Nieuwe Amerikaanse Waterstofbommen

De Verenigde Staten hervat de ontwikkeling van nieuwe mega-kernwapens. De Oakland Tribune bericht: 'For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards. If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated fac- tory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads. "We are on the verge of an exciting time," the nation's top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory. Teams of roughly 20 scientists and engineers at the nation's two laboratories for nuclear-explosive design - Livermore and Los Alamos in New Mexico - are in a head-to-head competition to offer designs for the first of the new thermonuclear explosives, termed "reliable replacement warheads" or RRWs. Designers are aiming for bombs that will be simpler, easier to maintain over decades and, if they fell into terrorists' hands, able to be remotely destroyed or rendered useless. Once the designs are unveiled in September, the Bush administration and Congress could face a major choice in the future of the U.S. arsenal: Do they keep maintaining the existing, tested weapons or begin diverting money and manpower to developing the newly designed but untested weapons? Administration officials see the new weapons and the plant to make them as "truly transformative," allowing the dismantlement of thousands of reserve weapons. Lees verder: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3480733 Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020706K.shtml

Robert Fisk 6

In de Independent schrijft Robert Fisk: 'Don't be fooled, this isn't an issue of Islam versus secularism. ''The Koran does not forbid images of the Prophet but millions of Muslims do.'' So now it's cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb-shaped turban. Ambassadors are withdrawn from Denmark, Gulf nations clear their shelves of Danish produce, Gaza gunmen threaten the European Union. In Denmark, Fleming Rose, the "culture" editor of the pip-squeak newspaper which published these silly cartoons - last September, for heaven's sake - announces that we are witnessing a "clash of civilizations" between secular Western democracies and Islamic societies. This does prove, I suppose, that Danish journalists follow in the tradition of Hans Christian Anderson. Oh lordy, lordy. What we're witnessing is the childishness of civilizations. So let's start off with the Department of Home Truths. This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam. For Muslims, the Prophet is the man who received divine words directly from God. We see our prophets as faintly historical figures, at odds with our high-tech human rights, almost caricatures of themselves. The fact is that Muslims live their religion. We do not. They have kept their faith through innumerable historical vicissitudes. We have lost our faith ever since Matthew Arnold wrote about the sea's "long, withdrawing roar". That's why we talk about "the West versus Islam" rather than "Christians versus Islam" - because there aren't an awful lot of Christians left in Europe. There is no way we can get round this by setting up all the other world religions and asking why we are not allowed to make fun of Mohamed. Besides, we can exercise our own hypocrisy over religious feelings. I happen to remember how, more than a decade ago, a film called The Last Temptation of Christ showed Jesus making love to a woman. In Paris, someone set fire to the cinema showing the movie, killing a young man. I also happen to remember a US university which invited me to give a lecture three years ago. I did. It was entitled "September 11, 2001: ask who did it but, for God's sake, don't ask why". When I arrived, I found that the university had deleted the phrase "for God's sake" because "we didn't want to offend certain sensibilities". Ah-ha, so we have "sensibilities" too. In other words, while we claim that Muslims must be good secularists when it comes to free speech - or cheap cartoons - we can worry about adherents to our own precious religion just as much. I also enjoyed the pompous claims of European statesmen that they cannot control free speech or newspapers. This is also nonsense. Had that cartoon of the Prophet shown instead a chief rabbi with a bomb-shaped hat, we would have had "anti-Semitism" screamed into our ears - and rightly so - just as we often hear the Israelis complain about anti-Semitic cartoons in Egyptian newspapers.' Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11800.htm

