Editor's NOTE:
The only claim made by Jenkins that is not factually correct is that the US spends 5.5% of GDP on "Defense." The number is closer to 8% when all the supplemental war related budget bills and the cost of all the "black" budgetary items are included. The United States is spending in excess of a trillion dollars per year on the military/security complex which represents roughly 40% of the entire annual budget. No other country on earth is doing this. It is unsustainable. If not ended, the country itself will not survive.
Dr. J. P. Hubert
Britain faces no serious threat, yet keeps waging war. While big defence exists, glory-hungry politicians will use it
By Simon Jenkins
June 17, 2011 "The Guardian" - - Why do we still go to war? We seem unable to stop. We find any excuse for this post-imperial fidget and yet we keep getting trapped. Germans do not do it, or Spanish or Swedes. Britain's borders and British people have not been under serious threat for a generation. Yet time and again our leaders crave battle. Why?
Last week we got a glimpse of an answer and it was not nice. The outgoing US defence secretary, Robert Gates, berated Europe's "failure of political will" in not maintaining defence spending. He said Nato had declined into a "two-tier alliance" between those willing to wage war and those "who specialise in 'soft' humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks". Peace, he implied, is for wimps. Real men buy bombs, and drop them.
This call was echoed by Nato's chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who pointed out how unfair it was that US defence investment represented 75% of the Nato defence expenditure, where once it was only half. Having been forced to extend his war on Libya by another three months, Rasmussen wanted to see Europe's governments come up with more money, and no nonsense about recession. Defence to him is measured not in security but in spending.
The call was repeated back home by the navy chief, Sir Mark Stanhope. He had to be "dressed down" by the prime minister, David Cameron, for warning that an extended war in Libya would mean "challenging decisions about priorities". Sailors never talk straight: he meant more ships. The navy has used so many of its £500,000 Tomahawk missiles trying to hit Colonel Gaddafi (and missing) over the past month that it needs money for more. In a clearly co-ordinated lobby, the head of the RAF also demanded "a significant uplift in spending after 2015, if the service is to meet its commitments". It, of course, defines its commitments itself.
Libya has cost Britain £100m so far, and rising. But Iraq and the Afghan war are costing America $3bn a week, and there is scarcely an industry, or a state, in the country that does not see some of this money. These wars show no signs of being ended, let alone won. But to the defence lobby what matters is the money. It sustains combat by constantly promising success and inducing politicians and journalists to see "more enemy dead", "a glimmer of hope" and "a corner about to be turned".
Victory will come, but only if politicians spend more money on "a surge". Soldiers are like firefighters, demanding extra to fight fires. They will fight all right, but if you want victory that is overtime.
On Wednesday the Russian ambassador to Nato warned that Britain and France were "being dragged more and more into the eventuality of a land-based operation in Libya". This is what the defence lobby wants institutionally, even if it may appal the generals. In the 1980s Russia watched the same process in Afghanistan, where it took a dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev, to face down the Red Army and demand withdrawal. The west has no Gorbachev in Afghanistan at the moment. Nato's Rasmussen says he "could not envisage" a land war in Libya, since the UN would take over if Gaddafi were toppled. He must know this is nonsense. But then he said Nato would only enforce a no-fly zone in Libya. He achieved that weeks ago, but is still bombing.
It is not democracy that keeps western nations at war, but armies and the interests now massed behind them. The greatest speech about modern defence was made in 1961 by the US president Eisenhower. He was no leftwinger, but a former general and conservative Republican. Looking back over his time in office, his farewell message to America was a simple warning against the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" of a military-industrial complex with "unwarranted influence on government". A burgeoning defence establishment, backed by large corporate interests, would one day employ so many people as to corrupt the political system. (His original draft even referred to a "military-industrial-congressional complex".) This lobby, said Eisenhower, could become so huge as to "endanger our liberties and democratic processes".
I wonder what Eisenhower would make of today's US, with a military grown from 3.5 million people to 5 million. The western nations face less of a threat to their integrity and security than ever in history, yet their defence industries cry for ever more money and ever more things to do. The cold war strategist, George Kennan, wrote prophetically: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented."
The devil makes work for idle hands, especially if they are well financed. Britain's former special envoy to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, echoed Kennan last week in claiming that the army's keenness to fight in Helmand was self-interested. "It's use them or lose them, Sherard," he was told by the then chief of the general staff, Sir Richard Dannatt. Cowper-Coles has now gone off to work for an arms manufacturer.
There is no strategic defence justification for the US spending 5.5% of its gross domestic product on defence or Britain 2.5%, or for the Nato "target" of 2%.
These figures merely formalise existing commitments and interests. At the end of the cold war soldiers assiduously invented new conflicts for themselves and their suppliers, variously wars on terror, drugs, piracy, internet espionage and man's general inhumanity to man. None yields victory, but all need equipment. The war on terror fulfilled all Eisenhower's fears, as America sank into a swamp of kidnapping, torture and imprisonment without trial.
The belligerent posture of the US and Britain towards the Muslim world has fostered antagonism and moderate threats in response. The bombing of extremist targets in Pakistan is an invitation for terrorists to attack us, and then a need for defence against such attack. Meanwhile, the opportunity cost of appeasing the complex is astronomical. Eisenhower remarked that "every gun that is made is a theft from those who hunger" – a bomber is two power stations and a hospital not built. Likewise, each Tomahawk Cameron drops on Tripoli destroys not just a Gaddafi bunker (are there any left?), but a hospital ward and a classroom in Britain.
As long as "big defence" exists it will entice glory-hungry politicians to use it. It is a return to the hundred years war, when militaristic barons and knights had a stranglehold on the monarch, and no other purpose in life than to fight. To deliver victory they demanded ever more taxes for weapons, and when they had ever more weapons they promised ever grander victories. This is exactly how Britain's defence ministry ran out of budgetary control under Labour.
There is one piece of good news. Nato has long outlived its purpose, now justifying its existence only by how much it induces its members to spend, and how many wars irrelevant to its purpose it finds to fight. Yet still it does not spend enough for the US defence secretary. In his anger, Gates threatened that "future US leaders … may not consider the return on America's investment in Nato worth the cost". Is that a threat or a promise?
Showing posts with label Total War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Total War. Show all posts
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Passive Resistance or Civil Disobedience: How to Stop the Endless Wars?
No Other Way Out
By Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Posted on Feb 28, 2011
I have watched mothers and fathers keening in grief over the frail corpses of their children in hospitals in Gaza and rural villages in El Salvador, Bosnia and Kosovo. The faces of these dead children, their bodies ripped apart by iron fragments or bullets tumbling end over end through their small, delicate frames, appear to me almost daily like faint and sadly familiar ghosts. The frailty and innocence of my own children make these images difficult to bear.
A child a day dies in war-related violence in Afghanistan. Children die in roadside explosions. They die in airstrikes. They die after militants lure them to carry suicide bombs, usually without their knowledge. They die in firefights. They are executed by the Taliban after being accused, sometimes correctly, of spying for the Afghan National Army. They are tiny pawns in a futile and endless war. They are robbed of their childhood. They live in fear and surrounded by the terror of indiscriminate violence. The United Nations, whose most recent report on children in Afghanistan covered a two-year period from Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 30, 2010, estimates that in the first half of last year at least 176 children were killed and 389 more wounded. But the real number is probably much, much higher. There are big parts of the country where research can no longer be carried out.
