Na op vrijdag 27 mei 2016 samen met de Japanse premier Shinzo Abe een krans te hebben gelegd bij het Hiroshima Vredes Monument sprak president Obama onder andere de volgende woorden:
On every continent, the history of civilization is filled with war, whether driven by scarcity of grain or hunger for gold, compelled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal. Empires have risen and fallen. Peoples have been subjugated and liberated. And at each juncture, innocents have suffered, a countless toll, their names forgotten by time…
There are many sites around the world that chronicle this war, memorials that tell stories of courage and heroism, graves and empty camps that echo of unspeakable depravity…
How often does material advancement or social innovation blind us to this truth? How easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause…
Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well…
we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again…
the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change.
And since that fateful day, we have made choices that give us hope… An international community established institutions and treaties that work to avoid war and aspire to restrict and roll back and ultimately eliminate the existence of nuclear weapons.
Still, every act of aggression between nations, every act of terror and corruption and cruelty and oppression that we see around the world shows our work is never done… among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them. We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe. We can chart a course that leads to the destruction of these stockpiles. We can stop the spread to new nations and secure deadly materials from fanatics.
And yet that is not enough… above all, we must reimagine our connection to one another as members of one human race…
My own nation’s story began with simple words: All men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… staying true to that story is worth the effort. It is an ideal to be strived for, an ideal that extends across continents and across oceans. The irreducible worth of every person, the insistence that every life is precious, the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family — that is the story that we all must tell…
Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life and not eliminating it. When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders, reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done.
The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.
Zaterdag 28 mei 2016 publiceerde Information Clearing House een reactie op Obama's toespraak. Die reactie was van de New Yorkse publicist Matt Peppe, een deskundige op het gebied van de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek. Onder de kop ‘The Speech Obama Should Have Given in Hiroshima’ schreef hij:
Barack Obama became the first U.S. President to visit Hiroshima on Friday, more than seven decades after the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped a 10,000-pound atomic bomb nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ on the city whose military value was far less than that of Tampa to the United States. More than 70,000 people were instantly killed, and virtually the entire city was flattened. Many survivors would suffer prolonged and unimaginably painful aftereffects of radiation, which would cost at least 100,000 more people their lives. The effects of radiation would harm people for years and decades after the initial explosion.
Obama stood at a podium with the epicenter of the blast, the Genbaku Domu, in the background and said that he had ‘come to mourn the dead.’ While Obama mourned, there was one thing he did not do: apologize.
He said that ‘death came from the sky.’ No mention of why. Or who was responsible, as if it were a natural disaster rather than a crime perpetrated by actual people. Obama was either unwilling or unable to confront the truth and make amends.
Here's what he could have said to try to do so:
Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, an American warplane unleashed the most horrific and inhuman weapon ever invented, immediately imperiling the survival of the entire human species. This act of terrorism was the ultimate crime: a crime of mass murder, a crime of war, and a crime against humanity.
The victims, those who died incinerated in a flash, and those who died slowly and painfully over years from chemical poisoning, were never able to see justice served. Sadly, there is no way the criminals who carried out this heinous and barbaric act will ever face justice for their crimes.
I cannot change that. But, there is one thing I can do as the leader of the nation in whose name the bombing of Hiroshima was carried out: I can tell you, residents of Hiroshima and the rest of Japan, that I am sorry. I am sorry on behalf of my government and my country. I wish an American President would have come earlier and said this. This apology is decades overdue. It is a small and symbolic act, but it is necessary as a first step for true reconciliation.
A nuclear bomb should have never been dropped on Hiroshima. The most important goal of mankind should be to ensure that no nuclear bomb is ever dropped again. Anywhere in the world. Ever.
It would be easy to stand here and tell you that there are reasons why the American military and political officials chose to use a nuclear bomb. I could say it served a greater good of saving lives that would have been lost if the war had continued. I could say it was a decision made by people who were dealing with the pressure and horrors of fighting a war. But that would not be the truth. Those would be empty rationalizations. There is no justification for the bomb. Period.
The truth is that by August 6, 1945 Japan was defeated and had been seeking a conditional surrender for months. And American war planners knew this. They knew it because they had cracked the Japanese code and were intercepting their messages. [1]
Japan was willing to surrender under the condition that their Emperor, who was seen as a God among the Japanese people, be allowed to maintain his throne and not be prosecuted for war crimes. The Emperor himself called for ‘a plan to end the war’ six weeks before the fateful day. [2] After so much unspeakable death and destruction, this reasonable offer should have been met with ecstatic celebration and relief.
