- What the Western allies face is a long, sustained
and proactive defence of their societies and way of life. To that end,
they must keep risks at a distance, while at the same time protecting their
homelands.
-
- International terrorism today aims to disrupt and destroy
our societies, our economies and our way of life. ...
-
- These different sources of [Islamist] propaganda and/or
violence vary in their intellectual underpinnings, sectarian and political
aims, ... . But what they have in common is an assault on the values
of the West on its democratic processes and its freedom of religion...
-
- Notwithstanding the common perception in the West, the
origin of Islamist terrorism is not victimhood, nor an inferiority complex,
but a well-financed superiority complex grounded in a violent political
ideology.
-
- If the irrational and fanatical [Islamist organizations]
get out of hand, there is a risk that, ... the rise of fundamentalisms
and despotisms will usher in a new, illiberal age, in which the liberties
that Western societies enjoy are seriously jeopardized.
-
- The threats that the West and its partners face today
are a combination of violent terrorism against civilians and institutions,
wars fought by proxy by states that sponsor terrorism, the behaviour of
rogue states, the actions of organised international crime, and the coordination
of hostile action through abuse of non-military means.
-
- http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/080110_grand_strategy.pdf
- Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing
Transatlantic Partnership".
-
- Group report by former chiefs of staff General John Shalikashvili,
(US), General Klaus Naumann (Germany), Field Marshal Lord Inge (UK),
Admiral Jacques Lanxade (France) and Henk van den Breemen (The
Netherlands), published by the Netherlands based Noaber Foundation, December
2007, (emphasis added)
-
- The controversial NATO sponsored report entitled "Towards
a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership". calls
for a first strike use of nuclear weapons. The preemptive use of nukes
would also be used to undermine an "increasingly brutal World" as
well as a means to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction:
-
- "They [the authors of the report] consider that nuclear
war might soon become possible in an increasingly brutal world. They propose
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". (Paul
Dibb, Sidney Morning Herald, 11 February 2008)
-
- The group, insists that the option of a nuclear
first strike is indispensable, "since there is simply no realistic
prospect of a nuclear-free world." (Report, p. 97):
-
- Nuclear weapons are the ultimate instrument of an asymmetric
response and at the same time the ultimate tool of escalation. Yet
they are also more than an instrument, since they transform the nature
of any conflict and widen its scope from the regional to the global. ...
-
- ...Nuclear weapons remain indispensable, and nuclear
escalation continues to remain an element of any modern strategy.
-
- Nuclear escalation is the ultimate step in responding
asymmetrically, and at the same time the most powerful way of inducing
uncertainty in an opponent's mind. (Ibid, emphasis added)
-
- The Group's Report identifies six key "challenges",
which may often result as potential threats to global security:
-
- · Demography. Population growth and
change across the globe will swiftly change the world we knew. The challenge
this poses for welfare, good governance and energy security (among other
things) is vast.
-
- · Climate change. This greatly threatens
physical certainty, and is leading to a whole new type of politics
one predicated, perhaps more than ever, on our collective future.
-
- · Energy security continues to absorb
us. The supply and demand of individual nations and the weakening of the
international market infrastructure for energy distribution make the situation
more precarious than ever.
-
- · There is also the more philosophic problem
of the rise of the irrational the discounting of the rational.
Though seemingly abstract, this problem is demonstrated in deeply practical
ways. [These include] the decline of respect for logical argument and evidence,
a drift away from science in a civilization that is deeply technological.
The ultimate example is the rise of religious fundamentalism, which,
as political fanaticism, presents itself as the only source of certainty.
-
- · The weakening of the nation state. This
coincides with the weakening of world institutions, including the United
Nations and regional organizations such as the European Union, NATO and
others.
-
- · The dark side of globalization ...
These include internationalized terrorism, organized crime and the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction, but also asymmetric threats from proxy
actors or the abuse of financial and energy leverage. (Ibid)
-
- Deterrence and Pre-emption
-
- According to the Report, a new concept of deterrence
is required directed against both State and non-state actors, This
"new deterrence" is based on pre-emption as well as on the ability
to "restore deterrence through [military] escalation". In
this context, the Report contemplates, what it describes as:
-
- "escalation dominance, the use of a full bag of
both carrots and sticks-and indeed all instruments of soft and hard power, ranging
from the diplomatic protest to nuclear weapons." (Report, op
city, emphasis added).