We will not stop the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we will not end this slaughter of innocents, unless we are willing to rise up as have state workers in Wisconsin and citizens on the streets of Arab capitals. Repeated and sustained acts of civil disobedience are the only weapons that remain to us. Our political system is as broken and dysfunctional as that once presided over in Egypt by Hosni Mubarak. We must be willing to accept personal discomfort, to put our bodies in the way of the machine, if we hope to expose the lies of war and blunt the abuse by corporate profiteers. To do nothing, to refuse to act, to be passive, is to be an agent of injustice and to be complicit in murder. The U.N. report estimates that during the two-year period it studied almost 1,800 children were killed or injured in conflict-related violence, but numbers can never transmit the reality of such suffering.
On March 19, the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I will join a coalition of U.S. military veterans from Iraq Veterans Against the War, March Forward!, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace who will gather in Lafayette Park across from the White House. The veteran-led action will result in numerous arrests, as did a Dec. 16 protest organized by Veterans for Peace. It will seek, because it is all we have left, to use our bodies to challenge the crimes of the state.
It does not matter if this protest or any other does not work. It does not matter if we are 500, as we were in December, or 50. It does not matter if the event is covered in the press or ignored. It matters only that those of us who believe in the rule of law, who find the organized sadism of war and militarism repugnant and who seek to protect the sanctity of life rise up. If we do not defend these virtues they will be extinguished. No one in power will defend them for us. Protests are rending the fabric of the U.S.-backed dictatorships in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt and Libya. They are flickering to life in the U.S. in states like Wisconsin. And they are beginning to convulse Iraq. Iraqis, for whom eight years of war and occupation have brought nothing but misery and death, are surrounding government buildings to denounce their puppet government. They are rising up to demand jobs, basic services including electricity, a reining in of our mercenary killers, some of whom have been used to quell restless crowds, and a right to determine their own future. These protesters are our true allies, not the hired thugs we pay to repress them.
We are wasting $700 million a day to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while our teachers, firefighters and police lose their jobs, while we slash basic assistance programs for the poor, children and the elderly, while we turn our backs on the some 3 million people being pushed from their homes by foreclosures and bank repossessions and while we do nothing to help the one in six American workers who cannot find work. These wars have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. They have pushed millions into refugee or displacement camps. They have left young men and women severely crippled and maimed. They have turned our nation into an isolated pariah, fueling the very terrorism we seek to defeat. And they cannot be won. The sooner we leave Iraq and Afghanistan the sooner we will save others and finally save ourselves.
There will be veterans in the park who carry with them physical and emotional wounds of great magnitude, who remain crippled by the dead hand of war, who never sleep well, who struggle in the black pit of depression and with post-traumatic stress disorder, and who will bear the cross that war inflicted upon them until the end of their days. They will have surmounted tremendous psychic and physical pain to make it to Lafayette Park, to defy what they know must be defied. And if they can walk their trail of tears to the White House so can you. They are our wounded healers, our disregarded prophets.
Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who while flying saw the killings of unarmed Vietnamese civilians in what later became known as the My Lai massacre, landed in the village during the slaughter. He spotted a group of about 10 civilians, including children, running toward a homemade bomb shelter. Soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, C Company, were chasing the civilians. Thompson, dismounting from the cockpit, put himself between the civilians and the soldiers. He ordered his gunner to open fire on the Americans if they began to shoot the villagers or him. Later, Thompson, who crusaded for justice after then-Maj. Colin Powell led the official whitewash of My Lai, received death threats. Mutilated animals were tossed on his doorstep. He was unsung for decades and forgotten until shortly before his death in 2006. He exhibited real courage, moral courage, the kind of courage the state detests, the kind of courage for which they do not mint medals.
Bradley Manning, who allegedly downloaded thousands of documents and videos that confirmed war crimes by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and passed them on to WikiLeaks, is being held in a military brig in Quantico, Va. He has been kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and denied exercise, a pillow or sheets for the last nine months. His prolonged isolation is designed to break him physically and psychologically. There will be a protest outside Quantico on March 20 in support of Manning, another soldier from another war whom Thompson would have understood.
The documents published by WikiLeaks detailed for the world the widespread use of torture by Iraqi and Afghan security forces and the silent complicity of Washington. They confirmed that civilians, including children, are routinely murdered by occupation forces and that the killings are not investigated. The documents lifted the veil on our undeclared, black war in Pakistan, including drone strikes that have killed more than 900 civilians in Pakistan since Barack Obama took office. They shed light on the gross corruption, drug trafficking and crimes committed by the Afghan president as well as the reign of terror carried out by the Afghan National Army. These documents confirm that huge numbers of Iraqi civilians have been killed by U.S. troops at checkpoints, and that since the invasion tens of thousands of civilians have died as a result of the war. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) These documents illustrate in page after page that our government makes no effort to protect liberty, democracy or human rights, but instead prefers crude and brutal mechanisms of power.
The Obama administration, which has proved as efficient in serving the war machine and the corporate state as the Bush administration did, is attempting to destroy not only Manning but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The state seeks to silence anyone who practices moral courage. It does not want the truth heard. It does not want the reality seen. If these forces of war and greed triumph, and we do not, there will be darkness. But if on March 19 there is at least one person willing to defy the state, to demand justice at the cost of his or her freedom, there will be a flame held to light the way for us all.
By Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Posted on Feb 28, 2011
I have watched mothers and fathers keening in grief over the frail corpses of their children in hospitals in Gaza and rural villages in El Salvador, Bosnia and Kosovo. The faces of these dead children, their bodies ripped apart by iron fragments or bullets tumbling end over end through their small, delicate frames, appear to me almost daily like faint and sadly familiar ghosts. The frailty and innocence of my own children make these images difficult to bear.
A child a day dies in war-related violence in Afghanistan. Children die in roadside explosions. They die in airstrikes. They die after militants lure them to carry suicide bombs, usually without their knowledge. They die in firefights. They are executed by the Taliban after being accused, sometimes correctly, of spying for the Afghan National Army. They are tiny pawns in a futile and endless war. They are robbed of their childhood. They live in fear and surrounded by the terror of indiscriminate violence. The United Nations, whose most recent report on children in Afghanistan covered a two-year period from Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 30, 2010, estimates that in the first half of last year at least 176 children were killed and 389 more wounded. But the real number is probably much, much higher. There are big parts of the country where research can no longer be carried out.
We will not stop the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we will not end this slaughter of innocents, unless we are willing to rise up as have state workers in Wisconsin and citizens on the streets of Arab capitals. Repeated and sustained acts of civil disobedience are the only weapons that remain to us. Our political system is as broken and dysfunctional as that once presided over in Egypt by Hosni Mubarak. We must be willing to accept personal discomfort, to put our bodies in the way of the machine, if we hope to expose the lies of war and blunt the abuse by corporate profiteers. To do nothing, to refuse to act, to be passive, is to be an agent of injustice and to be complicit in murder. The U.N. report estimates that during the two-year period it studied almost 1,800 children were killed or injured in conflict-related violence, but numbers can never transmit the reality of such suffering.