Instead, U.S. officials disregarded it. They decided that it was necessary not just to defeat Japan, but to leave them utterly humiliated and disgraced. They wanted to demonstrate to their public that they could force another country to lay prostrate in front of them in complete submission. This is the mindset of terrorists, torturers, and sadists.
The United States joined with China and Great Britain to issue the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, in which they called on Japan ‘to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces.’ These were terms they understood Japan could not accept.
Unfortunately, the use of the atomic bomb had become inevitable after the massive investment of time and treasure represented by the Manhattan Project. Military planners worried about ‘the possibility that after spending huge amounts of money... the bomb would be a dud (waardeloos niet ontploft projectiel. svh). They could easily imagine being grilled mercilessly by hostile members of Congress.’
Historian and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission employee J. Samuel Walker confirmed that aside from ‘shortening the war and saving American lives, Truman wanted to justify the expense and effort required to build the atomic bombs.’
That financial considerations and a self-interested desire for bureaucrats to validate themselves and protect their careers could lead to the single most destructive and cruel act in history is an abomination (schanddaad. svh). It is a deep offense to the idea that people are innately moral, and it makes us ask how in a democratic society we can vest people with the authority to make decisions of such profound impact secretly and without accountability?
Walker notes that another consideration for using the bomb on Hiroshima was to put fear into the leaders of the Soviet Union and make them ‘more amenable to American wishes.’ Just six weeks earlier the UN Charter had been established. It included the demand that ‘all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force’ against other states. The drafters of the treaty could never have imagined such an unconscionable violation of their words so soon after the monumental pact had been written.
As horrific as the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was, it did not occur in a vacuum. What no one in mainstream American political discourse has so far been able to admit is that not only was there no justification for the bomb, there was little justification for the war against Japan in the first place.
The war was the result of the notion, which first emanated from the Council on Foreign Relations in 1941, that the U.S.'s ‘national interest’ called for a ‘Grand Area’ that consisted of the Western hemisphere, the British Empire and the Far East, while assuming the majority of Europe would be controlled by Nazi Germany. This was translated into a policy that demanded a military confrontation with Japan for control of the Far East. [3]
A pillar in this policy was an economic embargo against Japan. Cut off from imports and raw materials from the United States and Great Britain, Japan grew desperate and subsequently sought to expand its Empire. Japan saw itself in need of a sphere of influence involving the same areas in the Far East as the United States.
The U.S. had several options to avoid war. For one, they could develop a program of agricultural and economic self-sufficiency which would allow them to insulate themselves from dependence on colonial powers, as well as allow them to steer clear of unpredictable and potentially hostile regions of the world.
But for businessmen who wanted to maintain control over the direction of the economy and keep their own fortunes growing at a limitless pace, this was a nonstarter. Instead, they were dedicated to challenging Japan. Hence, the embargo and the buildup for an inevitable military confrontation over Eastern Asia.
This is the background to Pearl Harbor. Japan was obviously not justified for attacking sovereign American territory in a blatant act of aggression. But we cannot pretend that it was not predictable or logical from their point of view.
Japan felt itself backed into a corner by the embargo. They felt they needed to expand further into Asia. They believed that if they did so, the U.S. military would have attacked them. They were right.
Both countries should have worked together to recognize each other's perceived interests, deescalate, and achieve a mutually acceptable compromise. It is the ability to understand one's perceived adversary as a rational counterpart, rather than an evil and irrational enemy, that separates humans from beasts. If we are not able to use this ability, we are no better than a predator seeking his prey.
The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima did not need to happen. But the bombing that took place on this site was just a symptom of the war it was part of. War will necessarily produce horrific crimes, some of which are unimaginable at the time they happen. As horrific as the nuclear bomb was, 70 years of technological advancements have made not just the destruction of an entire city, but of an entire country or continent within the realm of possibility.
We need to eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth. But that is not enough. Chemical weapons like napalm, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, and white phosphorous; biological weapons like Dengue bacteria and germ bombs; and conventional weapons like cluster bombs, pineapple bomblets, butterfly bombs and land mines are just some of the savage weapons used by the U.S. military alone in the years since the close of World War II to kill and maim millions of people. Many other countries possess similar weapons of mass destruction and have the capacity to do the same.
