War is uncivilzed.

Tony Blair’s claim that we are engaged in “a clash about civilization” not “between” civilizations is profoundly correct… but not how he intended it. In reality it is a clash between different levels of barbarism, believing they are being civilized.

Civilization exists where just laws rein supreme. Laws that are made and enforced by a democratic process, applied equally to all, and most importantly, protective of a certain set of inalienable human rights. Civilization relies on laws not wars to ensure the freedom and security of its inhabitants.

War and terrorism (attacks by the weak) is sheer, unadulterated barbarism. War is hell. When civilizations wage war they automatically forfeit their civility. War by its very nature violates the inalienable human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (not to mention about a dozen other rights) and does so without the due process of law or a civil hearing. Anyone who has witnessed the “collateral damage’ of a dismembered mother, child or fetus will agree with the barbarism of waging war be it with high-tech munitions or improvised explosives. And all this doesn’t even include our distraction from the mass murder of thousands of more innocents in Darfur while we debate the legitimacy of a nuclear armed Iran.

US troops do try to avoid the unnecessary loss of innocent life but in the fog of war, murder happens. So far an estimated 30,000 thousand Iraqis, many of them innocent women and children have been killed since our invasion. Hundreds of thousands wounded, sick or made homeless as a direct result of our war of choice. Those responsible for war crimes at Abu Ghraib prison or the recently disclosed Marine slaughter of innocent Iraqi’s near Haditha (a town in western Iraq) in retaliation for the death of one their own, might be held accountable. But, those who started this war will not. In our ‘civilized’ society we call one person who kills another person a murderer. When one person kills a dozen people we call them a celebrity. But, when one person is responsible for killing thousands…we call him President.

Prime Minister Blair is lucky Gandhi isn’t alive to respond to his comment. During the British occupation of his impoverished nation a western journalist asked Gandhi what he thought about western civilization. Gandhi didn’t pause with his accented answer “I think that would be a good idea!”

When the US uses the law of force instead of the force of law to bring those who murder us to ‘justice’, those on the receiving end of our war making and war threats only see us as uncivilized. War only sets the stage for the next war. Only with the global enforcement of the rule of law do we have the real possibility for global civility. Only when war is outlawed will we be truly civil.

3rd anniversary of Shock and Awe.

On the third anniversary of our “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq there is one word Americans should focus on. Smallpox. While there is yet to be a universally agreed upon definition of terrorism, smallpox, by any measurable indicator is the epitome of human terror.
By body count alone it dwarfs all other forms of lethal force humanity has experienced. Nearly 100 million people were killed in all the wars, revolutions and conflicts combined over the last century. Smallpox alone killed 300 million people in the first 70 years of the last century.
This 70 year statistic exists because smallpox was eradicated around 1970. It was humanities first real victory against infectious diseases. It took a 10 year global campaign with universal participation to wiped the wild virus from the face of our earth.
Unfortunately, Soviet and US scientists fearing a potential smallpox return, kept a few samples of the killer virus in well protected biosecurity labs within their own countries.
Cold war fears and advances in biotechnology allowed the Soviets to modify their samples to create a weaponized version of smallpox, even more lethal than the original. .
Between the cold war years, the fall of the Berlin wall and 9-11 many such engineered biological weapons were poorly stored and accounted for within the former Soviet Union. In the 1990s many bioweapons intelligence experts were concerned that vials of weaponized smallpox had found their way to at least 5 other nations including Iraq.

This one profound factor alone should have been enough reason for President Bush or any other rational policy maker to decide firmly and sanely against an invasion of that middle-east nation. Even Saddam understood that his military was incapable of standing up to US forces. Our greatest fear about invading Iraq shouldn’t have been about the loss of US troops in such fighting. It should have been a last stand reprisal by Saddam to punish the West for it’s unprovoked invasion. What is also should have taught us (and still can) is the lunacy of relying on the physics of military power in a biological era.