On March 19, the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I will join a coalition of U.S. military veterans from Iraq Veterans Against the War, March Forward!, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace who will gather in Lafayette Park across from the White House. The veteran-led action will result in numerous arrests, as did a Dec. 16 protest organized by Veterans for Peace. It will seek, because it is all we have left, to use our bodies to challenge the crimes of the state.
It does not matter if this protest or any other does not work. It does not matter if we are 500, as we were in December, or 50. It does not matter if the event is covered in the press or ignored. It matters only that those of us who believe in the rule of law, who find the organized sadism of war and militarism repugnant and who seek to protect the sanctity of life rise up. If we do not defend these virtues they will be extinguished. No one in power will defend them for us. Protests are rending the fabric of the U.S.-backed dictatorships in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt and Libya. They are flickering to life in the U.S. in states like Wisconsin. And they are beginning to convulse Iraq. Iraqis, for whom eight years of war and occupation have brought nothing but misery and death, are surrounding government buildings to denounce their puppet government. They are rising up to demand jobs, basic services including electricity, a reining in of our mercenary killers, some of whom have been used to quell restless crowds, and a right to determine their own future. These protesters are our true allies, not the hired thugs we pay to repress them.
We are wasting $700 million a day to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while our teachers, firefighters and police lose their jobs, while we slash basic assistance programs for the poor, children and the elderly, while we turn our backs on the some 3 million people being pushed from their homes by foreclosures and bank repossessions and while we do nothing to help the one in six American workers who cannot find work. These wars have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. They have pushed millions into refugee or displacement camps. They have left young men and women severely crippled and maimed. They have turned our nation into an isolated pariah, fueling the very terrorism we seek to defeat. And they cannot be won. The sooner we leave Iraq and Afghanistan the sooner we will save others and finally save ourselves.
There will be veterans in the park who carry with them physical and emotional wounds of great magnitude, who remain crippled by the dead hand of war, who never sleep well, who struggle in the black pit of depression and with post-traumatic stress disorder, and who will bear the cross that war inflicted upon them until the end of their days. They will have surmounted tremendous psychic and physical pain to make it to Lafayette Park, to defy what they know must be defied. And if they can walk their trail of tears to the White House so can you. They are our wounded healers, our disregarded prophets.
Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who while flying saw the killings of unarmed Vietnamese civilians in what later became known as the My Lai massacre, landed in the village during the slaughter. He spotted a group of about 10 civilians, including children, running toward a homemade bomb shelter. Soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, C Company, were chasing the civilians. Thompson, dismounting from the cockpit, put himself between the civilians and the soldiers. He ordered his gunner to open fire on the Americans if they began to shoot the villagers or him. Later, Thompson, who crusaded for justice after then-Maj. Colin Powell led the official whitewash of My Lai, received death threats. Mutilated animals were tossed on his doorstep. He was unsung for decades and forgotten until shortly before his death in 2006. He exhibited real courage, moral courage, the kind of courage the state detests, the kind of courage for which they do not mint medals.
Bradley Manning, who allegedly downloaded thousands of documents and videos that confirmed war crimes by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and passed them on to WikiLeaks, is being held in a military brig in Quantico, Va. He has been kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and denied exercise, a pillow or sheets for the last nine months. His prolonged isolation is designed to break him physically and psychologically. There will be a protest outside Quantico on March 20 in support of Manning, another soldier from another war whom Thompson would have understood.
The documents published by WikiLeaks detailed for the world the widespread use of torture by Iraqi and Afghan security forces and the silent complicity of Washington. They confirmed that civilians, including children, are routinely murdered by occupation forces and that the killings are not investigated. The documents lifted the veil on our undeclared, black war in Pakistan, including drone strikes that have killed more than 900 civilians in Pakistan since Barack Obama took office. They shed light on the gross corruption, drug trafficking and crimes committed by the Afghan president as well as the reign of terror carried out by the Afghan National Army. These documents confirm that huge numbers of Iraqi civilians have been killed by U.S. troops at checkpoints, and that since the invasion tens of thousands of civilians have died as a result of the war. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) These documents illustrate in page after page that our government makes no effort to protect liberty, democracy or human rights, but instead prefers crude and brutal mechanisms of power.
The Obama administration, which has proved as efficient in serving the war machine and the corporate state as the Bush administration did, is attempting to destroy not only Manning but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The state seeks to silence anyone who practices moral courage. It does not want the truth heard. It does not want the reality seen. If these forces of war and greed triumph, and we do not, there will be darkness. But if on March 19 there is at least one person willing to defy the state, to demand justice at the cost of his or her freedom, there will be a flame held to light the way for us all.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The March to War: Was September 11 2001 the Start of World War III?
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research
December 11, 2010
The tragic attacks of September 11, 2001 have resulted in almost ten years of perpetual war. September 11, 2001 was the first drum beats, or the opening salvos, of a much wider conflict. The deployment of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan has secured a bridgehead into the Eurasian Heartland, which is geographically positioned on or near the borders of Iran, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Was Afghanistan the starting battle of a global war? The invasion of Afghanistan can be compared to the landing of the Western Allies, specifically the Americans, in North Africa as a bridgehead into Italy and Europe. At the same time NATO has been pushing from Europe towards the Eurasian Heartland, like the landing of the invading forces of the Western Allies in France.
Was September 11th, 2001 the start of the Third World War?
Historically speaking, it should be noted that distinctions between times of war and peace are not always clear-cut and conflicts do not always correspond to the dates set and standardized by historians. War was not even declared in the cases of many past conflicts, such as in the early 1700s when Augustus II of Saxony-Poland invaded Livonia or when Frederick IV of Denmark invaded Holstein-Gottorp. Also, in the cases of many conflicts, attempts were always made to cloak or hide the nature of the conflict as being a war or an act of aggression. The Romans and other imperial powers regularly engaged in this type of conduct.
Examples in history are the abstract chronological dates customarily used by historians to note important points in the Second World War and the start of the Cold War. In Western Europe and North America, the starting date for World War II is considered to be September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. For the former Czechoslovakia, March 16, 1939 (the date Germany invaded Czechoslovakia) was the starting date for the Second World War. In Russia and the former U.S.S.R. the start date of the Second World War is 1941, the date the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Even the end date for World War II in Europe is different, because Germany officially surrendered to the Western Allies (namely the U.S., Britain, and France) on May 8, 1945 and to the Soviet Union on May 9, 1945.
The above dates are all set from an ethnocentric European perspective, which leaves out Asia. The history of World War II starts much earlier in Asia. Many consider the start of the Second World War to have been when Japan invaded China in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, two years before 1939. Even before 1937, since 1931 the Chinese and Japanese were in conflict and 1931 too can be seen as the start of World War II.
The various dates and events for the start of the Cold War also vary, because of the identification of various events as the Cold War’s opening salvo(s). The 1945 American-Soviet tensions over the occupation of the Korean Peninsula, the Azerbaijan Crisis (1947-1948) arising from the Soviet occupation of Iranian provinces, the near wins for the Communists in national elections held in France and Italy (1947-1948), the struggle for power between the Communists and the non-Communists in Czechoslovakia (1947-1948), and the West Berlin Blockade (1948-1949) are also viewed as starting dates for the Cold War. Even events taking place during the Second World War, such as the Yalta Conference, the Tehran Conference, and the dropping of the atom bomb on the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by President Harry Truman as a threat to the Soviets (about U.S. supremacy in the post-war order) are considered as the starting dates of the Cold War.
