agree that "pre-emptive strikes" are okay, then Pearl Harbor was fair and square on 12/07/41. It was a "pre-emptive attack on a future enemy. And a military target of significance as well. Do you see Pandora's Box opening with this sadistic NATO logic? Hitler's hubris was attacking Russia, maybe costing Germany the war. What will ours be?
The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:
Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
[religious right]
The "dark side" of globalization, meaning international terrorism, organized crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
[US #1 arms seller]
Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
[US Clean Air Act]
The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, NATO and the EU.
[Going to war without UN approval]
Please dear gods and goddesses, get Canada out of NATO...... NOW!
What Presidential candidate favors dismantling NATO? Why aren't they in front?
Americans WANT to dominate. They are not brainwashed, they want to dominate. The manipulation is in playing to that desire. That is why all viable candidates favor continued American intervention abroad.
AMERICA WANTS IT. LIVE WITH THAT.
I see. And if the Russians and the Chinese decide that nuclear pre-emption is something that they should keep in their "quivers", where does that get us? Any country (or countries) that use nuclear weapons first, whatever the reason or rationale deserve to have hell rained down upon them courtesy of someone else's intercontinental ballistic missiles, because anyone who uses nuclear weapons first deserves to be dead, plain and simple. No wonder the Russians don't trust us, when our "leaders" babble on about "missile shields" in Europe. If we cannot trust the f*ckers running our governments, why should we expect our opponents to?
… I seem to remember something I wanted to say to someone …
I used to think that the new company's name should be:
S T I C K __ I T
Precisely the wrong kind of strategy for any level-headed, right-thinking person with an ounce of sense would advocate. When are the bone-head leaders of our world going to start thinking in terms of peace, and the things that make for peace?
When are the leaders of our world going to start thinking about and acting upon the things that will prevent "terrorism" and the root cause of such products of centuries of frustration - - like privation, poverty, hunger, injustice, racism, ethnicism and anything else that puts people "down" or minimalizes them? Isn't it about time to be INCLUSIVE instead of Exclusive?
Twister22: said:
I'm screaming inside..
Sitting at my desk at work wondering why do I keep coming back here? I read these stories and my work seems totally meaningless..
Why pay bills? Why work? Why bother doing anything but enjoying these seeming last prec days of our once beautiful Homeworld? I will be eating ice cream and walking towards the mushroom cloud if it is anywhere near me.. I don't wanna see what happens next.. I'm in total shock.
Pac sez:
I'm with you babe. I asked myself the same questions a few years ago. My answer was that I'd been duped into believing in the neoCON Consumer Matrix all these years and I wanted to break free.
So I:
Quit my job. I Cancelled all of my insurance, sold all my cars, my boat, my airplane.. sold my house, gave my useless chinese junk to my friends and family and pumped everything overseas and now I live like a thousandaire with virtually no bills and little debt.
I eat cheap non-GMO modified fresh produce and food, stay away from big cities and live life like an islander with no watch, no schedule and no worries. I spent the last two days on a deserted beach drinking local beer and just watching the cream puff clouds roll by with my brother in law. Then it started to rain hard and we laughed our azzes off trying to negotiate a fifty year old jeep home on potholed roads with dim headlights and no functioning wipers. Some close calls with water buffalos and other island drunks! My previous life was corporate hell. This, by comparison is heaven.
The only thing that can screw up my wonderful life now is a monkey with his finger on the button.
I was thinking about starting a new lobotomy business to cure all of this excess thinking, but now I've forgotten what to do next.
¿ What do we do after shoving
the sharp stick up our noses ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls
I thought it was appropriate.
Enjoy.
"Well, we have to fight to regain our democracy, then, we have to de-evolve and vote to give up all consumerism and heat sources."
De-evolve to give up all consumerism? And vote to do so? Man, you really have given away all your power, haven't you?
I do think things will get a lot worse, but for God's sake (actually, for your own sake), don't wait to start changing. You can change your own actions right now. If not, you're already dead.
Good post hybridoma2001.