-
- Iran
-
- In much the same terms as the Bush administration, the
NATO sponsored report states, without evidence, that Iran constitutes "a
major strategic threat":
-
- "An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would pose
a major strategic threat not only to Israel, which it has threatened
to destroy, but also to the region as a whole, to Europe and to the United
States. Secondly, it could be the beginning of a new multi-polar nuclear
arms race in the most volatile region of the world." (Report, op.
cit., p. 45)
-
- Careful timing? The controversial NATO sponsored report
calling for a preemptive nuclear attack on Iran was released shortly after
the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report entitled
Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. The latter denies Iran's nuclear
capabilities. The NIE report, based on the assessments of sixteen US intelligence
agencies, refutes the Bush administration's main justification for waging
a preemptive nuclear war on Iran. The NIE report confirms that Iran "halted
its nuclear weapons program in 2003":
-
- "These findings constitute a damning indictment
of the Bush administration's relentless fear-mongering in relation to an
alleged nuclear threat from Iran. They demonstrate that just as in the
buildup to the war against Iraq five years ago, the White House has been
engaged in a systematic campaign to drag the American people into another
war based on lies." (See
-
- http://www.countercurrents.org/auken240108.htm
- Bill van Auken, 24 January 2008)
-
- It should be noted that this recently declassified intelligence
(pertaining to Iran contained in the 2007 NIE report) was known by the
White House, the Pentagon and most probably NATO since September 2003. Ironically,
US military documents confirm that the Bush Administration initiated its
war preparations against Iran in July 2003, two months prior to the confirmation
by US intelligence that Iran did not constitute a nuclear threat.
-
- The July 2003 war scenarios were launched under TIRANNT:
Theater Iran Near Term.
-
- The justification for TIRANNT as well as for subsequent
US war plans directed against Iran ( which as of 2004 included the active
participation of NATO and Israel), has always been that Iran is developing
nuclear weapons and plans to use them against us.
-
- Following the publication of the 2007 NIE in early December,
there has been an avalanche of media propaganda directed against Tehran,
essentially with a view to invalidating the statements of the NIE concerning
Tehran's nuclear program.
-
- Moreover, a third sanctions resolution by the UN Security
Council, was initiated with a view to forcing Iran to halt uranium enrichment.
The proposed UNSC resolution, which is opposed by China and Russia includes
a travel ban on Iranian officials involved in the country's nuclear programs,
and inspections of shipments to and from Iran "if there are suspicions
of prohibited goods" (AFP, 11 February 2008). Meanwhile, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy together with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have
been calling for a unified EU sanctions regime against Iran.
-
- Contradicting the US national intelligence estimate (NIE),
Bush's most recent speeches continue to portray Iran as a nuclear threat:
-
- "I feel pretty good about making sure that we keep
the pressure on Iran to pressure them so they understand they're isolated,
to pressure them to affect their economy, to pressure them to the point
that we hope somebody rational shows up and says, okay, it's not worth
it anymore," Bush said.
-
- Threat to "The Western Way of Life"
-
- The Western media is involved in a diabolical disinformation
campaign, the purpose of which is to persuade public opinion that the only
way to "create a nuclear free World" is to use nuclear weapons
on a preemptive basis, against countries which "threaten our Western
Way of Life."
-
- The Western world is threatened. The NATO sponsored report,
according to Paul Dibb: "paint(s) an alarming picture of
the threats confronting the West, arguing that its values and way of life
are under threat and that we are struggling to summon the will to defend them."(Dibb,
op cit)
-
- A preemptive nuclear attack -- geographically confined
to Middle East (minus Israel?)-- is the proposed end-game. The attack would
use US tactical nuclear weapons, which, according to "scientific opinion"
(on contract to the Pentagon) are "harmless to the surrounding civilian
population because the explosion is underground". (See <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1988>
- Michel Chossudovsky The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear
Holocaust, Global Research, 17 February 2006)
-
- B61-11 bunker buster bombs with nuclear warheads Made
in America, with an explosive capacity between one third to six times
a Hiroshima bomb, are presented as bona fide humanitarian bombs, which
minimize the dangers of "collateral damage".