This question about dates also gives rise to another point in historiography. The nature of history is seamless and not the arbitrary one unintentionally made out by historians and history textbooks. One set of events leads to another. Just as how the First World War led to the Second World War and the Second World War led to the Cold War, the Cold War has led to the “Global War on Terrorism.”
The point is that in retrospect, historical dates and events are defined by people in the future and that sometimes people need to stand back to see the bigger picture.
The NATO and Anglo-American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are clearly tied to September 11, 2001. These events are also related to the military threats directed against Iran and Syria, the tensions in Lebanon and East Africa, as well as U.S. and NATO threats directed against China and Russia. In this regard, the historians of the future may say that World War III could have started on September 11, 2001 or that the tragic events on September 11, 2001 were a prelude to World War III.
Revelations from the U.S. Media on the Dawn of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War: Are We in a World War?
As a note on the subject of whether World War III is currently being waged, the U.S. media watchdog Media Matters for America made a note that much of the mainstream media was touting that the U.S. was in the midst of a global war days after Israel began its war against Lebanon. Media Matters for America reported as follows on July 14, 2006:
Most recently, on the July 13 [2006] edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly said “World War III ... I think we’re in it.” Similarly, on the July 13 [2006] edition of MSNBC’s Tucker, a graphic read: “On the verge of World War III?” As Media Matters for America has noted, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck began his program on July 12 [2006] with a discussion with former CIA officer Robert Baer by saying “we’ve got World War III to fight,” while also warning of the “impeding apocalypse.” Beck and [former] officer Robert Baer had a similar discussion on July 13 [2006], in which Beck said: “I absolutely know that we need to prepare ourselves for World War III. It is here.” [1]
The mainstream media serves as a tool for the economic and political elite. It falls into line in propagating and supporting state domestic and foreign policy. In this sense the mainstream media is a vital component of a military-industrial-financial-media complex that helps shape the views of what the sociologist C. Wright Mills has termed a mass society.
It is clear that a World War III scenario was possible in 2006. The Israeli attack on Lebanon could have expanded into Syria. This would have seen Iranian intervention, which would have seen the U.S. and NATO entering the war to come to the aid of Tel Aviv as combatants. This could have resulted in a dangerous global war scenario arising from the Middle East, which will be examined later.
The dangers of a military intervention by the U.S. and NATO were very real. The Pentagon had planned to launch a NATO invasion of Lebanon, which would have included the deployment of U.S. Marines to fight the Lebanese Resistance. This has also been confirmed by Alain Pellegrini, the former military commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), in an interview with the newspaper As-Safir.
The Weekly Standard, in the following month after September 11, 2001, ominously went on to outline the broader military campaign that was to come in an editorial by Robert Kagan and William Kristol published on October 29, 2001:
When all is said and done the conflict in Afghanistan will be to the war on terrorism what the North Africa campaign was to World War II: an essential beginning on the path to victory. But to what looms over the horizon — a wide-range war in locales from Central Asia to the Middle East and, unfortunately, back again to the United States — Afghanistan will prove but an opening battle. [2]
The Weekly Standard editorial, like a script, went on to clearly state that the multi-front war that was in the works would develop to become or resemble the “Clash of Civilizations” post-Cold War conflict model outlined by Samuel P. Huntington:
[T]his war will not end in Afghanistan. It is going to spread and engulf a number of countries in conflicts of varying intensity. It could well require the use of American military power in multiple places simultaneously. It is going to resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid. And it is going to put enormous and perhaps unbearable strain on parts of an international coalition that basks in contented consensus. [3]
In 2001, both Robert Kagan and William Kristol were well aware of the conflagration of war in Eurasia. Both men are U.S. political insiders that were aware of what direction U.S. foreign policy would take the U.S. military. After all Kagan and Kristol were associates with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz through the political think-tank the Project for a News American Century (PNAC) that outlined a global military roadmap for a “new American century.”
World War III in the Horizon?
Since the invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan war has spread from Central Asia to the Middle East, Pakistan, the Caucasus, and East Africa. What is looming in the horizon? Is the “Global War on Terror” another name for the “Great Game?”
The “Great Game” for control of all Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Central Asia, is underway. International tensions are building. In Eurasia and worldwide there is geo-political rivalry between a U.S. led military alliance and bloc and a Russian-Chinese-Iranian counter-alliance.
There are numerous fronts that can ignite a global war, but the Middle East has the highest risk. If Israeli attacks in 2006 threatened to lead to a global war, what would an attack on Iran lead to? An Israeli-U.S. attack against Iran and its allies could develop rapidly into a global war with the use of nuclear weapons. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
NOTES
[1] “Right-wing media divided: Is U.S. now in World War III, IV, or V?”, Media Matters for America, July 14, 2006:.
[2] Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “The Gathering Storm”, The Weekly Standard, October 29, 2001, p.13.
[3] Ibid.
Global Research
December 11, 2010
The tragic attacks of September 11, 2001 have resulted in almost ten years of perpetual war. September 11, 2001 was the first drum beats, or the opening salvos, of a much wider conflict. The deployment of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan has secured a bridgehead into the Eurasian Heartland, which is geographically positioned on or near the borders of Iran, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Was Afghanistan the starting battle of a global war? The invasion of Afghanistan can be compared to the landing of the Western Allies, specifically the Americans, in North Africa as a bridgehead into Italy and Europe. At the same time NATO has been pushing from Europe towards the Eurasian Heartland, like the landing of the invading forces of the Western Allies in France.
Was September 11th, 2001 the start of the Third World War?
Historically speaking, it should be noted that distinctions between times of war and peace are not always clear-cut and conflicts do not always correspond to the dates set and standardized by historians. War was not even declared in the cases of many past conflicts, such as in the early 1700s when Augustus II of Saxony-Poland invaded Livonia or when Frederick IV of Denmark invaded Holstein-Gottorp. Also, in the cases of many conflicts, attempts were always made to cloak or hide the nature of the conflict as being a war or an act of aggression. The Romans and other imperial powers regularly engaged in this type of conduct.
Examples in history are the abstract chronological dates customarily used by historians to note important points in the Second World War and the start of the Cold War. In Western Europe and North America, the starting date for World War II is considered to be September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. For the former Czechoslovakia, March 16, 1939 (the date Germany invaded Czechoslovakia) was the starting date for the Second World War. In Russia and the former U.S.S.R. the start date of the Second World War is 1941, the date the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Even the end date for World War II in Europe is different, because Germany officially surrendered to the Western Allies (namely the U.S., Britain, and France) on May 8, 1945 and to the Soviet Union on May 9, 1945.
The above dates are all set from an ethnocentric European perspective, which leaves out Asia. The history of World War II starts much earlier in Asia. Many consider the start of the Second World War to have been when Japan invaded China in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, two years before 1939. Even before 1937, since 1931 the Chinese and Japanese were in conflict and 1931 too can be seen as the start of World War II.
