[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Threat of Nuclear War Grows

[Bill Totten]

by Edward S Herman

Z Magazine (November 01 2008)
Global Research (November 04 2008)


In this Kafkaesque age everything is stood on its head - the champion
violator of international law and sovereignty and the territorial
integrity of states is gung ho for respecting state sovereignty and
territorial integrity (of Georgia, but not Pakistan); primary terrorist
and ethnic cleansing states (the United States and Israel) invade, bomb,
and torture, but wax indignant at retail terrorism that flows largely in
response to their wholesale terror; and these same two states, brimming
over with nuclear arms and increasingly threatening to use them, are
aghast that Iran might want and someday be able to make a nuclear weapon.

These two states are mainly responsible for the steadily rising
probability that nuclear weapons will again be used in the not too
distant future. Both have a stock of nuclear weapons and up-to-date
delivery systems: that of the United States is of course gigantic, but
Israel's is substantial (estimated as between sixty and 200 ready
bombs). Israel has developed its nuclear capability outside the
authority of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with the collusion of
the Western powers, which have been so aggressive in denying any similar
rights to Iran (except during the period of the rule of the
Western-imposed dictator, the Shah). This weapons accumulation and
refusal to accept the NPT has entailed no penalty for Israel - no
threats, no sanctions, no refusal to assist its ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians. Israel has threatened to use its nuclear weapons, earlier
against the Soviet Union, today against Iran. Its threat of an attack on
Iran, which is in itself a violation of the UN Charter, has not been
treated at all critically in the West - in contrast with the horror at
Ahmadinejad's fuzzy condemnations of Israel, which have never included
any expressed threat to literally attack Israel.

The United States has also steadily violated both the letter and spirit
of the NPT. It had agreed in signing on to this treaty in 1968 to work
toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. Not only has it not done
this, it has made them officially a core part of national defense
strategy and in recent years has worked steadily to make them more
usable in warfare. It has also withdrawn its NPT promise not to use
nuclear weapons against any state that signs on to the NPT and promises
not to develop nuclear weapons. The United States has also violated the
spirit of the NPT by helping and supporting Israel's development of a
nuclear weapons capability, of turning a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear
development during years when it was serving as a useful client, and now
recently agreeing to assist India's nuclear program despite that
country's refusal to join the NPT. Pakistan and China of course resent
this US support of a nuclear India, clearly based on political
expediency and weakening further any control over nuclear weapons
proliferation.

The End of Soviet Nuclear Containment

One important reason for Israel's and the US's greater openness on the
possibility of using nuclear arms is that the countries they threaten,
with the exception of Russia, have no nuclear retaliatory capability. In
earlier years the Soviet Union, with its own large nuclear weapons
arsenal, was a barrier to nuclear threats, especially to countries which
were allied with the Soviets. Its termination diminished the containing
force that had previously put some limits on US and Israeli violence.

A country like Iran would surely respond to a nuclear attack, but it
couldn't do so with a comparably devastating weapon. The stream of
attacks in recent years by the two primary aggressor states has been
grounded heavily in the imbalance of power and weakness and limited
ability to respond on the part of the victims (Panama, Serbia,
Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Iraq). A nuclear capability on the part of
potential victims would enhance their power of self defense - a
terrifying threat to aggressor states.

Russia could respond, but it is substantially weaker in its retaliatory
potential than the Soviet Union: it is smaller and militarily less
formidable in the wake of its economic disaster of 1992-1998,
substantial cutbacks in military expenditures, and national
demoralization. It has made some recovery in recent years with higher
energy prices and a stronger and more independent government, and the
short war with Georgia indicates that it is now prepared to resist the
West's (mainly US's) political and military encirclement and possible
attempts at further dismantlement. But it is still vulnerable and
justifiably worried about a US first strike capability, enhanced by the
planned placement of US anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech
Republic, with perhaps others to follow. With God-instructed politicians
in command in the United States, a manageable (or ignorable) populace,
and with its overweening power, aggressive nuclear attack and/or
misreadings that set off trigger-alerts are more likely than in the
recent past.

