babble home
rabble.ca - news for the rest of us
today's active topics


Post New Topic  Post A Reply
FAQ | Forum Home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» babble   » current events   » international news and politics   » Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told

Email this thread to someone!    
Author Topic: Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told
mimeguy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10004

posted 31 January 2008 02:12 PM      Profile for mimeguy   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I found this article link while looking through the Green Party of Egypt site. (which I found looking through the Green Party of Iran site)

Can any NDP guys tell me what the policy is on Canada remaining in or reforming NATO?

http://tinyurl.com/ywjglq

quote:
Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Tuesday January 22, 2008
The Guardian
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".



From: Ontario | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 31 January 2008 04:28 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Team Bush give themselves pre-emptive nuclear option (2005) of which hawks didn't have the authority, even during the cold war

Russian general says could use nuclear arms pre-emptively(2008)

"Deterrence is the art of producing, in the mind of the enemy, the fear to attack!" -- Dr Strangelove

It's five minutes to midnight


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 01 February 2008 04:36 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
“We are under nuclear attack. Run to the nearest fallout shelter.” You’ll have about ten minutes to get there. You’ll never get there. And in comes this bomb, hydrogen bomb, at twenty times the speed of sound, and you won’t even hear it coming. It will land on this beautiful auditorium and explode with the heat inside the center of the sun, turning this building and millions of tons of rock and earth to radioactive fallout shot up in that swirling mushroom cloud. -- Helen Caldicott, Physician and Anti-Nuclear Activist

From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
sgm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5468

posted 01 February 2008 09:35 AM      Profile for sgm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The letters written to the Guardian in response to this terrifying 'manifesto' show a good deal more sense than the 'manifesto' itself:
quote:
The five retired military commanders suggest that a Nato policy involving readiness to make pre-emptive strikes is necessary to counter political fanatics and international terrorism, because of the mass migrations that could be triggered by climate change, and because of the weakening of nation states and the UN. But a nuclear strike is unlikely to deter a political fanatic and would be ineffective against terrorists. No one could possibly think of deterring refugees with a nuclear weapon, and such a policy could only weaken the UN further. We must choose between a world ruled by threat, or one ruled by law and mutual understanding. Most of us would prefer the latter. The first step towards it must be to take all nuclear weapons off alert and a commitment to no first use.

Robert Hinde

Chair, British Pugwash Group



From: I have welcomed the dawn from the fields of Saskatchewan | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 01 February 2008 09:53 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
quote:
Sloganeers, propagandists and politicians often use the word "genocide" in ways that the law does not permit. But rarely is the crime of genocide invoked when Western militaries murder Muslim groups. This essay argues that the internationally recognized crime of genocide applies to the intentional killings that NATO troops commit on a weekly basis in the poor villages and mute mountains of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban, a puritanical Islamic group. NATO combat troops bombard and kill people in Taliban enclaves and meeting places. They also murder defenseless Afghan civilians. The dehumanized label of "Taliban" is used to cloak the nameless victims of NATO operations. Some political opposition to this practice is building in NATO countries, such as Canada, where calls are heard to withdraw troops from Afghanistan or divert them to non-combat tasks.

In almost all NATO nations, the Taliban have been completely dehumanized - a historically-tested signal that perpetrators of the crime of genocide carry unmitigated intentions to eradicate the dehumanized group. Politicians, the armed forces, the media, and even the general public associate in the West the Taliban with irrational fanatics, intolerant fundamentalists, brutal assassins, beheaders of women, bearded extremists, and terrorists. This luminescent negativity paves the way for aggression, military operations, and genocide. Promoting the predatory doctrine of collective self-defense, killing the Taliban is celebrated as a legal virtue. To leave the Taliban in control of Afghanistan, says NATO, is to leave a haven for terrorism.

A similar dehumanization took place in the 16th and 17th centuries when NATO precursors occupied the Americas to purloin land and resources. The killings of native inhabitants were extensive and heartless. Thomas Jefferson, the noble author of the Declaration of Independence, labeled Indians as "merciless savages." President Andrew Jackson pontificated: "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms." Promoting the predatory doctrine of discovery, the United States Supreme Court later ratified the pilgrims' crimes, holding that "discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title (to land). ([T]he Indians were fierce savages...To leave them in possession of their country was to leave the country a wilderness."

The predators have not changed their stripes a bit. They come, they demonize, they obliterate. They do all this in the name of superior civilization.



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time  

Post New Topic  Post A Reply Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
Hop To:

Contact Us | rabble.ca | Policy Statement

Copyright 2001-2008 rabble.ca