The various dates and events for the start of the Cold War also vary, because of the identification of various events as the Cold War’s opening salvo(s). The 1945 American-Soviet tensions over the occupation of the Korean Peninsula, the Azerbaijan Crisis (1947-1948) arising from the Soviet occupation of Iranian provinces, the near wins for the Communists in national elections held in France and Italy (1947-1948), the struggle for power between the Communists and the non-Communists in Czechoslovakia (1947-1948), and the West Berlin Blockade (1948-1949) are also viewed as starting dates for the Cold War. Even events taking place during the Second World War, such as the Yalta Conference, the Tehran Conference, and the dropping of the atom bomb on the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by President Harry Truman as a threat to the Soviets (about U.S. supremacy in the post-war order) are considered as the starting dates of the Cold War.
This question about dates also gives rise to another point in historiography. The nature of history is seamless and not the arbitrary one unintentionally made out by historians and history textbooks. One set of events leads to another. Just as how the First World War led to the Second World War and the Second World War led to the Cold War, the Cold War has led to the “Global War on Terrorism.”
The point is that in retrospect, historical dates and events are defined by people in the future and that sometimes people need to stand back to see the bigger picture.
The NATO and Anglo-American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are clearly tied to September 11, 2001. These events are also related to the military threats directed against Iran and Syria, the tensions in Lebanon and East Africa, as well as U.S. and NATO threats directed against China and Russia. In this regard, the historians of the future may say that World War III could have started on September 11, 2001 or that the tragic events on September 11, 2001 were a prelude to World War III.
Revelations from the U.S. Media on the Dawn of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War: Are We in a World War?
As a note on the subject of whether World War III is currently being waged, the U.S. media watchdog Media Matters for America made a note that much of the mainstream media was touting that the U.S. was in the midst of a global war days after Israel began its war against Lebanon. Media Matters for America reported as follows on July 14, 2006:
Most recently, on the July 13 [2006] edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly said “World War III ... I think we’re in it.” Similarly, on the July 13 [2006] edition of MSNBC’s Tucker, a graphic read: “On the verge of World War III?” As Media Matters for America has noted, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck began his program on July 12 [2006] with a discussion with former CIA officer Robert Baer by saying “we’ve got World War III to fight,” while also warning of the “impeding apocalypse.” Beck and [former] officer Robert Baer had a similar discussion on July 13 [2006], in which Beck said: “I absolutely know that we need to prepare ourselves for World War III. It is here.” [1]
The mainstream media serves as a tool for the economic and political elite. It falls into line in propagating and supporting state domestic and foreign policy. In this sense the mainstream media is a vital component of a military-industrial-financial-media complex that helps shape the views of what the sociologist C. Wright Mills has termed a mass society.
It is clear that a World War III scenario was possible in 2006. The Israeli attack on Lebanon could have expanded into Syria. This would have seen Iranian intervention, which would have seen the U.S. and NATO entering the war to come to the aid of Tel Aviv as combatants. This could have resulted in a dangerous global war scenario arising from the Middle East, which will be examined later.
The dangers of a military intervention by the U.S. and NATO were very real. The Pentagon had planned to launch a NATO invasion of Lebanon, which would have included the deployment of U.S. Marines to fight the Lebanese Resistance. This has also been confirmed by Alain Pellegrini, the former military commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), in an interview with the newspaper As-Safir.
The Weekly Standard, in the following month after September 11, 2001, ominously went on to outline the broader military campaign that was to come in an editorial by Robert Kagan and William Kristol published on October 29, 2001:
When all is said and done the conflict in Afghanistan will be to the war on terrorism what the North Africa campaign was to World War II: an essential beginning on the path to victory. But to what looms over the horizon — a wide-range war in locales from Central Asia to the Middle East and, unfortunately, back again to the United States — Afghanistan will prove but an opening battle. [2]
The Weekly Standard editorial, like a script, went on to clearly state that the multi-front war that was in the works would develop to become or resemble the “Clash of Civilizations” post-Cold War conflict model outlined by Samuel P. Huntington:
[T]his war will not end in Afghanistan. It is going to spread and engulf a number of countries in conflicts of varying intensity. It could well require the use of American military power in multiple places simultaneously. It is going to resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid. And it is going to put enormous and perhaps unbearable strain on parts of an international coalition that basks in contented consensus. [3]
In 2001, both Robert Kagan and William Kristol were well aware of the conflagration of war in Eurasia. Both men are U.S. political insiders that were aware of what direction U.S. foreign policy would take the U.S. military. After all Kagan and Kristol were associates with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz through the political think-tank the Project for a News American Century (PNAC) that outlined a global military roadmap for a “new American century.”
World War III in the Horizon?
Since the invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan war has spread from Central Asia to the Middle East, Pakistan, the Caucasus, and East Africa. What is looming in the horizon? Is the “Global War on Terror” another name for the “Great Game?”
The “Great Game” for control of all Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Central Asia, is underway. International tensions are building. In Eurasia and worldwide there is geo-political rivalry between a U.S. led military alliance and bloc and a Russian-Chinese-Iranian counter-alliance.
There are numerous fronts that can ignite a global war, but the Middle East has the highest risk. If Israeli attacks in 2006 threatened to lead to a global war, what would an attack on Iran lead to? An Israeli-U.S. attack against Iran and its allies could develop rapidly into a global war with the use of nuclear weapons. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
NOTES
[1] “Right-wing media divided: Is U.S. now in World War III, IV, or V?”, Media Matters for America, July 14, 2006:
[2] Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “The Gathering Storm”, The Weekly Standard, October 29, 2001, p.13.
[3] Ibid.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
President John F. Kennedy at United Nations: "Never Fear to Negotiate"
"We shall never negotiate out of fear but shall never fear to negotiate!"
President John F. Kennedy, September 25, 1961
NOTE:
President Kennedy in this speech at the United Nations early in the course of his administration spoke of the need to seek peace. He also specifically repudiated the concept of aggressive or preventive war (as did President Eisenhower before him) which later became known euphemistically as the so-called "Bush Doctrine." How we desperately need JFK today! It remains one of the great tragedies of the 20th century that he was murdered for daring to oppose the MIMIC and its demand for constant war.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
President John F. Kennedy, September 25, 1961
NOTE:
President Kennedy in this speech at the United Nations early in the course of his administration spoke of the need to seek peace. He also specifically repudiated the concept of aggressive or preventive war (as did President Eisenhower before him) which later became known euphemistically as the so-called "Bush Doctrine." How we desperately need JFK today! It remains one of the great tragedies of the 20th century that he was murdered for daring to oppose the MIMIC and its demand for constant war.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Friday, March 13, 2009
What Ever Happened to: War of Necessity Only?
Bush Doctrine of Preventive War is Immoral
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
Once upon a time it was part of conventional wisdom--based as it was in the "golden rule ethic" that "picking a fight" was immoral--whether by nation states or individuals. This moral tenet flowed from the first and second principles (of right reason) of the Natural Law: 1) do good/avoid evil and 2) treat your neighbor fairly--summarized by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
When/where the golden rule ethic still reigned, it was understood that even though one could legitimately defend oneself against aggression, it was always and everywhere morally wrong to instigate hostilities. That is to say, it is always morally licit to defend against aggression but never to cause it.