We need to eliminate war. All war. Forever. War is evil, plain and simple. We cannot undo the actions of the past. But we can let them guide us to a better world where we don't repeat the horrors that the people of Hiroshima suffered here 71 years ago. That will be the only way to prevent the victims from having died in vain.
References
[1] Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. pp. 423.
[2] U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 19, 1946. President's Secretary's File, Truman Papers.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?pagenumber=33&documentid=65&documentdate=1946-06-19&studycollectionid=abomb&groupid=
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?pagenumber=33&documentid=65&documentdate=1946-06-19&studycollectionid=abomb&groupid=
[3] Shoup, Laurence H. and William Minter. Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations & United States Foreign Policy. Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press, 2004.
De door de New York Times integraal afgedrukte betoog van president Obama, waarvan hierboven enkele fragmenten staan, illustreert de bekende Amerikaanse Newspeak en kan door een onafhankelijke journalist niet anders worden gekwalificeerd dan als Orwelliaanse propaganda. Wanneer uitgerekend de Opperbevelhebber van de Strijdkrachten,Barack Obama, die ‘vowed to end America's wars,’ stelt dat ‘op elk kritiek ogenblik’ in de geschiedenis ‘innocents have suffered, a countless toll, their names forgotten by time,’ maar tegelijkertijd ‘has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president,’ dan is overduidelijk dat ook ‘de eerste zwarte Amerikaanse president’ een bedrieger is, in dienst van het militair-industrieel complex.
Sterker nog, net als alle witte presidenten, en elke toekomstige vrouwelijke president, had hij zonder de steun van de militaire en financiële elite überhaupt nooit in het Witte Huis kunnen belanden. Alleen een onnozele praatjesmaker van de Europese Unie geloofde nog in 2012 dat het ‘beter voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap’ zou zijn ‘dat Obama de verkiezingen wint.’ Ook voor Obama geldt: Amerika über alles, of zoals hij in 2015 tegenover afgestudeerde cadetten van de militaire academie Westpoint verklaarde: ‘I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.’ Elke vezel in zijn lichaam geloofde in de mythe dat ‘because of its national credo, historical evolution, and unique origins, America is a special nation with a special role — possibly ordained by God — to play in human history,’ en daarom gerechtigd is de mensheid met geweld te dwingen de belangen van de Amerikaanse elite te dienen. Om dat doel veilig te stellen is onder Obama een begin gemaakt aan de vernieuwing van het totale Amerikaanse nucleaire arsenaal. December 2015 werd bekend:
The United States maintains a modern arsenal of about 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), and Strategic Bombers. The Departments of Defense and Energy requested approximately $23 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 to maintain and upgrade these systems, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO estimates that nuclear forces will cost $348 billion between FY 2015 and FY 2024.[i] Three independent estimates put the expected total cost over the next 30 years at as much as $1 trillion.
The U.S. military is in the process of modernizing all of its existing strategic delivery systems and refurbishing the warheads they carry to last for the next 30-50 years. These systems are in many cases being replaced with new systems or completely rebuilt with essentially all new parts. Though the president and his military advisors have determined that U.S. security can be maintained while reducing the size of its deployed strategic nuclear arsenal by up to one-third below the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) levels, the proposed spending is based on maintaining the New START levels in perpetuity.
Nogmaals, de huidkleur en het geslacht van een Amerikaanse president maakt geen verschil uit, hoe fanatiek ook de mainstream-opiniemakers als Mak en Hofland het tegendeel volhouden. Dat de algehele vernieuwing van deze massavernietigingswapens tegen de letter en geest indruist van het non-proliferatieverdrag speelt eveneens geen rol bij de besluitvorming. De Britse krant The Guardian berichtte op dinsdag 10 november 2015 onder de kop ‘America's new, more “usable,” nuclear bomb in Europe,’ met betrekking tot de B61 ‘bomb,' waarvan '180 are stockpiled in Europe,' een zogeheten 'upgrade' krijgen 'which will make it more “usable” in the eyes of some in the American military.
The $8 billion upgrade to the US B61 nuclear bomb has been widely condemned as an awful lot of money to spend on an obsolete weapon. As an old fashioned ‘dumb’ bomb it has no role in US or NATO nuclear doctrine, but the upgrade has gone ahead anyway, in large part as a result of lobbying by the nuclear weapons laboratories.