-
- These in-house "scientific" Pentagon assessments
regarding the mini-nukes are refuted by the Federation of American Scientists
(FAS):
-
- Any attempt to use a [B61-11 bunker buster nuclear bomb]
in an urban environment would result in massive civilian casualties. Even
at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast
will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a
lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area " (Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating
Nuclear Weapons by Robert W. Nelson, Federation of American Scientists,
2001 ).
-
- Professor Paul Dibb is a former Australian Deputy Secretary
of Defense, who has over the years also occupied key positions in Australia's
defense and intelligence establishment. Dibb carefully overlooks the consequences
of the use of nuclear weapons in a conventional war theater. According
to Dibb, NATO's preemptive nuclear doctrine, which replicates that of
the Pentagon, constitutes a significant and positive initiative to "halt
the imminent spread of nuclear weapons". .
-
- "They [the group] believe that the West must be
ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the imminent
spread of nuclear weapons."
-
- Never mind the nuclear holocaust and resulting radioactive
contamination, which would spread Worldwide and threaten, in a real sense,
the "way of life".
-
- There is no "way of life" in a World contaminated
with deadly radioactive material. But this is something that is rarely
discussed in the corridors of NATO or in strategic studies programs in
Western universities.
-
- What is frightening in Professor Dibb's article is that
he is not expressing an opinion, nor is he analyzing the use of nuclear
weapons from an academic research point of view.
-
- In his article, there is neither research on nuclear
weapons nor is there an understanding of the complex geopolitics of the
Middle East war. Dibb is essentially repeating verbatim the statements
contained in NATO/Pentagon military documents. His article is a "copy
and paste" summary of Western nuclear doctrine, which in practice
calls for the launching of a nuclear holocaust.
-
- The stated objective of a Middle East nuclear holocaust
is "to prevent the occurrence of a nuclear war". An insidious
logic which certainly out- dwarfs the darkest period of the Spanish inquisition...
-
- Neither NATO nor the Pentagon use the term nuclear holocaust. Moreover,
they presume that the "collateral damage" of a nuclear war will
in any event be confined geographically to the Middle East and that Westerners
will be spared...
-
- But since their in-house scientists have confirmed that
tactical nuclear weapons are "safe for civilians", the labels
on the bombs have been switched much in the same way as the label on a
packet of cigarettes: "This nuclear bomb is safe for civilians"
-
- Nukes: Just Another Tool in the Military Toolbox
-
- The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the
distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons:
-
- 'It's a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons).
The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought
down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate
weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox," (Japan Economic
News Wire, op cit)
-
- This re-categorization has been carried out. The "
green light" for the use of tactical nuclear weapons has been granted
by the US Congress. . " Let's use them, they are part of the military
toolbox."
-
- We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe
their own propaganda. The military manuals state that this new generation
of nuclear weapons are "safe" for use in the battlefield. They
are no longer a weapon of last resort. There are no impediments or political
obstacles to their use. In this context, Senator Edward Kennedy has accused
the Bush Administration for having developed "a generation of more
useable nuclear weapons."
-
- Russia and China
-
- Who else constitutes a threat to " the Western way
of life"?
-
- Nukes are also slated to be used against Russia and China,
former enemies of the Cold War era.
-
- This post Cold War logic was first revealed, when the
Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was leaked to The Los Angeles Times
in January 2002. The NPR includes China and Russia alongside the rogue
states as potential targets for a first strike nuclear attack. According
to William Arkin, the NPR "offers a chilling glimpse into the world
of nuclear-war planners: With a Strangelovian genius, they cover every
conceivable circumstance in which the president might wish to use nuclear
weapons-planning in great detail." (Los Angeles Times, March 10,
2002)
-
- "Decapitate Their Leadership and Destroy their Countries
as Functioning Societies"
-
- The use of nukes against "rogue states", including
Iran and North Korea (which lost more than a quarter of its population
in US bombings during the Korean war) is justified because these countries
could act in an "irrational" way. It therefore makes sense to
"take em out" before they do something irrational. The objective
is: "decapitate their leadership and destroy their countries as functioning
societies":
-
- "One line of reasoning is that so-called rogue
states, such as Iran and North Korea, are sufficiently irrational to risk
a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US or its allies, such as Israel
and South Korea.