Several fundamental underlying assumptions are basic to understanding the “golden rule” as it is applied to war.
First, in moral philosophy one must assume that human nature is fixed and not changing that is to say, all human beings are assumed to be of equal worth and their essence (nature or quiddity [what-ness]) is constant i.e. unchanging (This in no way means that all human beings have equal talents and abilities). It is important to note that there is no empirical (scientific) evidence that human nature is changing—cumulative evidence establishes the opposite and of course Divine Revelation calls for a fixed human nature as well (All the major Theistic belief systems ascribe to this view). Moreover, the empirical evidence which is available clearly demonstrates that human beings are the most highly developed and complex entities in material existence. There are no defensible bases on which to assert that all human beings are not of equal worth which do not reduce to vacuous claims of unwarranted entitlement.
While a “fixed human nature” may conflict with what radical Darwinists who embrace metaphysical naturalism may propound, such a view is a philosophical not scientific notion and an incoherent one at that. The very notion that it would be possible to determine right and wrong--if human nature is constantly changing—is pure fantasy. Only if human nature is fixed does it become possible to hold that right and wrong in the moral sense exists or is discernible. If human nature is evolving; then right and wrong is evolving as well—a situation which is unintelligible. Virtually any behavior can be justified since it can be effectively argued that some people are more evolved than others and therefore their behavior no matter how apparently objectionable is also acceptable. This leads to complete social Darwinism—survival of the fittest where “might” alone “makes right”—a prescription for total moral anarchy.
Second, any moral philosophy worthy of the name must include the notion of universality—that is, its moral tenets must be applicable to all human beings—a reality which flows from the existence of a fixed human nature (anthropology). If this is not the case, it becomes impossible to determine right and wrong at all. Identical behavior(s) can be considered morally acceptable by one person and not another or by one nation but not another simply by refusing to apply the relevant moral principles universally. What otherwise would always and everywhere be wrong for example might be right for some but wrong for others simply because of who it is that is performing the moral calculus in question. Under these circumstances, “intent” is allowed to become controlling since it can make behavior which is obviously wrong appear justifiable. Such a situation is very common in contemporary International Relations where the classical tripartite Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis (means, ends, and circumstances) that is moral calculus has been abandoned for rank Utilitarianism—too often resulting in obvious moral injustices.
Beginning with the Bush administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States discarded a 2000+ year old golden rule ethical proscription against initiating wars of aggression in which only legitimate defense not offense was understood to be acceptable—i.e. defensive war as a last resort only! It is difficult to overestimate just how radical this notion is. Particularly troublesome is the fact that the attacks themselves--in the words of Osama bin Laden--were the result of perceived immoral behavior on our part (the unilateral support of Israel over the Palestinian Arabs including our dismissal of their terrible plight and our garrisoning of US forces in the Holy Lands of Mecca and Medina; apparently contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed among other things).
While the intentional killing of innocent human beings (as occurred on 9/11) can never be morally justified, it would be foolish of us not to recognize that our behavior abroad can have disastrous consequences when we fail to consider our actions in terms of the two principles outlined above. That is to say; Palestinian Arabs are unwilling to accept that their lives are not worth as much as are Israelis and rightfully so since all human beings by virtue of their fixed human nature are equally valuable-- if any are valuable at all. For Theists and particularly Christian Theists this is axiomatic of course by virtue or the fact that man is created in the image of God (imago Dei). Moreover, we would by the principle of universality detest the stationing of foreign troops on our land and thus the fact that Muslim Arabs do as well is completely understandable. To suggest otherwise is irrational and or dishonest in the extreme.
For anyone to allege that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner could under any conceivable set of circumstances be morally licit (in the recent Presidential campaign Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all did so) is to completely depart from the golden rule ethic which has governed humanity for over 2 millennia. By their very nature, both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons intentionally kill innocent human beings. This is 100% certain from an objective perspective and therefore provides the moral certitude required in performing the relevant moral calculus. Under no circumstances can nuclear weapons be used offensively. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful that they could ever be utilized defensively either due to the fact that they invariably would be associated with the killing of innocent non-combatants (It is impossible for the author to see how such a use could avoid the mass intentional killing of innocent human beings. It is not legitimate to argue that such killing would represent so-called “collateral damage “since it would be completely foreseeable and thus avoidable). While conventional weapons are potentially usable in a morally licit way (for defensive purposes only), from a moral perspective, it is clear that the use of nuclear weapons under any set of circumstances is morally illicit due to the moral certitude that doing so always results in the intentional killing of innocent human beings and in tremendous numbers.
We have over the past 7+ years in a sense crossed the Rubicon where the waging of war is concerned, meaning we have stepped over the “red-line.” It has now become acceptable ala the “Bush Doctrine” to instigate offensive wars of aggression based on nothing more than a probability calculation that a given country might someday under certain imagined circumstances represent an actual or imminent threat to American national security or survival. This cannot be justified or accepted when subjected to rational/traditional (scholastic) moral philosophical precepts and must be rejected by all human beings of good will.
Unfortunately, there is no credible evidence available to establish that the Obama administration has repudiated the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of preventive war. Moreover, President Obama has demonstrated vis a vis the Charles Freeman affair that he is unwilling/unable to oppose the Israel (radical Zionist) Lobby. Americans should be especially concerned that Zionist hawk and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will maneuver the President into a preventive attack on Iran--which would be catastrophic for the US and the world.
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
Once upon a time it was part of conventional wisdom--based as it was in the "golden rule ethic" that "picking a fight" was immoral--whether by nation states or individuals. This moral tenet flowed from the first and second principles (of right reason) of the Natural Law: 1) do good/avoid evil and 2) treat your neighbor fairly--summarized by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
When/where the golden rule ethic still reigned, it was understood that even though one could legitimately defend oneself against aggression, it was always and everywhere morally wrong to instigate hostilities. That is to say, it is always morally licit to defend against aggression but never to cause it.
Several fundamental underlying assumptions are basic to understanding the “golden rule” as it is applied to war.
First, in moral philosophy one must assume that human nature is fixed and not changing that is to say, all human beings are assumed to be of equal worth and their essence (nature or quiddity [what-ness]) is constant i.e. unchanging (This in no way means that all human beings have equal talents and abilities). It is important to note that there is no empirical (scientific) evidence that human nature is changing—cumulative evidence establishes the opposite and of course Divine Revelation calls for a fixed human nature as well (All the major Theistic belief systems ascribe to this view). Moreover, the empirical evidence which is available clearly demonstrates that human beings are the most highly developed and complex entities in material existence. There are no defensible bases on which to assert that all human beings are not of equal worth which do not reduce to vacuous claims of unwarranted entitlement.
While a “fixed human nature” may conflict with what radical Darwinists who embrace metaphysical naturalism may propound, such a view is a philosophical not scientific notion and an incoherent one at that. The very notion that it would be possible to determine right and wrong--if human nature is constantly changing—is pure fantasy. Only if human nature is fixed does it become possible to hold that right and wrong in the moral sense exists or is discernible. If human nature is evolving; then right and wrong is evolving as well—a situation which is unintelligible. Virtually any behavior can be justified since it can be effectively argued that some people are more evolved than others and therefore their behavior no matter how apparently objectionable is also acceptable. This leads to complete social Darwinism—survival of the fittest where “might” alone “makes right”—a prescription for total moral anarchy.