But it's dawning on me that we've already been in a Dark Ages ever since Reagan. I loved that old guy and voted for him twice completely unaware of his "free speech zones" at California Universities mandated by him before I entered the college system. Then, I was shocked as he fired the PATCO controllers and plunged the great country I loved into corporate chaos.
It's really been thirty some years of Bush crime family nightmares now that I think of it since Bush II was CIA director under Nixon. God these people have really dicked up the planet haven't they? What's next? Let me guess: Diebold is going to spit out two new senators next round: The Evil Bush Twins..... who will both be pro-rapture-nuke.
These Dark Ages are going to last until the temp reaches 150 degrees fahrenheit at night or we all start glowing in the dark from all the first strike fallout.
Sometimes I wonder, how did we make it this far? Most government people are so shallow, so narrow-minded, so vain, so evil. I wouldn't put anything past these sick individuals. Not even Nuke proliferation by the gov or military just to justify war profits as the new motis operandi.
Why oh Why couldn't I have been born in the early 1800's? Giving up chit like exhaust puking cars and air conditioning seems a small price to pay for sitting around naked on a pristine island eating safe food and living in complete bliss of what slavery robber barons were cooking up for the sorry masses of tomorrow.
Well, we have to fight to regain our democracy, then, we have to de-evolve and vote to give up all consumerism and heat sources.
I really am not sure we will attempt any thing constructive like this until neocon Florida goes under water in the next few years. Then we will realize we are all in the same boat together: The Titanic!
Plot outline: An insane general starts a process to nuclear holocaust that a war room of politicians and generals frantically try to stop.
Fact...or fiction?
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.
President Merkin Muffley: You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
It's pre-emptive due to
missile erectile dysfunction
There is nothing new in the presentation of the above article, except that the corporate rag presenting, and camouflaging, itself as "progressive" is being busy of late spouting their shrill, alarmist rhetoric in support of the goofs who thought that their "New World Order" was something other than a fantasy. In reality, there is no such thing as international law, or law of any kind, so long as there are the corporate-government/criminal gangs controlling countries. Laws to them are a charade, a bulwark against being bothered by the masses and no law or treaty will ever stop them from trying to achieve their nefarious ends.
As for their infantile, threatening gestures of using nuclear weapons as a means of retaining power, (that pronouncement really being the covert threat that if they can't retain their control over society then they will destroy it) then they should be assured that the planet will become as dry and barren as the moon before that evil scum is permitted to maintain their evil reign.
Man, these Dr Strangelove Lovers really hate democracy don't they? They don't even want a broad council at NATO to form policy and keep the council on an even keel and consequently, keep the world stable. They want just a few insane base commanders who are ready to issue the "GO CODE" over some temporary impasse like the bay of pigs which most world citizens when you ask them about it, have no idea what you're talking about and don't care about.
Protecting "the (religous) values of the west" is about as wise as "protecting our bodily fluids" by sending Slim Pickens on a pre-emptive strike against those dam commies.
I vote we abandon all the so-called "wests corporate-military" values instead and live life! Those are Corporate-Communist values anyway, in which they cherish the belief that all power and wealth should reside in the hands of huge transnational monopolies which make up the Fortune 500. Few Americans would agree that's who should dictate policy to the government, if MSM bothered to ask. Most believe in real democracy: which has all but disappeared in the USA.
We should declare war on the internal combustion engine instead, not on a bunch of bediwens on camels who are completely powerless and of no threat to anyone except the fabricated "war on terror" which would result in military spending cuts if they or it disappeared.
Nuke First Strike (even small tactical) = insanity.
I am for a premptive strike against AIPAC, the neo-cons and the Israel-firsters in our gov't. Cowards that they are they hide behind the scenes. Show daylight on these vampires before the wreck what is left of America They cannot survive the light of day or a public debate when the truth is exposed.
By the way Ezeflyer Walt and Mersheimer along with Petras and others argue against the Israeli military base theory. Simply not true. We can obtain the oil from Iraq elsewhere cheaper via trade then through war.
Good post vhobie. The thing is, Israel is our largest military base in the Middle East by which we control all the oil there. That's why we armed them to the teeth and put the militarists in charge.