Not only are the Russian triggers more alert and sensitive as a US first
strike potential and threat grows, Russia has also warned that it is
elevating its tactical nuclear weapons to potential use where it is
threatened by advanced electronic technology that it cannot match.
During the years after 1990, with its devastating economic and political
setbacks, it fell further behind the United States in its weaponry, and
feels obligated to offset this - or at least talk and threaten to offset
this - with the formidable weaponry it still possesses.

Deteriorating Moral Environment

Another important reason for the growing probability of nuclear warfare
is the deteriorating moral environment. This has resulted in good part
from militarization and war itself, both of which get people habituated
to the resort to force and a steady diet of killing, which are
normalized. Militarization and war also contribute to justifying the
development and use of outlandish weapons, allegedly needed to "defend"
the home country and clients from the threat of demonized enemies.
Enlightenment values erode and disappear quickly in such a moral
environment; mass killing becomes acceptable and even laudable - the
large-scale killing of civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the basis
of celebration in the United States.

One measure of the deteriorated moral environment is in fact the open
acceptance of aggressive war as an appropriate policy option even in the
absence of a military attack or serious threat. This was notorious in
the case of the 2003 attack on Iraq, and is equally obvious in the case
of the ongoing threats to attack Iran. Pugnacity and a willingness -
even eagerness - to use force is a political necessity, at least for
satisfying the establishment media and major election funders. What the
public thinks on this is less clear - the public usually drags it feet
in the war-making process, often preferring diplomacy and reliance on
the UN, and has to be managed into a proper frame of mind, although once
the bombs start falling patriotic zeal takes over. Writing during World
War I, Thorstein Veblen pointed out, that "once a warlike enterprise has
been entered upon, it will have the cordial support of popular sentiment
even if it is patently an aggressive war". Furthermore, "The higher the
pitch of patriotic fervor, the more tenuous and more threadbare may be
the requisite moral sanction. By cumulative excitation some very
remarkable results have latterly been attained along this line" (in his
chapter "On the Nature and Uses of Patriotism", in An Inquiry into the
Nature of Peace [1917]).

The Democrats are deemed by the establishment to be less trustworthy as
war-makers than the Republicans - they are supposedly weak on "national
security". This causes their politicians and aspiring political nominees
to lean over backwards to demonstrate their bomb-worthiness. For both
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all options were "on the table" in
dealing with that gigantic threat that Iran might be able to defend
itself some time in the future, and Obama has compensated for his Iraq
war foot-dragging by promising an escalation in Afghanistan and maybe
Pakistan. He also chose Joe Biden as his running mate, for his
"experience" (he's been wrong lots of times) and known foreign policy
pugnacity.

Biden has recently proclaimed that he is a "Zionist", and in fact
virtually every Democratic politician has appeared before AIPAC to
pledge allegiance to the state of Israel. This steady genuflection, and
the financial dependence of the Democrats on organized Zionist money,
has been a further factor in moral degradation. It has completely
stymied any political opposition to Israeli ethnic cleansing in
Palestine and the war against Lebanon in 2006, and as Israeli leaders
wanted the Iraq attack and are eager for a war with Iran, the Democratic
Party went along with the Iraq war, dragged its feet in extrication even
after the antiwar vote of 2006, and has demonized Iran and helped set
the stage for war there.

It has been pointed out by Michael MccGwire that of the two first class
global threats, nuclear war and global warming, the first could be
eliminated with small costs (actually, its elimination would release
large resources for human improvement and welfare), whereas combating
global warming will be quite expensive. But eliminating the nuclear
warfare threat, and in the process, demilitarizing, would be contrary to
the interests of the Pentagon and rest of the military-industrial
complex, and those special interests that benefit from or thrive on
permanent warfare. At the moment these real special interests are in
command. Whether the financial crisis and permanent war setbacks will
change the situation and allow a move toward a decent and rational world
order remains to be seen.

_____

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(c) Copyright Edward S Herman, Z Magazine, 2008

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10813


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