Second, any moral philosophy worthy of the name must include the notion of universality—that is, its moral tenets must be applicable to all human beings—a reality which flows from the existence of a fixed human nature (anthropology). If this is not the case, it becomes impossible to determine right and wrong at all. Identical behavior(s) can be considered morally acceptable by one person and not another or by one nation but not another simply by refusing to apply the relevant moral principles universally. What otherwise would always and everywhere be wrong for example might be right for some but wrong for others simply because of who it is that is performing the moral calculus in question. Under these circumstances, “intent” is allowed to become controlling since it can make behavior which is obviously wrong appear justifiable. Such a situation is very common in contemporary International Relations where the classical tripartite Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis (means, ends, and circumstances) that is moral calculus has been abandoned for rank Utilitarianism—too often resulting in obvious moral injustices.
Beginning with the Bush administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States discarded a 2000+ year old golden rule ethical proscription against initiating wars of aggression in which only legitimate defense not offense was understood to be acceptable—i.e. defensive war as a last resort only! It is difficult to overestimate just how radical this notion is. Particularly troublesome is the fact that the attacks themselves--in the words of Osama bin Laden--were the result of perceived immoral behavior on our part (the unilateral support of Israel over the Palestinian Arabs including our dismissal of their terrible plight and our garrisoning of US forces in the Holy Lands of Mecca and Medina; apparently contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed among other things).
While the intentional killing of innocent human beings (as occurred on 9/11) can never be morally justified, it would be foolish of us not to recognize that our behavior abroad can have disastrous consequences when we fail to consider our actions in terms of the two principles outlined above. That is to say; Palestinian Arabs are unwilling to accept that their lives are not worth as much as are Israelis and rightfully so since all human beings by virtue of their fixed human nature are equally valuable-- if any are valuable at all. For Theists and particularly Christian Theists this is axiomatic of course by virtue or the fact that man is created in the image of God (imago Dei). Moreover, we would by the principle of universality detest the stationing of foreign troops on our land and thus the fact that Muslim Arabs do as well is completely understandable. To suggest otherwise is irrational and or dishonest in the extreme.
For anyone to allege that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner could under any conceivable set of circumstances be morally licit (in the recent Presidential campaign Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all did so) is to completely depart from the golden rule ethic which has governed humanity for over 2 millennia. By their very nature, both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons intentionally kill innocent human beings. This is 100% certain from an objective perspective and therefore provides the moral certitude required in performing the relevant moral calculus. Under no circumstances can nuclear weapons be used offensively. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful that they could ever be utilized defensively either due to the fact that they invariably would be associated with the killing of innocent non-combatants (It is impossible for the author to see how such a use could avoid the mass intentional killing of innocent human beings. It is not legitimate to argue that such killing would represent so-called “collateral damage “since it would be completely foreseeable and thus avoidable). While conventional weapons are potentially usable in a morally licit way (for defensive purposes only), from a moral perspective, it is clear that the use of nuclear weapons under any set of circumstances is morally illicit due to the moral certitude that doing so always results in the intentional killing of innocent human beings and in tremendous numbers.
We have over the past 7+ years in a sense crossed the Rubicon where the waging of war is concerned, meaning we have stepped over the “red-line.” It has now become acceptable ala the “Bush Doctrine” to instigate offensive wars of aggression based on nothing more than a probability calculation that a given country might someday under certain imagined circumstances represent an actual or imminent threat to American national security or survival. This cannot be justified or accepted when subjected to rational/traditional (scholastic) moral philosophical precepts and must be rejected by all human beings of good will.
Unfortunately, there is no credible evidence available to establish that the Obama administration has repudiated the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of preventive war. Moreover, President Obama has demonstrated vis a vis the Charles Freeman affair that he is unwilling/unable to oppose the Israel (radical Zionist) Lobby. Americans should be especially concerned that Zionist hawk and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will maneuver the President into a preventive attack on Iran--which would be catastrophic for the US and the world.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
"Principle of Utility" Justifies Offensive Nuclear Attack
Editorial Opinion by Dr. J. P. Hubert
If anyone requires further evidence that rank Utilitarianism has become the prevailing ethic in the developed West--look no further. In a paper prepared for the Nato summit in April by five top military leaders the following recommendation is made: “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.” see HERE...
Talk about moral relativism. Where is the evidence that these men understand the principle of universality which is part and parcel of every legitimate moral philosophy? What about the categorical imperative of Kant--only do those acts which you would be willing to see universalized? Where is the assurance that these military experts understand the first and second principles of the Natural Law; do good/avoid evil and treat your neighbor fairly? What possible moral philosophy could these individuals have employed other than the principle of utility as applied under a Utilitarian construct? Apparently for them virtually any "means" whether inherently immoral or not can be applied in the pursuit of an identified "end."
The first use of nuclear weapons is an immoral means for the accomplishment of any conceivable end since it involves purposely targeting innocent human beings--non-combatants. This makes it immoral under Just War Doctrinal principles period as well as under international Law (waging "Total War" is a war crime). Under traditional (golden-rule ethic) Aristotelian/Thomistic moral philosophical precepts, one must never intentionally kill the innocent. Offensively detonating a nuclear bomb under any and all circumstances, tactical or strategic involves choosing to intentionally kill the innocent (the object rationally chosen or "means") and it is gravely immoral.
In fact it is highly dubious whether one could ever detonate a nuclear bomb in a defensive capacity either, due to the predictable (and thus intentional) nature involved in the killing of innocents. Such an eventuality could not be termed unintended in the sense of "collateral" damage which refers only to those inadvertent and unintended deaths of non-combatant civilians in time of war which are unforseeable. If large loss of civilian life is virtually certain (that is, one possesses moral certitude), the planned military maneuver is clearly immmoral.
I include the following additional analysis which was posted previously as a NOTE on this topic see THIS...
Having personally lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis it is inconceivable to me that supposedly intelligent military leaders could recommend the use of offensive nuclear weapons in an attempt to prevent further nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction. There are several insurmountable problems with their analysis.
First, it is not true that "there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world" as the 5 author's have maintained. The original nuclear weapons state (NWS's) nations (China, USSR [now Russia], France, United States and Great Britain) which signed the NPT have through lack of leadership and good will failed to meet their treaty obligations to progressively disarm their nuclear arsenals. Yet, they continue to insist that non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS's) countries must not attempt to develop them. NNWS nations legitimately wonder why they should be held to their NPT obligation not to develop nuclear weapons when the original 5 NWS's refuse to abide by theirs.
The NWS's by some unknown "right" (perhaps might makes right) also insist that those NNWS countries which did not sign the NPT must also refrain from doing so. This is rank hypocrisy of the worst sort. Moreover it is clear that some NWS's have further violated their NPT related obligations by assisting other nations who were not part of the original NWS's to obtain them including Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. Obviously, the original NWS's have made no realistic attempt to either progressively disarm (certainly not in the past 20 years) or to otherwise abide by their NPT stipulated agreement not to provide nuclear weapons technology to NNWS nations.