In non-proliferation terms however the only thing worse than a useless bomb is a ‘usable’ bomb. Apart from the stratospheric price, the most controversial element of the B61 upgrade is the replacement of the existing rigid tail with one that has moving fins that will make the bomb smarter and allow it to be guided more accurately to a target. Furthermore, the yield can be adjusted before launch, according to the target…
Referring to the B61-12’s enhanced accuracy on a recent PBS Newshour television programme, the former head of US Strategic Command, General James Cartwright, made this striking remark:
‘If I can drive down the yield, drive down, therefore, the likelihood of fallout, etc, does that make it more usable in the eyes of some — some president or national security decision-making process? And the answer is, it likely could be more usable.’
In general, it is not a good thing to see the words ‘nuclear bomb’ and ‘usable’ anywhere near each other. Yet they seem to share space in the minds of some of America’s military leaders, as Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, points out.’
Cartwright’s confirmation follows General Norton Schwartz, the former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, who in 2014 assessed that the increased accuracy would have implications for how the military thinks about using the B61. ‘Without a doubt. Improved accuracy and lower yield is a desired military capability. Without a question,’ he said.
The great thing about nuclear weapons was that their use was supposed to be unthinkable and they were therefore a deterrent to contemplation of a new world war. Once they become ‘thinkable’ we are in a different, and much more dangerous, universe.
It is a universe in which former vice president Dick Cheney has apparently lived for some time. The new biography of George H W Bush has served as a reminder that in the run-up to the first Gulf War, Cheney commissioned a Pentagon study to find out how many tactical nuclear weapons it would take to kill a division of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. The answer was apparently 17.
In his own memoir, Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled being ordered by Cheney to carry out the assessment against Powell’s own better judgment. As related in Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons since 1940, edited by Stephen Schwartz:
‘While planning strategy prior to the Gulf, Powell told Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney,
“Let’s not even think about nukes. You know we’re not going to let that genie loose.” Cheney replied, “of course not. But take a look to be thorough.” Powell did and discovered that to “do serious damage to just one armored division dispersed in the desert would require a considerable number of small tactical nuclear weapons. I showed this analysis to Cheney and then had it destroyed.”'
That assessment may have been trashed, but the spirit behind it clearly lives on in the US military mindset and on the right of the US political spectrum - a disturbing and volatile mix.
Het spreekt voor zich dat de politieke en militaire leiding van de Russische Federatie niet lijdzaam afwacht tot een Amerikaanse opperbevelhebber in overleg met de militaire top een nucleair conflict begint. Immers, nu er openlijk in de VS wordt gesproken over 'new aerial bombs' waardoor
putting them into service may considerably lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Instead of being a means of deterrence, such weapons are potentially becoming battlefield weapons, as was the case during the Cold War.
putting them into service may considerably lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Instead of being a means of deterrence, such weapons are potentially becoming battlefield weapons, as was the case during the Cold War.
It is not by chance that in November 2014 former commander of the U.S. strategic command General James Cartwright said that as a result of modernization the B-61 bombs can become ‘more usable.’
Om hun militair-industrieel complex draaiende te houden voert de VS als leider van de NAVO de spanning op met de Russische Federatie en China, en zien zowel de Russen als de Chinezen zich momenteel gedwongen mee te doen aan een nieuwe wapenwedloop die de wereld nog onveiliger maakt, en Europa wederom verandert in een militair front dat de eerste klappen zal moeten opvangen. Van doorslaggevend belang is dat 'bruikbare' nucleaire wapens niet ter afschrikking zijn, maar als gevechtswapens dienen, waardoor de dreiging van een first-strike aanval aanzienlijk is toegenomen. Vrijdag 11 maart 2016 berichtte de Russische online nieuwswebsite Pravda onder de kop ‘Russia to show tough response to USA's new nuclear bombs in Europe’ het volgende:
Passing new US-made air bombs into service will lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, director of the department for non-proliferation and control of arms at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mikhail Ulyanov, told the Kommersant newspaper.
According to the Russian diplomat, US officials regularly point out that the new higher accuracy version of the B61 bomb, will be less destructive.
Ulyanov said that the modernization of the American bomb raises ‘serious doubts’ as the bombs have been moved from the category of deterrent weapons to combat weapons.
‘In fact, the state of affairs is not that rosy. The analysis of the performance of the new bombs suggests that their passing into service may significantly lower the threshold of using nuclear weapons. Such weapons potentially become a weapon of the battlefield as it was during the Cold War,’ RIA Novosti (Russische persbureau. svh) quoted Ulyanov as saying.
