Behind The Nuclear Agenda
– An Insider Perspective
By Andreas Toupadakis, Ph.D
“The United States will continue to make clear that it
reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force – including through
resort to all of our options – to the use of weapons of mass destruction
against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” ~ US
National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
While humanity remains confused and in fear because of the
continued ‘War On Terror’, some of the world’s leaders have taken steps to
terrorize humanity even further. The policy above was announced as part of the
US National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction in December 2002,
and to this day, that statement remains a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy.
The document not only threatens nuclear retaliation to attacks on the U.S. but
it goes even further to include preemptive strikes in so-called “appropriate”
cases.
“Because deterrence
may not succeed, and because of the potentially devastating consequences of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) use against our forces and civilian
population, U.S. military forces and appropriate civilian agencies must have
the capability to defend against WMD-armed adversaries, including in
appropriate cases through preemptive measures.”
Democratic principles were severely undermined when David
Welsh, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, elaborated on the policy of
preemtive strikes in 2002, declaring that “The United States is ready to launch
a unilateral war against Iraq if necessary and without recourse to the UN
Security Council.” U.S. officials — including former Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta — have maintained this stance into recent days, repeating warnings that
the U.S. is fully prepared to attack Iran.
Have we become so mad?
Elaborating on the potentially devastating consequences of
WMD’s, retired Senator Alan Cranston wrote in 1999:
“One super bomb
could now [let] loose more destructive energy than all that has been released
from all weapons fired in all wars in all history. The power of self-extinction
is now in our uncertain hands… It is more likely now than it was during the
more stable days of the Cold War that weapons of mass destruction will be
used.”
In wielding that power of self-extinction, the United States
has increased homeland security spending by more than $1 trillion since 2001,
and specifically, weapons of mass destruction have cost U.S. taxpayers over $5
trillion so far. They presently cost $37 billion a year, diverting money from other
critical needs. Is it worthy of a nation to base its security on terror, on the
threat to annihilate millions of innocent humans, on the threat of genocide? Is
the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction – a policy that puts the human race at
risk of extinction – worthy of civilization itself?
Some advocates of nuclear armament are saying, “Do not
worry, we are in control. Weapons of mass destruction will never be used.” But
most people deny the fact that insiders speak of “when”, while outsiders speak
of “if”. Which should we believe? We do not want to believe the insiders, but
my destiny was such that I became an insider, working to maintain nuclear
weaponry in a classified position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LNLL) in California. I soon realized that environmental and nuclear
non-proliferation work was an illusion, and that purely academic projects are
sustained in order to lure well-intentioned young scientists into the national
labs and then steer them into weapons development programs.
Therefore, today I speak as an informed insider, as do many
others who bravely stand for peace instead of war. These are voices that must
be heard. If we continue on the same path we are now on, it is just a matter of
a short time until we see the devastation that people have prophesied for
thousands of years, and have been truly afraid of for less than 60 years. Let
us wake up before our leaders bring us the agonizing death that many seers of
the past have long predicted.
Nuclear Weapons: Abolish or Perish
Albert Einstein once said: “This basic force of the universe
cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms”.
The splitting of the atom brought a new realization: that if
war and science continue to coexist, life will not exist for much longer. What
do we hear today in the news in regard to world peace? We hear about national
secrets, national defense, national security, and national interests. We also
hear about arms control. Who are the ones that must control their arms? Are
they not the ones who build them and sell them in the first place?
Let us put things into perspective; War resistance does not
mean rearmament; it means disarmament. That is especially what the last World
War has taught humanity. Great thinkers and peace advocates in 1934, affected
by fear, did not follow the path of wisdom, and they started advocating
rearmament. Today, the outcome of this kind of thinking is self-evident.
Although everyone realizes that, given the present state of
affairs, any military conflict can very well lead to universal destruction,
governments still will not adopt an attitude of goodwill and understanding.
Instead, they continue to pursue a policies of domination and mutual threat.
The extent of this threat was described by retired Air Force
General Lee Butler, former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, in
an address to the National Press Club on February 1998:
“I was responsible
for war plans with more than 12,000 targets, many to be struck with repeated
nuclear blows, some to the point of complete absurdity. … And in the end, I
came away from it all with profound misgivings and with a set of deeply
unsettling judgments: That from the earliest days of the nuclear era, the risks
and consequences of nuclear war have never been properly weighed by those who
brandished it; that the stakes engage not just the survival of the antagonists,
but the fate of humankind…
“Their effects
transcend time and place, poisoning the Earth and deforming its inhabitants for
generation upon generation. They leave us wholly without defense, expunge all
hope for meaningful survival. They hold in their sway not just the fate of
nations but the very meaning of civilization…
“At worst it
invokes death on a scale rivaling the power of the Creator… It is time to
reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason, and the
rightful interests of humanity.”
General Lee Butler’s address can be found in its entirety
here. Unfortunately, just like Senator Alan Cranston, General Lee Butler spoke
in this way only after he retired, as is so often the case.
Today, “the rightful interests of humanity” that General Lee
Butler referred to have been
Modern leaders have at their disposal far greater
technological means for inflicting violence, as well as psychological weapons
such as TV, the internet, radio, press, schools, and the work place against
which ordinary citizens are defenseless. And it is in the minds of people that
the rise or fall of a nation begins. Einstein said that modern despotism does
not lie in the fact that one man with virtually unlimited authority holds
power, but that society itself has become an instrument for enslaving the
individual.
How are free humans converted into slaves by the state? An
enormous number of laws in civil life and militaristic rules in the workplace
have reduced citizens in Western countries to helpless victims of society and
its economy, without a will of their own. They demand that citizens give
automatic and unquestioning obedience to their ‘superiors’ if they want to keep
their positions. And the tragic outcome of this modern way of life is the total
loss of personal liberty and human dignity – a loss that shifts power and
sovereignty from individuals to institutions.
However, the despotism that is so evident in the U.S. and
other nations is not contained within their own borders. In the modern era, a
new form of imperialism has emerged. Working through the means of financial and
military extortion, it seeks to enslaves weaker nations, making them dependent
on the U.S. (and beholden to U.S. interests) while sacrificing their natural
resources, environment and political sovereignty.
Albert Einstein described this development in a letter to
the Queen Mother of Belgium, dated January 2, 1955.
“When I look at
mankind today, nothing astonishes me quite so much as the shortness of man’s
memory with regard to political developments. Yesterday the Nuremberg trials,
today the all-out effort to re-arm Germany.
“In seeking for some
kind of explanation, I cannot rid myself of the thought that this, the last of
my fatherlands, has invented for its own use a new kind of colonialism, one
that is less conspicuous than the colonialism of old Europe. It achieves
domination of other countries by investing American capital abroad, which makes
those countries firmly dependent on the United States. Anyone who opposes this
policy or its implications is treated as an enemy of the United States. It is
within this general context that I try to understand the present-day policies
of Europe, including England.”
Capital colonialism is the policy of the United States
today, and anyone who opposes this policy is treated as an enemy of the United
States, and of freedom itself.
As President George W. Bush infamously remarked, “You’re
either with us or against us.”
As a result, war has become an integral part of the U.S. and
global economies, and of the U.S. political culture. With U.S. military bases
installed worldwide, ‘weaker’ counties are being forced – by sheer military and
economic might – to support the priorities of the U.S.
corporate-military-industrial complex. If anyone desires to understand world
events today, he simply cannot ignore this fact.
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