Look at the history and you will see that the US was always the one to escalate during the arms race. The USSR always followed. Curiously, in space, the opposite was true until the Apollo series. The nuclear militarization of the world is essentially the US's doing, so is a lot of the poverty and conventional militarization. Bad,bad, USA, and yet so pure, and well-meaning....
Quebec nationalist should cause friction with the rest of Canada by pushing for withdrawal from NATO and an anti-war agenda. This could cause a rift to their benefit. If Quebec is indeed as pacifist as it seems to be , it could work.
The sick and sickening ideas of this "radical manifesto" MUST be STOPPED.
Big thanks to Guardian for publicizing it - nice "pre-emptive strike" in itself, on the verbal level where all the most important battles are and ought to be fought.
The paranoia in these proposals is so clear there's hardly any difference from the formal definition of paranoia: "be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons...".
'Paranoia':
1. A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution
2. Extreme, irrational distrust of others
(Wiktionary)
A common effect of paranoia is exactly the subject's tendency to attack in the belief that there is imminent risk of being attacked - and ordinary behaviour in a perceived potential adversary is interpreted as hostile and carrying the risk of attack.
The paranoiac hawks are out flying in formation. Scary, scary, scary. We should react like the magpies do: heckle them until they back off. Real hawks soon enough do back off, on meeting systematic self-assured resistance.
Remember, these "political fanatics" (as they unwittingly describe themselves by projecting that epithet onto others) - the ones wishing to unleash the full self-destructive force of humanity on ourselves "and be done with it" - have been successfully staved off for 63 years, since 1945, without any more use of nuclear weapons. This shows the anti-nuclear lobby is the strongest when we fight back.
Fight for the good - Peace, Equality and Justice for all. That remains very attainable. It's only a thought away. Think it. Do it.
well golly gee im just going to start going around killing all my neighbors becuse after all who knows maybe one day they'll become an imminent threat and try to kill me!!! What do you mean thats ludicrous??This frickin article is ludicrous!!!!!NATO should be disbanded anyway
johnwyclif,
Most of us continued that fancy with computer games (Civilization, Age of Empires, Sim City, etc.). No harm done, just a lot of time wasted. Maybe those in power are unable to separate gaming from real-life?
When I was a child in the 1940s I used to have grand battles in the front room. I think I had 'dinky toys,' and I dreamed up marvelous tactics and strategies, complete with my own sound effects. I used the table, the sofa, the base of Dad's ashtray, behind the huge radio,- I imagined, and played out many a triumph and defeat. Hordes died on my battlefields...hordes.
But not me!
I wonder where I could have had a job as an adult that would have let me continue those flights of creativity, that would have allowed me to maintain my childhood!
Oh, man, carpbear (6:30pm), that was sweet. Thanks.
Cakewalk Resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Everybody knows the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is at the core of problems in the middle east - the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group knows this, Jimmy Carter knows it, Pat Buchanon, Obama, Edwards, Kucinich, Ron Paul, Hagel, Feingold all know it and as a matter of fact everybody knows it. It is simply uncontested by any sane person that resolution of this conflict is at the very heart of peace in the middle east and the wars America is currently fighting and will be fighting in the coming months.
Guess what? - the solution was just sitting there in front of our faces all along and it's a cakewalk - what America needs to do first is to exert tremendous and overwhelming political pressure on Israel - America needs to LEAD the international effort to put this UN-violating country back in it's pre-67 box as demanded by the UN time and again rather than time and again VETOING that very pressure from the international community. Sure - conforming to these UN Sec Council Resolution 242, 194, 338, the Geneva Conventions, and International Law will be a pinch for Israel and just exactly what the Israel Lobby, AIPAC, and the neocons don't want to happen - so what?
So what's stopping us putting this pressure on Israel? - could the Israelis, her Israel Lobby, and her Neocons be stopping this pressure which is actually the critical solution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict that we all desperately need and that everybody knows underlies successful solution of our 'war against terror' ? Why yes - this appears to be the precise problem - Israel and her Israel Lobby are fighting AGAINST just such a solution of our needs. Why Israel and her Israel Lobby are preventing this solution in the middle east is because they want something else...
What Israel, her Israel Lobby, and her neocons desire is to successfully manipulate America to permit and support Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine (which takes care of her internal enemies, the Palestinians) while manipulating America to illegally attack any nation Israel and her Israel Lobby sends us to attack (which takes care of her external enemies). So far this has worked succesfully to the extent that the Israelis have for decade after decade continued to occupy the Palestinian territories and they have had America attack Iraq for them and will have us attacking Iran for them in the next few months - thus taking care of two of Israel's biggest external enemies for her
What workable plans do Israel and her Israel Lobby have for the Palestinians and peace in Palestine? The Likud/Netanyahu extremist Israelis running Israel have put the dead Palestinians in a jar of formaldehyde on the shelf - preserved dead forever (as Dov Weisglas of Ariel Sharon's staff so disgustingly stated).
So amazingly enough this whole time we were just letting Israel, her Israel Lobby, and the neocons stand in the way of resolving the very issue that everybody knows is at the root of our involvement in the middle east - the very issue that everybody knows needs to be resolved and here these guys are preventing it from being solved. Boy! No wonder it's been so apparently insoluble! Talk about being part of the problem instead of part of the solution - these guys are experts at that! These guys have the solution to peace in the middle east in a jar of formaldeyde on their shelf! And that jar sits next to the jar of fomaldehyde containing UN Sec Co resolutions 242, 194, 338, the Geneva Conventions, and International Laws Israeli is currently violating, and the 4000 Americans who have died for Israel in Iraq
Isn't that funny! Our whole problem all along is that we were just letting Israel and her Lobby and her manipulation of our congress and her manipulation of our UN veto power create a string of UN vetos that are most disgraceful chronicle of gaming the UN in it's history. It's a chronicle of how a AIPAC-manipulated US was getting in it's own way of actually honestly brokering a resolution to this conflict. And it turned out it was not insoluble afterall! It probably never was! It wasn't really hard either, when we finally just started working smart and forcing Israel to conform to the international obligations she has so blatantly violated for all these years
I'm waiting for our first presidential candidate to start pressurizing the Israelis and keep turning up the pressure more and more and finally to call for sanctions against Israel until she conforms with the UN Sec Co Resolutions demanding she return to pre '67. That is what any serious American presidential candidate and eventual president would do. But what if AIPAC and the Israel Lobby will destroy you if you do? Well hadn't we better destroy the Israel Lobby, AIPAC, and the Necons then? Why wouldn't we?
So we just dial up the sanctions on Israel, stop the $5 billion in yearly aid that Israelis demand in euros if we must, and I don't even think we would need UN authorized military action to kick the Israelis back behind '67. It will be a cakewalk solving this - it was just that we needed to put the exact pressure on the Israelis necessary to solve the problem! The Lobby was having us put no pressure at all on the very thing that needed pressure to be resolved - the Lobby was having us do exactly what it would take to keep the Palestinian-Israeli problem at the heart of everybodys problems in the middle east. The Israel Lobby wanted no pressure to be put on the Israelis at all and here we are pressuring the hell out of them and solving the problem of Middle East peace.
Once we do this and stop Israel in Palestine we will find a miracle begin to occur - a war of terror that many did not understand was being waged will have stopped - for what we will have stopped is the 'war of terror for Israel' the neocons and the Israel Lobby have been having us fight. Oh wait - let me say it again - there stopped being a war of terror because the US stopped carrying out our war of terror for Israel - like when we attacked Iraq for Israel. And the effects will almost be instantaneous - we won't have to send our boys to terrorize Iran for Israel in a few months
As for the Israel Lobby, AIPAC, and the Neocons who have prevented the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is in our national interest to actually solve once and for all? I say the neocons have suggested their own perfect solution - we put the neocons and the Israel Lobby in formaldehyde and we put it up on a shelf and teach generations of Americans what crimes, disasters, and holocaust they have wrought upon the world, America, and the Palestinians
"I AM SICK OF IDIOTS RUNNING THE WORLD!"
