Making the World Safer

[Guest guest]

Bush Policy: Making the World Safer...for Nukes

The Bush administration has dug itself--and all of us---into an incredible hole

when it comes to Iran. It is also doing its level best to move the nuclear

doomsday clock to midnight.

 

 

First we have our war-mongering president blustering scarcely veiled threats

about possible military action against Iran and its nuclear facilities--threats

which the Iranians always knew to be bluffs, given that they have spread out

their facilities and hardened them underground, and given how overstretched the

U.S. military already is in Iraq.

 

 

Then we have the threats to seek sanctions from the U.N.--an institution which

the same Bush administration has consistently trashed, lied to, underfunded and

ignored for five years--and to which we have now dispatched a tarnished

ambassador whose open animosity and disdain for the international organization

is well known.

 

 

Finally, we have the Iranians themselves, victims of decades of abuse,

manipulation, destabilization and proxy warmaking--not to mention having one of

their passenger jets blown out of the air--by the U.S. This is a country that,

finally on its own independent feet, and feeling feisty thanks to a flood of

petrodollars and petroeuros coming in at a rate of $65/barrel. This is not a

nation that is likely to listen to any orders -- or threats--emanating from

Washington.

 

 

Whatever the flaws of the 1970 antiproliferation treaty, this administration in

Washington has single-handedly destroyed the last hope of preventing the

continued proliferation of nuclear weapons by establishing, and loudly

promoting, the notion that America, as the world's only " superpower, " has the

right to unilaterally invade or attack any nation on the globe on whatever

pretext it wants to trump up, not to mention by calling for the development and

deployment of nuclear " bunker-busting " weapons designed for use on Third World

battlefields. (Bush and his gang should watch the " Spiderman " movie, with its

message: With great power comes great responsibility, not omnipotence)

 

 

Iran has watched as North Korea, with nuclear weapons already built, has thumbed

its nose at the U.S. It has watched as Pakistan, which perhaps more than any

other nation, has contributed to the growth and invincibility of Al Qaeda, but

which also has nuclear weapons, has remained on friendly terms with the U.S,

even receiving supersonic fighter-bombers capable of delivering its nuclear

weapons. It has watched India, which also has the bomb, take delivery from the

U.S. of bomb-capable fighter-bombers while steadily improving trade relations

with America. And of course it has watched neighboring Iraq, which didn't have

the bomb, be invaded and torn apart by American military forces.

 

 

It has also, over the years, seen Grenada and Panama, Nicaragua and Haiti

invaded, their governments overthrown and their leaders overthrown, killed or

jailed at the hands of U.S. forces acting unilaterally or by proxy. It has seen

an attempted coup in Venezuela with the clear fingerprints of U.S. direction. It

has watched Cuba being strangled by a U.S. decades-long embargo--an act of war.

 

 

None of these victimized countries has the bomb, of course.

 

 

So tell me: If you were an Iranian government official—or even an ordinary Iraqi

citizen—looking at all this, wouldn't you want the bomb, too?

 

 

On its face, it appears clear that countries that have the bomb have little to

fear from the U.S., while countries that don't have it are in grave danger of

being invaded, subverted, embargoed or in some other way threatened or bullied

by America.

 

 

Given that the world is awash in nuclear material and given that most countries

have or can hire scientists and technicians with the know-how to fashion it into

bombs, current U.S. policy seems purely perverse. It is perfectly designed to

promote the spread of nuclear weapons, and not surprisingly that is precisely

what is happening.

 

 

If things don't change, and quickly, I predict we'll soon see a nuclear-armed

Middle East, Far East, and Latin America. Even Africa, with its more limited

resources, may not be far behind. Certainly Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria have

the technical wherewithal and the resources to develop or buy a bomb. And of

course, besides the almost inevitable regional nuclear wars that would then

occur, the more nukes there are out there, the more likely one will fall into

the hands of some group, or even some aggrieved small nation, that will decide

to ship one to a U.S. port and detonate it to make a point.

 

 

Think about this the next time our Commander in Chief talks about how he's

making America safer.

 

 

 

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

 

 

 

 

" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix