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Behind The Nuclear Agenda – An Insider Perspective

Sunday, June 28, 2015 14:36

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(Before It's News)

29th June 2015

By Andreas Toupadakis, Ph.D

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

“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 ofMutual 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 meansdisarmament. 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.

Capital colonialism

Today, “the rightful interests of humanity” that General Lee Butler referred to have been compromised. The spirit of democracy and transparent governance that was born in ancient Greece and which later spread to the whole continent of Europe and beyond – the spirit of personal liberty and respect for the rights of the individual – is in great danger today. The basis of a dignified human existence is endangered by forces which seek to destroy freedom and human dignity for power and profit, while hiding the truth of our current world situation behind the protection of a security fence.

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.

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