Some people might remember that the Bush Administration tried to prepare Americans for just such a scenario by calling for an increase in the production of smallpox vaccines and the inoculation of both US military personal and a large percentage of our nation’s homeland medical and healthcare first responders. This failed for domestic fear of the potential for unintended consequences (side effects?) associated with receiving the vaccine, but even more important, many rightfully feared that the vaccine wouldn’t give any protection against a ‘weaponized strain’.
Prior to the invasion Rep. Chris Shays, (D-Conn) told ABCNews "Smallpox in the hands of Saddam Hussein is a great concern and obviously a more virulent strain is of even more concern." But, Bush decided to invade anyway. It’s hard to imagine any action against Iraq that would have been more irresponsible and risky than an invasion. It alone should be grounds impeachment. Had smallpox been intentionally or accidentally released as a result of our attack the world would have suffered terror on a scale that would make the event of 9-11 seem quaint.
Humanity was fortunate that Saddam had either moved, hidden or earlier eliminated any smallpox vials he may have had in Iraq’s possessed. But, we are not yet safe. Even if there were no WMD in Iraq, with each passing day the increasing power, global distribution and affordability of biotechnology is providing any aggravated nation state, radicalized group or inflamed individual with the capacity to develop a biological weapon that will make smallpox look wimpy.
Oh, and did you happen to notice an announcement by the Whitehouse today on the third anniversary of our ‘shock and awe’ bombing campaign in Baghdad? The Associated Press covered the story saying that the Bush Administration’s cabinet secretaries had just participated in a drill that simulated a “smallpox attack” as a means of testing our government’s plans to “counter the potential use of bioweapons by terrorists.” White House spokesperson, Dana Perino said it was only a drill. A similar rehearsal in December for Pandemic flu showed we needed more planning locally and more production of vaccines.
Everything has changed except our persistent belief that we can achieve peace through strength. When we use that strength irresponsibly we can be sure that we will likely rest in peace before we see it.
Smallpox Drill tests readiness: Cabinet officials take part: Attack not ‘imminent’.
Washington Times Sunday March 19, 2006. Page A3.

Bush’s new “2006 National Security Strategy”

Bush’s new “2006 National Security Strategy” has more flaws than Port Security.

Iran is not our top security threat. That position is held by natural and bioengineered plagues. And, it is within that context that US policy toward Iran, making them more enemy than friend, that creates our greatest national security threat.

It’s possible that Bush might succeed in stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but it is just such an effort that will only drive Iran to develop biologicals. And, there is no way on God’s green earth that we can prevent Iran from developing biological weapons and using them to end our civilization as we know it. .

Defending his approach of "preemptive war” is both insane and suicidal. It is the most offensive and dangers foreign policy our nation has ever developed. In short, it is an invitation to global lawlessness and Armageddon.
There are signs of evolution in Bush’s policy. Neoconservative policy has mutated into a more realistic policy by putting a greater emphasis on "effective diplomacy" to achieve "transformational democracy” and goes out of its way to say that using “force would be a last resort."
In essence, Bush’s new security strategy is essentially basic liberal ideals emphasizing democracy, prosperity, and international cooperation as the building blocks for global peace. They still don’t see that any future preemptive efforts that might succeed in preventing an attack will only provoke dozens more.
Bush declares in the introduction of the report that American security strategy is founded on two pillars: "promoting freedom, justice, and human dignity" and "confronting the challenges of our time by leading a growing community of democracies." And more than in the 2002 report, Bush speaks of global challenges beyond the military and security threats. "Many of the problems we face - from the threat of pandemic disease, to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to terrorism, to human trafficking, to natural disasters - reach across borders," the introduction states. "Effective multinational efforts are essential to solve these problems." This is what foreign policy liberals have been saying all along.
If even one nation adopts pre-emptive doctrine as a realistic approach to dealing with threats, when threats are virtually impossible to detect before use, every person in every nation of the world is at risk. Weaponized smallpox or bird flu makes no distinction between good or evil people, Christian or Muslim, American or Iranian. Essentially, we are all just a warm piece of meat. Reheating preemptive doctrine in any form is not really evolution but instead our first serious step toward extinction.

Iran's Nukes not the real problem.

A NUCLEAR IRAN WOULD BE BAD.
A FORCIBLY De-nuked IRAN
WOULD BE far WORSE.