-
- The supposition here is that deterrence - that is, threatening
the other side with obliteration - no longer works. But even the nasty
regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang must know that the US reserves the
right to use its overwhelming nuclear force to decapitate the leadership
and destroy their countries as modern functioning societies. (Dibb,
op cit., emphasis added)
-
- Use nuclear weapons to prevent the use of weapons of
mass destruction.
-
- But of course, lest we forget, America's nuclear arsenal
as well as that of France, Britain and Israel are not categorized as "weapons
of mass destruction", in comparison with Iran's deadly nonexistent
nuclear weapons program.
-
- Bin Laden's Nuclear Program
-
- Now comes the authoritative part of the Pentagon-NATO
preemptive doctrine: We need to use nukes against bin Laden, because Islamic
"fanatics" can actually make a nuclear weapons or buy them from
the Russians on the black market.
-
- The Report calls for a first strike nuclear attack directed
against Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which has the ability, according to
expert opinion, of actually producing small nuclear bombs, which could
be used in a Second 9/11 attack on America: .
-
- The second line of reasoning [contained in the NATO sponsored
report] is more difficult to refute. It argues that extreme fanatical
terrorists, such as al-Qaeda, cannot be deterred because (a) they do not
represent a country and therefore cannot be targeted and (b) they welcome
death by suicide. So, we have to shift the concept of nuclear deterrence
to the country or regime supplying the terrorists with fissile material.
-
- Nuclear weapons require materials that can be made only
with difficulty. Once these materials are obtained by terrorists, however,
the barriers to fabricating a weapon are much lower. In that sense the
nuclear threat today is greater than it was in the Cold War and it seems
the terrorists cannot be deterred.( Dibb, op cit, emphasis added)
-
- The alleged nuclear threat by Al Qaeda is taken very
seriously. The Bush administration has responded with overall defense spending
(budget plus war theater) in excess of one trillion dollars. This massive
amount of public money has been allocated to financing the "Global
War on Terrorism" (GWOT).
-
- Confirmed by Pentagon documents, this military hardware
including aircraft carriers, fighter jets, cruise missiles and nuclear
bunker buster bombs, is slated to be used as part of the "Global War
on Terrorism". In military jargon the US is involved in asymmetric
warfare against non-State enemies. ( The concept of Asymmetric Warfare
was defined in The National Defense Strategy of the United States
of America (2005)
-
- "The American Hiroshima"
-
- The US media has the distinct ability to turn realities
upside down. The lies are upheld as indelible truths. The "Islamic
terrorists" have abandoned their AK 47 kalashnikov rifles and stinger
missiles; they are not only developing deadly chemical and biological weapons,
they also have nuclear capabilities.
-
- The fact, amply documented, that Al Qaeda is supported
by the CIA and Britain's MI6 is beside the point.
-
- The nuclear threat is not directed against the Middle
East but against the USA, the perpetrators and architects of nuclear war
are bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which is planning to launch a nuclear attack
on an American city:
-
- "U.S. government officials are contemplating what
they consider to be an inevitable and much bigger assault on America, one
likely to kill millions, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the
course of history,...
-
- According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the
plan is called the "American Hiroshima" and involves the multiple
detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over
the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized
crime groups. (World Net Daily, 11 July 2005, emphasis added)
-
- The New York Times confirms that an Al Qaeda sponsored
"American Hiroshima" "could happen" .
-
- "Experts believe that such an attack, somewhere,
is likely." (NYT, 11 August 2004)
-
- According to the Aspen Strategy Group which is integrated
among others, by Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage, Philip D. Zelikow,
Robert B. Zoellick, "the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater
than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough
to reduce it.":
-
- If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller
than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the fireball
would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. It would vaporize or
destroy the theater district, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building,
Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie Hall (along with me and my building).
The blast would partly destroy a much larger area, including the United
Nations. On a weekday some 500,000 people would be killed. (NYT, 11 August
2004)
-
- "Threaten them with a devastating [nuclear] attack"
-
- According to professor Dibb, nuclear deterrence should
also apply in relation to Al Qaeda, by holding responsible the governments
which help the terrorists to develop their nuclear weapons capabilities:
-
- "Ashton Carter, a former US assistant secretary
for defense, has recently argued, the realistic response is to hold responsible,
as appropriate, the government from which the terrorists obtained the weapon
or fissile materials and threaten them with a devastating [nuclear]
strike. In other words, deterrence would work again. (Dibb, op cit)
-
- The real nuclear threat is coming from bin Laden. The
objective is to "to do away with our way of life":
-
- None of this is to underestimate the impact of a nuclear
weapon being detonated in an American city. It could be catastrophic,
but it is highly unlikely to threaten the very survival of the US. To believe
otherwise risks surrendering to the fear and intimidation that is precisely
the terrorists' stock in trade.
-
- General Richard Myers, another former chairman of the
joint chiefs of staff, has claimed that if [Islamic] terrorists were
able to kill 10,000 Americans in a nuclear attack, they would "do
away with our way of life". But Hiroshima and Nagasaki incurred
well over 100,000 instant deaths and that did not mean the end of the Japanese
way of life. (Ibid, emphasis added)
-
- In an utterly twisted and convoluted argument, professor
Dibb transforms the US-NATO threat to wage a nuclear war on Iran into an
Al Qaeda operation to attack an American city with nuclear weapon.
-
- Dibb presents the US-NATO menace to trigger what would
result in a Middle East nuclear holocaust as a humanitarian operation to
save American lives. By implication, the Al Qaeda sponsored "American
Hiroshima" would be supported by Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
and this in turn would immediately provide a juste cause (casus belli)
for retaliation against Iran
-
- "What a nuclear attack on a US city would mean,
however, is an understandable American retaliation in kind. So, those
countries that have slack control over their fissile nuclear materials
and cozy relations with terrorists need to watch out. A wounded America
would be under enormous pressure to respond in a wholly disproportionate
manner.
-
- And then we would be in a completely changed strategic
situation in which the use of nuclear weapons might become commonplace.
Ibid, emphasis added).
-
- Dick Cheney's Second 9/11
-
- The insinuation that Al Qaeda is preparing an attack
on America has been on the lips of Vice President Dick Cheney for several
years now. Cheney has stated on several occasions since 2004, that Al Qaeda
is preparing a "Second 9/11": .
-
- In August 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported
to have instructed USSTRATCOM, based at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska,
to draw up a "Contingency Plan", "to be employed in response
to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States". (Philip
Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War, The American Conservative,
2 August 2005)
-
- Dick Cheney's "Contingency Plan" was predicated
on the preemptive war doctrine. Implied in the "Contingency Plan"
was the presumption that Iran would be behind the attacks.
-
- The Pentagon in a parallel initiative has actually fine-tuned
its military agenda to the point of actually envisaging a Second 9/11 scenario
as a means to providing the US administration with a "credible"
justification to attack Iran and Syria:
-
- "Another [9/11 type terrorist] attack could create
both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate
against some known targets [Iran and Syria]" (Statement by Pentagon
official, leaked to the Washington Post, 23 April 2006, emphasis added)
-
- Meanwhile,. the US Congress is concerned that an "American
Hiroshima" could potentially damage the US economy:
-
- "What we do know is that our enemies want to inflict
massive casualties and that terrorists have the expertise to invent a wide
range of attacks, including those involving the use of chemical, biological,
radiological and even nuclear weapons. ... [E]xploding a small nuclear
weapon in a major city could do incalculable harm to hundreds of thousands
of people, as well as to businesses and the economy,...(US Congress, House
Financial Services Committee, June 21, 2007).
-
- As far as sensitizing public opinion to the dangers of
US sponsored nuclear war, there is, with a few exceptions, a scientific
and intellectual vacuum: No research, no analysis, no comprehension of
the meaning of a nuclear holocaust which in a real sense threatens the
future of humanity. This detachment and lack of concern of prominent intellectuals
characterizes an evolving trend in many universities and research institutes
in the strategic studies, the sciences and social sciences.
-
- Academics increasingly tow the line. They remain mum
on the issue of a US sponsored nuclear war. There is a tacit acceptance
of a diabolical and criminal military agenda, which in a very sense threatens
life on this planet. The US-NATO doctrine to use nukes on a preemptive
basis with a view to "saving the Western World's way of life"
is not challenged in any meaningful way either by academics or media experts
in strategic studies.
-
-
- Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the
sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those
of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
-
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2008
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