Me too, man, me too ... but idiots have been running civilization since it began, maybe ten or twelve thousand years ago. Somehow, power always seems to end up in the hands of a few egomaniacs, and the rest of us bitch about the injustice (while we're building the pyramids or picking cotton or going off to war or making mortgage payments or working for fill-in-the-blank, Inc.), but most of the time, we don't actually do anything about it. Maybe we like being in this position. Maybe reading an article and bitching about a problem deludes us into thinking we're engaged and involved. Maybe we don't have what it takes to change this ancient status quo.
Dennis Kucinich is a decent and intelligent man, too good for this country. It seems the imbecile voters want another war-mongering war-profiteer, dumb, power hungry and immoral. Another Bush, in other words.:( :(
CHLOROCARDIO: Did you mean idiots running the world, or idiots running around in the world? The ones running around in the world approve of the ones running the world. Go figure. Doesn't work for you huh? Me neither. Oh, well.
One of my favorite book titles comes to mind: A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES.
But these are not dunces, these are dances orchestrated by the US to "put pressure" on Iran. This is Europe behaving as Europe always has. Americans and Israel, the legacy of Europe. Neo-colonialism for all to see. All together now, let's practice: "We were attacked!"
I wish I could believe any post-apocalyptic survivors will learn from mistakes made.
Jeffery Courion -
You have lucid, eloquent insight into the foibles of the Human Condition.
On the other hand: Also needed are equally lucid, eloquent insights into how our creaturely [cognitive] condition can be ameliorated.
Drive your discerning mind in this direction, too.
There's leading by example, and there's leading by tyranny. Our emperors chose the latter. It defies analysis what angle they're going with here:
Do others before they do you.
Nuke unto others before they nuke unto you.
Abortion is wrong, nuking is fine.
They "hate us", and always will, for some unnamed reason.
Nuclear weapons ARE a family value.
Do as we say, not as we do.
Fight fire with gasoline.
Stop war by starting it.
War is peace.
Sustained threatening promotes sustainable peace.
Fear is good for the economy.
???
CARPBEAR
You made my day! It started with COCO and now your post. We 're laughing out loud!
"Naumann suggested the threat of nuclear attack was a counsel of desperation. "Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this.""
Here's an idea. Instead of uselessly trying to stop proliferation like you're trying to stop drug use for example, try not pissing people off by stealing their oil and invading their lands. Try giving a good Christian example by helping the poor instead of killing them for fun and profit. Try educating people, giving them health-care, improving our environment instead of hoarding billions for what? Five more megayachts? 10 more mansions? A new fleet of private jets? How many asses do you have to sit on? Don't flatter yourself that you know what's best for the little people. Try doing some good with your billions like Soros does.
Criminal behavior is good?
Quite a revelation. What do religious nuts say to striking first, which is the absolute opposite of turning the other cheek? A world run on this precept is doomed.
I AM SICK OF IDIOTS RUNNING THE WORLD!
Another brilliant conservative idea. Destroying the world will halt the spread of WMD's.
COCO
I'd rather 'Wait For Godot' before waiting for the check that may never come.
Putin and the Russian people are very aware of the "bully doctrine" of our country and have been preparing for "the big one", just in case the Bush/Cheney/Zionist cabal get too desperate and press the button. They took heavy casualties and suffered the most in WW2, but the Red Army was largely responsible for defeating the "Superman", and saving 'western civilization from nazism. EVERYBODY HELPED, but they killed the most German soldiers. And the west turned on the USSR as soon as Germany surrendered. What allies!
So, in our slow climb upward in personal and societal improvement, we have slipped off the ladder and are spiraling downward into the abyss of the unknown. The new fanaticism in America is Christian funDUMBentalism. When people have doubts and fears and struggle to make ends meet, they look for a scapegoat. That's when "sharpie" a character I wrote about on a different article two days ago, comes along with a bottle of "snake oil" to sell. It only works when the potential customers are ignorant of the facts, or in polite terms, lacking in general knowledge of the important subjects. This is why GWB is in power without opposition from the (as Nader calls it) duopoly, which is basically the same party.
The way the black people were treated during and after Katrina, should have been enough for them to take to the streets. People without health care should take to the streets. People in the U.S. Armed Forces who took an oath to defend The Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic( the Bush Administration) have violated their oath by commiting "crimes against humanity" in Iraq. They should protect our borders and not do the bidding for fascist imperialists.