The largest antiwar mobilization in history occurred three years ago this month, when over 10 million people marched in more than 600 cities around the world to prevent the United States from launching a unilateral, preemptive, illegal, unprovoked, and unwise invasion of Iraq.
Before that war has ended there can be no doubt that at least two military options are now being "war gamed" by our Pentagon. One, a full scale invasion of Iran, intended to change its regime. The other, assorted "surgical strikes" aimed at "taking out" its nuclear assets.
Either would prove lethally and economically devastating to our proud and unique nation. The costs of modern warfare will exceed all benefits by creating more problems that it will solve. And thousands of innocent souls who have nothing to do with this dispute will end up paying the steepest price.

The next anti war mobilization needs to say more than "war is unhealthy for children and kittens and other living things." It will need to document the enormous unintended but predictable consequences that will befall our nation and the world.

First, Iran would put up an almost infinitely better fight than Saddam's Iraq. There is no doubt the US military would prevail in dislodging Iran's theocratic regime if ordered to do so. But what then in a country with three times the population, four times the area of Iraq, and a three thousand year heritage of fierce national pride? The economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz have concluded that our war, occupation, and nation building in Iraq will eventually cost Americans between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, with no guarantee of success. Any attack on Iran would cost more.


Even a "surgical strike" option would be a disaster with an almost certain prolonged spike in oil prices. Worse yet, without UN Security Council authorization, we would again flout the UN Charter and further enfeeble an international legal system that needs strengthening not gutting.
The one thing the peace community failed to do before the last war was take a stand based on the foundation of our own nations lasting peace....the rule of law. If one nation repeatedly disregards the law of nations, then all countries end up with the law of the jungle.

On a tactical note, in retaliation for any kind of attack, Tehran would likely launch missile strikes on both Israel and the many American military bases throughout the region. And, with its extensive ties to the Shiite majority in Iraq, Iran could cause U.S. casualties there to skyrocket. Tehran might also enhance its sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel (or Palestinian terrorists might react on their own) or in our own cities here at home.

A great deal of discord does exist within Iran between the forces of theocracy and liberty, but not surprisingly, virtually all Iranians would come together in their defiance of an American strike. Even ordinary Iranians would react negatively to any US military action. Iran’s hardliners would be immediately vindicated -- and their positions in the Iranian power struggle greatly enhanced. The Iranian government could then discard the pretense of "only seeking nuclear electricity," and formally withdraw from the NPT (as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already has hinted, North Korea already has done, and all parties have a right to do under Article X). Iran would then proceed directly toward constructing a sizeable atomic arsenal. Persistent US targeting these efforts would inevitably drive Iran into the cheaper and easier to hide alternative of biological or chemical weapons --weapons with the potential to devastate our nation socially, economically and politically. Only a US invasion and full occupation of Iran could even begin to stem the production and distribution of these weapons of mass destruction.



During the Vietnam war, many military leaders believed that every time we killed a Viet Cong guerilla, we created two more. US military command has now stated that our war efforts are creating more terrorists than we are killing. There are just too many Muslim young men inside and outside of Iran who have spent most of their childhoods in madrasa Islamic schools and are now unemployed and idle. Many are likely looking for some purpose in life, some meaning, perhaps even a cause worth dying for.

Our forcible denial of Iran to acquire even a single atomic bomb when we have thousands will undoubtedly drive many Muslims now on the fence to obtaining nuclear or biological destructive capacity. Some will find ways to smuggle them into this country regardless of who manages our ports. Such an attack could make September 11 seem like minor irritation.

Isaac Newton's laws of action and reaction applies to nations as well as billiard balls. Eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities over there will likely ensure far greater terror back here. There will be no victory…or mission accomplished. Only mass murder on a scale we can barely imagine.

WHAT CAN the US Do ABOUT IRAN.


Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze used "mutual security” to bring the cold war to an end. If you threaten your adversaries, they threaten back. If you make your neighbors more secure, you make yourself more secure. The key was understanding the fears of others.

Unfortunately, our nation has only exacerbated Iranian fears with announcements of our intention to initiate preemptive wars against states we determines might someday pose a threat. Our leader recently declared that three nations (including Iran) constitute an "axis of evil." President Bush even issued a new nuclear doctrine that contemplates nuclear first strikes against non-nuclear states (in explicit violation of the NPT), and actually names seven states (including Iran) as possible targets. Bush has already launched one preemptive war against Iran’s eastern border state. Now, Iran finds itself surrounded on all four sides by American military power -- Iraq to the west, Afghanistan to the east, U.S. bases in Central Asia to the north, and the invincible US Navy in the Persian Gulf to the south. Even Bush’s reassurances only make things worse. He proclaims "This notion that the U.S. is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," then follows up with, "Having said that, all options are on the table ..."