Irak 24

Yahoo News bericht: 'IRAQ'S CIVIL WAR HAS COST $3,000 PER U.S. FAMILY-- SO FAR LOS ANGELES -- God forbid critics of the war on Iraq should compare it with the war in Vietnam. But perhaps it is worth mentioning that the liberation of Iraq is now costing more each month than the preservation of the Republic of South Vietnam did more than 30 years ago. As the admitted direct cost of the war reached $250 billion last week -- and the White House asked for $120 billion more on Thursday -- new analyses estimate that the invasion of Iraq could end up costing $2 trillion before it is over. If you remember, the White House's own economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, was fired for predicting, in September 2002, six months before the invasion, that the total cost of the war might reach between $100 billion and $200 billion. What I (and perhaps others who questioned the wisdom of the war before it began) remember is the hundreds of e-mails and letters I received after I quoted Lindsey and used the higher figure as more likely. "Moron" and "traitor" were among the more polite epithets of the day. Numbers can be misleading, of course. Some, such as the long-term cost of treating damaged survivors of battle, can be exaggerated or minimized. Some can be hidden in other budgets or drawn from confusing off-budget accounts. And even the most accurate audits and projections, while they translate all the numbers into current dollar amounts, rarely mention that the U.S. economy is much bigger than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, so that while the Vietnam War at times was using almost 10 percent of the gross national product, this one and the war in Afghanistan might be in the 2 percent range.' Lees verder:
http:// news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20060203/cm
_ucrr/iraqscivilwarhascost3000perusfamilysofar

Irak 23

Het verzet tegen het gewelddadig Amerikaans beleid in het Midden Oosten bundelt de krachten. Het persbureau Reuters bericht: 'DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr met Syrian leaders on Monday and said the United States and Israel were trying to spread strife among Arab countries. Sadr, who led two anti-U.S. uprisings in Iraq, expressed support for Syria, which is facing western pressure over its alleged support for rebels in Iraq and the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. "Both Iraq and Syria are under U.S. pressure. We have good relations but our common enemies, Israel, the United States and Britain, are trying to spread strife among us. The people will not fall for this," he told reporters. "I will help Syria in every way. We are witnessing Islamic solidarity," said Sadr, who met President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara. Sadr swiftly rose to prominence after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, benefiting from the widespread respect for his late father, a prominent religious leader, and gaining support from downtrodden Shi'ites in Baghdad and southern cities.' Zie: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-06T162633Z_01_L06233261_RTRUKOC_0_US-SYRIA-IRAQ-SADR.xml&archived=False

Irak 22

Nu we warm gemaakt worden voor het bombarderen van Iran is het nuttig het volgende te weten: 'Powell's Former Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson Calls Pre-War Intelligence a 'Hoax on the American People.' Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson makes the startling claim that much of Powell's landmark speech to the United Nations laying out the Bush Administration's case for the Iraq war was false."I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council," says Wilkerson, who helped prepare the address."I recall vividly the Secretary of State walking into my office," Wilkerson tells NOW. "He said: 'I wonder what will happen if we put half a million troops on the ground in Iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and don't find a single weapon of mass destruction?'' In fact, no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. An interview with Lawrence Wilkerson.' Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11797.htm

Het failliete Amerika 10

Het zijn niet alleen de progressieven die tegen het extremisme van de Bush-regering zijn, maar ook conservatieven, zoals Paul Craig Roberts, onder Regan staatssecretaris van Financien. In het linkse Counter Punch schrijft hij: 'Who Will Save America? A number of readers have asked me when did I undergo my epiphany, abandon right-wing Reaganism and become an apostle of truth and justice. I appreciate the friendly sentiment, but there is a great deal of misconception in the question. When I saw that the neoconservative response to 9/11 was to turn a war against stateless terrorism into military attacks on Muslim states, I realized that the Bush administration was committing a strategic blunder with open-ended disastrous consequences for the US that, in the end, would destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement… The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The "liberal press" has been co-opted. As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally failed its First Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war propaganda for the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the news that the Bush administration was illegally spying on American citizens, and denying coverage to Al Gore's speech that challenged the criminal deeds of the Bush administration… Congress and the media have no fight in them, and neither, apparently, do the American people. Considering the feebleness of the opposition, perhaps the best strategy is for the opposition to shut up, not merely for our own safety but, more importantly, to remove any impediments to Bush administration self-destruction. The sooner the Bush administration realizes its goals of attacking Iran, Syria, and the Shia militias in Lebanon, the more likely the administration will collapse in the maelstrom before it achieves a viable police state. Hamas' victory in the recent Palestinian elections indicates that Muslim outrage over further US aggression in the Middle East has the potential to produce uprisings in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Not even Karl Rove and Fox "News" could spin Bush out of the catastrophe… Debate is dead in America for two reasons: One is that the media concentration permitted in the 1990s has put news and opinion in the hands of a few corporate executives who do not dare risk their broadcasting licenses by getting on the wrong side of government, or their advertising revenues by becoming "controversial." The media follows a safe line and purveys only politically correct information. The other reason is that Americans today are no longer enthralled by debate. They just want to hear what they want to hear. The right-wing, left-wing, and libertarians alike preach to the faithful. Democracy cannot succeed when there is no debate.' Lees verder:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02062006.html Of: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11802.htm