It is NOT the European people or the American people or any other people on this dying planet that want to kill or be killed, but from the propaganda instilled in them from "the Sharpies" who start the wars and pit one group against another, and make a lot of money from this criminal activity.
This small group of wealthy, powerful, capitalists and bankers have an insatiable appetite for money and power and pay big salaries for their propagandists to mold public opinion. They work around the clock, non-stop.
How many willfully ignorant people working ful time without employer paid health insurance have taken any steps to remedy that situation?
Kucinich may just be to good for this country. Maybe we deserve the coming depression and the disaster from it, and maybe we deserve worse...time will tell.
Remember "global dimming" and "nuclear winter"? With all the dust in the atmosphere we can have a Little Ice Age Party. At first, this will mean bigger profits for the oil companies selling us enough to keep from freezing. Then groups of hungry people going door to door, killing for food. Then perhaps "Canned Bullism". Houses also have wood in them besides food. Raid all the surrounding houses for food and wood and keep the other groups from surviving.
.
To fulfill their prophecy, the death of the last human has to occur in 2012. There needs to be some lead time to drop the bombs and let them fight over the remaining food supply as it runs out and the radiation sickness and disease from all the stinking bodies take care of those who don't die from freezing to death.
.
Yep, everything ahead of schedule, we should be able to move into their world after they have destroyed it. A mess to clean up the radiation though. We need to start thinking about making slaves of the semi-people, capturing them from the population and so on Before they pollute their worlds to death. This way is still less costly to our military than to go back to what they call the "War of the Worlds" kind of invasion.
Dear John Hinckley:
Thought you might want to know that George W. Bush has been having sex with Jody Foster...
How the sickest among us continue to be drawn to power like maggots to rotting meat. What perversion and jagged framings they continue to project on the world in which we all live. They are so disconnected from our realties -- as people -- as parents -- as workers all wanting and cherishing life. They live for the darkness in which they thrive because they see that darkness as their life's focal point. They pray for war and for fear because it is that world for which they sense their life purpose is fulfilled. How terrifying for the rest of us.
rtdrury,
Of course the computer you use, the internet it communicates on, and the free time (created by the economic wealth you enjoy, relatively speaking, since I doubt you are starving otherwise you would have better things to do with your time than your useless rants) to write your posts are also "perpetrated by western capitalists".
When the last politician and general is strangled with the entrails of the last religious zealot, perhaps then we will have peace.
The NATO strategists warn us of:
"Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
The "dark side" of globalization, meaning international terrorism, organized crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, NATO and the EU."
It seems to me that this is a case of projecting our own evil onto others. The US foreign policy is based on political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism. The U.S. has used globalization to further enrich the rich and increase the misery and exploitation of the poor, the "dark side" of globalization if there ever was one. It has done the lion's share of creating climate change and refuses to do anything to reverse it. In the process, it has seriously weakened its own nation state. I understand that in psychology this is called "projection." The NATO gents even use the term "dark side!"
Re-constructing The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock:
This is the way the world ends:
With a Bang of nukes employed by mad leaders East and West -- because there was only a Whimper of sanity by citizens, East and West.
1984 meets Dr. Strangelove meets The Iron Heel!
It is encouraging that virtually all of the posts here think that the NATO position is asinine. I guess the bad news is that so few people tear themselves from their TV's to read this stuff. I think it is important to know how we got here and hope you will find the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' chapter interesting in the book, Amoral America. It starts on page 717 and can be downloaded for free.
www.amoralamerica.info
Now I have no hope! Waite I din't have any before I read this!
It is the old story! Make peace with a gun in your hand! Let's build a big new mental hospital for those war mongers, let's lock them up and throw away the keys!
Is NATO completely screwy? And why are they still in existence? The cold war with Russia is over.
This fear-mongering is keeping our country from its real problems. They talk up nuking Iran and we're supposed to take it.
Well, one honest man is out there trying to bring this country to its senses, but apparently the vast majority continues to vote for the status quo.
I'm not. I'm sticking with Ron Paul, regardless.