Second the 5 military authors who produced the latest radical manifesto have also committed a grievous error in logic. It is contradictory (violates the law of non-contradiction) in the extreme to purport that the best way to prevent an actual phenomenon from occurring is to in fact make it occur. Nuclear weapons proliferation is held to be disadvantageous because it is thought to increase the risk (likelihood) that nuclear weapons will be utilized; particularly offensively--a universally recognized and abhorrent historical reality based upon their first use by the United States against the Japanese. If that were not the case there would be no morally legitimate reason to limit proliferation.
Third, many nations already have nuclear weapons which are associated with some finite risk of use albeit perhaps incalculable quantitatively. Should nuclear weapons be used to stop a nation state from developing them, what does this say? It indicates that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner is justifiable under some circumstances. Not only does it violate Just War Doctrinal principles it makes legitimate that which it is attempting to make illegitimate--the use of offensive nuclear weapons--whether by a nation state or a terrorist organization. Put another way, it says "do what we say not what we do simply because we say so." Those NNWS can legitimately reply, "you are hypocritical in the extreme. Why should you be the only ones to have nuclear weapons--you aren't even willing to disarm the huge arsenals you already have and agreed to reduce and yet you insist that we cannot even have one? How unjust of you."
Perhaps even more troubling to me is the idea that so many human beings including the top tier candidates for President in both US political parties are willing to consider the use of nuclear weapons offensively. This is a most disturbing development. It demonstrates that the so-called Bush doctrine of preventive war has become normalized despite its being completely incompatible with international law, Just War Doctrinal principles and traditional moral precepts.
Too many people seem to have lost sight of just how truly awful it is to detonate even one nuclear weapon. I suggest that everyone read or re-read the accounts of those who documented the carnage and human suffering after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. The genetic and medical complications alone are still being felt to this day. The deleterious effects of radioactive fallout and possible complete fouling of the earth's atmosphere/environment were these hideous weapons to be utilized demands that they never be used again. There is no guarantee that--should even one tactical nuclear warhead be detonated--it would not result in WWIII. The resulting nuclear Armageddon and nuclear Winter would be capable of destroying all life on earth.
If anyone requires further evidence that rank Utilitarianism has become the prevailing ethic in the developed West--look no further. In a paper prepared for the Nato summit in April by five top military leaders the following recommendation is made: “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.” see HERE...
Talk about moral relativism. Where is the evidence that these men understand the principle of universality which is part and parcel of every legitimate moral philosophy? What about the categorical imperative of Kant--only do those acts which you would be willing to see universalized? Where is the assurance that these military experts understand the first and second principles of the Natural Law; do good/avoid evil and treat your neighbor fairly? What possible moral philosophy could these individuals have employed other than the principle of utility as applied under a Utilitarian construct? Apparently for them virtually any "means" whether inherently immoral or not can be applied in the pursuit of an identified "end."
The first use of nuclear weapons is an immoral means for the accomplishment of any conceivable end since it involves purposely targeting innocent human beings--non-combatants. This makes it immoral under Just War Doctrinal principles period as well as under international Law (waging "Total War" is a war crime). Under traditional (golden-rule ethic) Aristotelian/Thomistic moral philosophical precepts, one must never intentionally kill the innocent. Offensively detonating a nuclear bomb under any and all circumstances, tactical or strategic involves choosing to intentionally kill the innocent (the object rationally chosen or "means") and it is gravely immoral.
In fact it is highly dubious whether one could ever detonate a nuclear bomb in a defensive capacity either, due to the predictable (and thus intentional) nature involved in the killing of innocents. Such an eventuality could not be termed unintended in the sense of "collateral" damage which refers only to those inadvertent and unintended deaths of non-combatant civilians in time of war which are unforseeable. If large loss of civilian life is virtually certain (that is, one possesses moral certitude), the planned military maneuver is clearly immmoral.
I include the following additional analysis which was posted previously as a NOTE on this topic see THIS...
Having personally lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis it is inconceivable to me that supposedly intelligent military leaders could recommend the use of offensive nuclear weapons in an attempt to prevent further nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction. There are several insurmountable problems with their analysis.
First, it is not true that "there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world" as the 5 author's have maintained. The original nuclear weapons state (NWS's) nations (China, USSR [now Russia], France, United States and Great Britain) which signed the NPT have through lack of leadership and good will failed to meet their treaty obligations to progressively disarm their nuclear arsenals. Yet, they continue to insist that non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS's) countries must not attempt to develop them. NNWS nations legitimately wonder why they should be held to their NPT obligation not to develop nuclear weapons when the original 5 NWS's refuse to abide by theirs.
The NWS's by some unknown "right" (perhaps might makes right) also insist that those NNWS countries which did not sign the NPT must also refrain from doing so. This is rank hypocrisy of the worst sort. Moreover it is clear that some NWS's have further violated their NPT related obligations by assisting other nations who were not part of the original NWS's to obtain them including Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. Obviously, the original NWS's have made no realistic attempt to either progressively disarm (certainly not in the past 20 years) or to otherwise abide by their NPT stipulated agreement not to provide nuclear weapons technology to NNWS nations.
Second the 5 military authors who produced the latest radical manifesto have also committed a grievous error in logic. It is contradictory (violates the law of non-contradiction) in the extreme to purport that the best way to prevent an actual phenomenon from occurring is to in fact make it occur. Nuclear weapons proliferation is held to be disadvantageous because it is thought to increase the risk (likelihood) that nuclear weapons will be utilized; particularly offensively--a universally recognized and abhorrent historical reality based upon their first use by the United States against the Japanese. If that were not the case there would be no morally legitimate reason to limit proliferation.
Third, many nations already have nuclear weapons which are associated with some finite risk of use albeit perhaps incalculable quantitatively. Should nuclear weapons be used to stop a nation state from developing them, what does this say? It indicates that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner is justifiable under some circumstances. Not only does it violate Just War Doctrinal principles it makes legitimate that which it is attempting to make illegitimate--the use of offensive nuclear weapons--whether by a nation state or a terrorist organization. Put another way, it says "do what we say not what we do simply because we say so." Those NNWS can legitimately reply, "you are hypocritical in the extreme. Why should you be the only ones to have nuclear weapons--you aren't even willing to disarm the huge arsenals you already have and agreed to reduce and yet you insist that we cannot even have one? How unjust of you."
Perhaps even more troubling to me is the idea that so many human beings including the top tier candidates for President in both US political parties are willing to consider the use of nuclear weapons offensively. This is a most disturbing development. It demonstrates that the so-called Bush doctrine of preventive war has become normalized despite its being completely incompatible with international law, Just War Doctrinal principles and traditional moral precepts.
Too many people seem to have lost sight of just how truly awful it is to detonate even one nuclear weapon. I suggest that everyone read or re-read the accounts of those who documented the carnage and human suffering after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. The genetic and medical complications alone are still being felt to this day. The deleterious effects of radioactive fallout and possible complete fouling of the earth's atmosphere/environment were these hideous weapons to be utilized demands that they never be used again. There is no guarantee that--should even one tactical nuclear warhead be detonated--it would not result in WWIII. The resulting nuclear Armageddon and nuclear Winter would be capable of destroying all life on earth.
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