-Caveat Lector- From http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=12951
}}}>Begin When in doubt, nuke 'em Robert Scheer - Creators Syndicate 03.12.02 - The news that the Pentagon is secretly planning to fight terrorism with nuclear weapons has the marks not of considered military doctrine, but rather of an infantile tantrum born of the Administration's frustration in making good on its overblown promise to end the terrorist scourge. There is desperation in the air; the giant that is America feels humbled by the Lilliputian terrorists who never are brought fully to account. There still is not a single strong lead connecting the hijackers with the Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders whom the president has yet to capture, ``dead or alive.'' Nor has there been any progress on the source of the anthrax that terrorized the nation's capital, except the disconcerting evidence that this particular evil seems to be homegrown. Nuclear weapons also are a made-in-the-USA product, and given that we are the only nation to have used these unthinkable weapons, one would expect that we have a special responsibility to eschew their use. Instead, the Bush Administration's plan not only targets the "axis of evil'' nations but Russia and China as well. Consider the absurdity: We risk escalating a worldwide nuclear arms race in order to nuke a shadow terrorist enemy whose most effective military weapon to date has been box cutters. Clearly that threat could have been met best by taking the modest steps of maintaining armed air marshals on civilian planes, rather than grounding them to save a few bucks, and by employing better- trained airport security guards. Nuking our own or anyone else's airports would not have saved the World Trade Center and the human beings that were there on September 11. The hijackers succeeded because our $70 billion-a-year intelligence apparatus failed to perform, and we consistently coddled Saudi Arabia's backers of religious hate even after their minions blew up our embassies. Having squandered the Clinton-led Israel-Palestine peace initiatives, Bush watched from the sidelines as the Mideast cauldron, the font of most of the world's terrorist threats, was allowed to boil to overflowing. The enduring terrorist threat has little to do with the caves of Afghanistan and everything to do with the failure to secure the Mideast peace promised by Bush Sr.'s Gulf War. Clearly Arab-Israeli peace should be the highest order in a war on terrorism. This Administration, however, has raised the military options above any diplomatic efforts, whether to gain poll approval or because of their allegiance to military contractors. So, why not also throw some nuclear weapons into the mix? Because it is ludicrous: Does anyone really believe that nuclear weapons might save the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, as suggested as an option in this plan, when it assuredly would incinerate them? Or, that targeting Russia and China for potential nuclear attacks would lead those nations to embrace further moves towards nuclear stability and arms control, or to be less threatened by our announced plan to scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and build a missile defense? In fact, a Chinese or Russian military planner would be starkly remiss in not responding to this report by placing even greater emphasis on making their own nuclear forces more robust, survivable, and once again placed on hair- trigger alert in anticipation of an American first strike. To encourage heightened fears of U.S. nuclear intentions at a time when the Russian and Chinese are our firm allies in the war against terrorism is dizzyingly counterproductive. We need to encourage those countries, and the other burgeoning nuclear powers, to think of nuclear weapons as dangerous junk, weapons that at best will boomerang and destroy all that they care. As the anthrax example demonstrates, our own investment in weapons of mass destruction can easily turn into the most effective means of our own undoing. What madness to even entertain the thought that nuclear weapons are anything other than the means to the world's destruction. What we need instead is a U.S.-led worldwide campaign to shun nuclear weapons as inherently genocidal, to effectively end proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and material, and to treat those nations that dally in the business of nuclear arms as barbarians in need of restraint. It is we who have defined rogue nations as those bent on developing weapons of mass destruction; how then can we so cavalierly entertain the idea of once again leading the world down the path of nuclear Armageddon? � 2002 WorkingForChange.com URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=12951 End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. 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