‘In the military sphere, as a rule, every action is a reaction. I am sure that Russia will show adequate response to passing the new American bombs into service, and the parameters of this response will be determined on the basis of all circumstances,’ said the diplomat.
In accordance with the updated nuclear doctrine of 2010, the US modernizes its nuclear bombs in Europe, Ulyanov said. The Americans plan to build version V61-12 based on four existing variants of the B61 bomb. The new product will have improved accuracy and would be suitable for the use at both strategic and tactical aircraft. The new bomb are to enter service in 2020.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry representative, the US is trying to create an impression that ‘there is nothing extraordinary about this.’
Dinsdag 31 mei 2016 verscheen de volgende ernstige waarschuwing:
We, the undersigned, are Russians living and working in the USA. We have been watching with increasing anxiety as the current US and NATO policies have set us on an extremely dangerous collision course with the Russian Federation, as well as with China. Many respected, patriotic Americans, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Cohen, Philip Giraldi, Ray McGovern and many others have been issuing warnings of a looming a Third World War. But their voices have been all but lost among the din of a mass media that is full of deceptive and inaccurate stories that characterize the Russian economy as being in shambles and the Russian military as weak—all based on no evidence. But we—knowing both Russian history and the current state of Russian society and the Russian military, cannot swallow these lies. We now feel that it is our duty, as Russians living in the US, to warn the American people that they are being lied to, and to tell them the truth. And the truth is simply this:
If there is going to be a war with Russia, then the United States
will most certainly be destroyed, and most of us will end up dead.
Let us take a step back and put what is happening in a historical context. Russia has suffered a great deal at the hands of foreign invaders, losing 22 million people in World War II. Most of the dead were civilians, because the country was invaded, and the Russians have vowed to never let such a disaster happen again. Each time Russia had been invaded, she emerged victorious. In 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia; in 1814 Russian cavalry rode into Paris. On June 22, 1941, Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombed Kiev; On May 8, 1945, Soviet troops rolled into Berlin.
But times have changed since then. If Hitler were to attack Russia today, he would be dead 20 to 30 minutes later, his bunker reduced to glowing rubble by a strike from a Kalibr supersonic cruise missile launched from a small Russian navy ship somewhere in the Baltic Sea. The operational abilities of the new Russian military have been most persuasively demonstrated during the recent action against ISIS, Al Nusra and other foreign-funded terrorist groups operating in Syria. A long time ago Russia had to respond to provocations by fighting land battles on her own territory, then launching a counter-invasion; but this is no longer necessary. Russia’s new weapons make retaliation instant, undetectable, unstoppable and perfectly lethal.
Thus, if tomorrow a war were to break out between the US and Russia, it is guaranteed that the US would be obliterated. At a minimum, there would no longer be an electric grid, no internet, no oil and gas pipelines, no interstate highway system, no air transportation or GPS-based navigation. Financial centers would lie in ruins. Government at every level would cease to function. US armed forces, stationed all around the globe, would no longer be resupplied. At a maximum, the entire landmass of the US would be covered by a layer of radioactive ash. We tell you this not to be alarmist, but because, based on everything we know, we are ourselves alarmed. If attacked, Russia will not back down; she will retaliate, and she will utterly annihilate the United States.
The US leadership has done everything it could to push the situation to the brink of disaster. First, its anti-Russian policies have convinced the Russian leadership that making concessions or negotiating with the West is futile. It has become apparent that the West will always support any individual, movement or government that is anti-Russian, be it tax-cheating Russian oligarchs, convicted Ukrainian war criminals, Saudi-supported Wahhabi terrorists in Chechnya or cathedral-desecrating punks in Moscow. Now that NATO, in violation of its previous promises, has expanded right up to the Russian border, with US forces deployed in the Baltic states, within artillery range of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the Russians have nowhere left to retreat. They will not attack; nor will they back down or surrender. The Russian leadership enjoys over 80% of popular support; the remaining 20% seems to feel that it is being too soft in opposing Western encroachment. But Russia will retaliate, and a provocation or a simple mistake could trigger a sequence of events that will end with millions of Americans dead and the US in ruins.