If Iran looks west it sees Iraq that opened itself to unprecedented international inspections and got itself invaded anyway. If Iran looks east, it sees North Korea that built a nuclear arsenal in secret, and now successfully deters any hint of US aggression. If you were Tehran, what would you do?

Both sides must first ratchet down their rhetoric. Ahmadinejad's genocidal threats to Israel and his Holocaust denial rightfully intensified Western antipathy toward Iran. But few Western leaders seem to grasp that "all options on the table," sounds eerily similar to Hitler’s ‘final option’. Threatening language has no place in a world with nations potentially armed to the teeth with WMD of every nature.

The United States needs to learn the value of carrots over sticks. US aid to Tsunami stricken Muslims or Earthquake flattened Pakistanis did more to obliterate anti-Americanism than anything we’ve yet launched from our shores.

We could start with a mutual security agreement with formal non-aggression pledges if Iran reverses its genocidal hatred for Israel? Or, we could disavowing any effort to bring down the Iranian government through non-military means (as we did in 1953) -- instead of asking Congress for $85 million to "promote democracy" in Iran as Condelessa Rice recently did. Better yet we could offer Iran investments in alternative energy technologies -- wind, solar, tidal -- to wean them from nuclear energy. Most important we should restore the full diplomatic relations we terminated during a hostage crisis that ended more than a quarter century ago.

If we stop making Iranians feel vulnerable and invite them to reap some of the rewards that accompany joining the community of nations, they might feel less inclined to seek any form WMD.


WHAT Could our President say to the world?

A hypocrisy that Washington persistently dodges was framed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, with his usual clarity. He said that the nuclear states "refuse to initiate or respect any restraints on themselves, while ... raising heresy charges against those who want to join the sect." Similarly the 2005 Nobel Peace Laureate, Mohamed El-Baradei, says that we must "abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue nuclear weapons but morally acceptable for others to rely on them." In bazaars and barracks and boulangeries in many parts of the world, angry young men must ask, "Why can the United States possess more than ten thousand nuclear warheads, while our country cannot acquire even one?"

The Bush Administration cannot insist on retaining our nuclear weapons and improving on them far into the future. His 2002 "nuclear posture review" put forth plans to unveil new generations of nuclear weapons in 2020, then again in 2030, and then again in 2040. This nuclear double standard cannot stand.

It is possible that the Iranian nuclear crisis could be defused in a stroke of the pen instead of surgical strikes. We could promise in writing to Iranian leaders:

"We don't expect you to endure the nuclear double standard forever. The NPT doesn't just impose non-proliferation obligations on you, it imposes obligations on us. We understand that you will not forever forego your nuclear weapons if we insist on forever retaining ours. Nuclear weapons won't protect you, and they don't protect us. We know that eventually we must abolish these abominations before they or some other WMD abolishes us."

Our problem with Iran could be solved with those five sentences.

If not this President, perhaps the next. If we are not already occupying Iran or recovering from their retaliatory biological strikes.

Port security.

Port Security: 3-16-06:

President Bush’s Administration policy regarding the potential Dubai management of half a dozen US ports was handled poorly, but it was the correct policy.

Our only means of improving our security and increasing our chance of catching those who want to do us harm before they to it…is to have more friends in the Arab/Muslim world…not fewer. Our alliance with Dubai is within that context.

With or without foreigners managing our ports these hyper entryways into our nation are critical to both health of our economy and our national security. They are also extremely vulnerable with even the most stringent US security measures possible. The most important aspect of this issue is that nearly 4 years after 9-11…they are not much more secure than they were before.

Bush was right on the Dubai Port management…but even a broken clock is right twice a day. The Bush Administration is a dismal failure in improving our nations port security regardless of who manages them.

Just one oil tanker loaded with a Oklahoma type explosive (a fuel oil and fertilizer type mixture) could yield a near nuclear level explosion. As we saw with the Port of New Orleans after Katrina even the loss of one US port has a lasting national and even global economic consequence.