De Waarheid

Charles Darwin schreef in zijn 'The Origen of Species': 'There is a grandeur in this view of life, with it’s several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms, or into one... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.' De laatste keer dat ik het las was op 23 juli 2003 in Bozeman, Montana, waar mijn gezin en ik het Museum van de Rocky Moutains bezochten. Een nieuw gebouw en een schitterend museum, uitgebreid gedocumenteerd over geologie en het ontstaan van aarde en kosmos. Waar mij het hier omgaat is dat de rationalist Darwin zijn survival of the fittest begint met de verklaring dat de schepper het leven in de eerste vormen heeft geblazen en dat van daaruit myriaden andere vormen ontstonden. Maar achter de uiterlijke vorm ging een goddelijke principe schuil. Over hoe die eruit zag sprak Darwin niet omdat er niets zinnigs over te zeggen is, een gedachte die later door Wittgenstein simpel werd samengevat in: waarover men niet kan spreken, daarover moet men zwijgen. Voor Darwin sloten deze twee waarheden elkaar niet uit, god en wetenschap, geloof en rationalisme. Zijn intellectuele houding toont ook een grote mate van lankmoedigheid, een bepaalde verdraagzaamheid die in deze postmoderne tijd verdwenen is. De volgelingen van de waarheid van het wetenschappelijk wereldbeeld dat Auschwitz en Hiroshima mogelijk maakte zijn even onverdraagzaam als de volgelingen van de Goddelijke waarheid die tot de kruistochten en de jihad leidde. Deze twee waarheden sluiten elkaar uit, terwijl ze toch verenigbaar zijn. Er is dus iets anders aan de hand. Omdat ik een Westerling ben die geen godsdienstige stroming aanhang, val ik het liefst mijn eigen wereldbeeld aan. De christenen en islamieten hoef ik niet te bekritiseren, dat moeten ze zelf doen. Waar het mij om gaat is ons nihilistisch materialisme. In 'De Zaak 40/61' citeert Harry Mulish uit een brief die Nietzsche aan zijn vriend Overbeck schreef: '"Mir besteht mein Leben jetzt in dem Wunsche dass es mit allen Dingen anders gehen moge, als ich sie begreife; und dass mir jemand meine 'Wahrheiten' unglaubwurdig mache." Deze waarheid, die niemand hem ongeloofwaardig heeft kunnen maken, bestond uit het besef dat God dood is, dat de bovenste waarden zich ontwaarden en dat het nihilisme voor de deur staat: ''de unheimlichste aller Gaste."' En dat is precies het probleem. Zonder een God in de hemel zijn we onze eigen god op aarde geworden, die alles meent te kunnen beheersen. We zijn de maat aller dingen geworden en verwoesten zo met ons wetenschappelijk mens- en wereldbeeld alles en iedereen, die in de weg staat. Alles en iedereen moet wijken voor ons neurotisch vergaren van nog meer materie. We geloven daarmee gelukkig te worden terwijl we allang weten dat dit niet waar is. In feite geloven we alleen nog maar dat we het geloven. En intussen verkeren we in staat van oorlog met mens en natuur. Wat mankeert ons? W.B. Yeats dichtte ooit eens (in de vertaling van Jan Eijkelboom):

Het Wiel

's Winters willen wij de lente

en in de lente liefst de zomer,

en als het wemelt in de heggen

zeggen wij: laat de winter komen.

En daarna is er niets meer goed:

het voorjaar komt er niet meer aan.

Wij weten niet dat in ons woedt

verlangen om maar dood te gaan.