Unlike many Americans, who see war as an exciting, victorious foreign adventure, the Russians hate and fear war. But they are also ready for it, and they have been preparing for war for several years now. Their preparations have been most effective. Unlike the US, which squanders untold billions on dubious overpriced arms programs such as the F-35 joint task fighter, the Russians are extremely stingy with their defense rubles, getting as much as 10 times the bang for the buck compared to the bloated US defense industry. While it is true that the Russian economy has suffered from low energy prices, it is far from being in shambles, and a return to growth is expected as early as next year. Senator John McCain once called Russia ‘A gas station masquerading as a country.’ Well, he lied. Yes, Russia is the world’s largest oil producer and second-largest oil exporter, but it is also world’s largest exporter of grain and nuclear power technology. It is as advanced and sophisticated a society as the United States. Russia’s armed forces, both conventional and nuclear, are now ready to fight, and they are more than a match for the US and NATO, especially if a war erupts anywhere near the Russian border.
But such a fight would be suicidal for all sides. We strongly believe that a conventional war in Europe runs a strong chance of turning nuclear very rapidly, and that any US/NATO nuclear strike on Russian forces or territory will automatically trigger a retaliatory Russian nuclear strike on the continental US. Contrary to irresponsible statements made by some American propagandists, American antiballistic missile systems are incapable of shielding the American people from a Russian nuclear strike. Russia has the means to strike at targets in the USA with long-range nuclear as well as conventional weapons.
The sole reason why the USA and Russia have found themselves on a collision course, instead of defusing tensions and cooperating on a wide range of international problems, is the stubborn refusal by the US leadership to accept Russia as an equal partner: Washington is dead set on being the ‘world leader’ and the ‘indispensable nation,’ even as its influence steadily dwindles in the wake of a string of foreign policy and military disasters such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the Ukraine. Continued American global leadership is something that neither Russia, nor China, nor most of the other countries are willing to accept. This gradual but apparent loss of power and influence has caused the US leadership to become hysterical; and it is but a small step from hysterical to suicidal. America’s political leaders need to be placed under suicide watch.
First and foremost, we are appealing to the commanders of the US Armed Forces to follow the example of Admiral William Fallon, who, when asked about a war with Iran, reportedly replied ‘not on my watch.’ We know that you are not suicidal, and that you do not wish to die for the sake of out-of-touch imperial hubris. If possible, please tell your staff, colleagues and, especially, your civilian superiors that a war with Russia will not happen on your watch. At the very least, take that pledge yourselves, and, should the day ever come when the suicidal order is issued, refuse to execute it on the grounds that it is criminal. Remember that according to the Nuremberg Tribunal ‘To initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.’ Since Nuremberg, ‘I was just following orders’ is no longer a valid defense; please don’t be war criminals.
We also appeal to the American people to take peaceful but forceful action to oppose any politician or party that engages in irresponsible, provocative Russia-baiting, and that condones and supports a policy of needless confrontation with a nuclear superpower that is capable of destroying America in about an hour. Speak up, break through the barrier of mass media propaganda, and make your fellow Americans aware of the immense danger of a confrontation between Russia and the US.
There is no objective reason why US and Russia should consider each other adversaries. The current confrontation is entirely the result of the extremist views of the neoconservative cult, whose members were allowed to infiltrate the US Federal government under President Bill Clinton, and who consider any country that refuses to obey their dictates as an enemy to be crushed. Thanks to their tireless efforts, over a million innocent people have already died in the former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, the Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and in many other countries—all because of their maniacal insistence that the USA must be a world empire, not a just a regular, normal country, and that every national leader must either bow down before them, or be overthrown. In Russia, this irresistible force has finally encountered an immovable object. They must be forced to back down before they destroy us all.
We are absolutely and categorically certain that Russia will never attack the US, nor any EU member state, that Russia is not at all interested in recreating the USSR, and that there is no ‘Russian threat’ or ‘Russian aggression.’ Much of Russia’s recent economic success has a lot to do with the shedding of former Soviet dependencies, allowing her to pursue a ‘Russia first’ policy. But we are just as certain that if Russia is attacked, or even threatened with attack, she will not back down, and that the Russian leadership will not ‘blink.’ With great sadness and a heavy heart they will do their sworn duty and unleash a nuclear barrage from which the United States will never recover. Even if the entire Russian leadership is killed in a first strike, the so-called ‘Dead Hand’ (the ‘Perimetr”’system) will automatically launch enough nukes to wipe the USA off the political map. We feel that it is our duty to do all we can to prevent such a catastrophe.
Evgenia Gurevich, Ph.D.
http://thesaker.ru
Victor Katsap, PhD, Sr. Scientist
NuFlare Technology America, Inc.
Andrei Kozhev
Serge Lubomudrov
Dmitry Orlov
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com
The Saker (A. Raevsky)
http://thesaker.is
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