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Peter Meyer
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In August 2002 George W. Bush (whose public utterances finally demonstrated that he is
mentally deranged, unhinged, demented and a lunatic) and his crony Tony Blair were talking
up their intention to attack Iraq, going on like a broken record about its "weapons of mass
destruction", hypocritically ignoring the facts that (a) it is the U.S. which leads the world in the
manufacture and use of such weapons (Germany and Japan 1945, Vietnam and Cambodia
1960s and 70s, Iraq 1991, Kosovo 1999 and Afghanistan 2001) and (b) it is Israel, America's
client state in the Middle East, which already possesses over 100 atomic bombs and is entirely
willing to use them against its neighbours.
Iraq's immediate neighbours did not consider Iraq a military threat, so why did the U.S.?
Iraq's missiles could reach parts of Europe and Russia but neither Europe nor Russia
considered Iraq a threat; indeed, in mid-2002 Russia signed a multi-billion dollar trade deal
with Iraq. Only Israel considered Iraq a threat (consistent with the pan-Arab hatred of Israel for
its brutality toward the Palestinians), and in the U.S. Congress and in the Bush Administration
what Israel wants Israel gets.
As British elder statesman Tony Benn said, the American desire for a war against Iraq was
based not on any concern over what weapons Saddam Hussein might possess but sprang
from the desire of the U.S. to grab Iraq's oil.
Bush's "War on Terrorism" is not about terrorism (except insofar as staged terrorist acts are an
important part of the propaganda campaign) it's about control of all of the Earth's
economic resources, not just oil. The United States government wants economic control and
exploitation of the vast oil and mineral wealth of the Middle east and Central Asia, and if
perpetual worldwide war is required to achieve this then so be it. American foreign policy
makers believe that American military power will enable them to win such a war and that (a) a
war would enable them to remain in power indefinitely (elections will become a thing of the
past or will be rigged), (b) would be good for American (and British) weapons manufacturers
and (c) would avert the looming financial collapse and economic depression in the U.S. (since,
many believe, it worked before in the 1930s military build-up to World War II).
He [Bush] wants to divert attention from his domestic problems. It's a classic tactic. It was
used by Hitler. Former German Justice Minister Herta Dubler-Gmelin, 2002-09-20. (For
other similarities see Perils of Cocaine Abuse.)
World War III will involve the nuclear- and CBW-armed countries of India, Pakistan, Russia,
China, Britain, France, Israel and the U.S. itself, and it will mean that millions of soldiers and
civilians will die: shot, burnt, blasted, asphyxiated, crushed, incinerated, poisoned. Nor will all
these civilians be Asian; this war will also extend to the U.S. mainland and probably to Europe,
despite what the Pentagon planners intend. Violence will lead to more violence, and wars will
escalate (remember "escalation"?) until eventually nuclear weapons are used first "lowyield", later the big ones, in the megaton range, whose detonations (if there are enough of
them, and we don't know how many will be used) will produce high levels of radiation in the
atmosphere of (mainly) the Northern Hemisphere, leading to millions of cases of cancer
among the populations of Western countries.
global control of oil and energy pipelines, the quest to establish its military bases across
Eurasia, its attempt to modernize and upgrade its nuclear submarine fleet, its Strategic B-52
bomber command, all make sense only when seen through the perspective of the relentless
pursuit of US Nuclear Primacy. ...
A new Armageddon is in the making. The unilateral military agenda of Washington has
predictably provoked a major effort by Russia to defend herself. The prospects of a global
nuclear conflagration, by miscalculation, increase by the day. At what point might an
American President, God forbid, decide to order a pre-emptive full-scale nuclear attack on
Russia to prevent Russia from rebuilding a state of mutual deterrence?
The new Armageddon is not exactly the Armageddon which George Bush's Christian fanatics
pray for as they dream of their Rapture. It is an Armageddon in which Russia and the United
States would irradiate the planet and, perhaps, end human civilization in the process.
Update August 2008
Commenting on the Russia-Georgia war William Engdahl writes in Washington Risks Nuclear
War by Miscalculation:
So far, each step in the Caucasus drama has put the conflict on a yet higher plane of danger.
The next step will no longer be just about the Caucasus, or even Europe. In 1914 it was the
Guns of August that initiated the Great War. This time the Guns of August 2008 could be the
detonator of World War III and a nuclear holocaust of unspeakable horror.
This may not actually be a miscalculation by the U.S. but rather a calculated risk. The U.S.
plans to escalate hostilities between itself and Russia, with an accompanying demonization of
Russia, to the point where it can "justifiably" launch a nuclear first-strike against Russia. The
American missile base in Poland will play a central role in this war plan. For further discussion
of this see the articles by Richard Moore and comments by Peter Meyer:
American nuclear weapons will not be removed from Germany, despite their departure being
a long-term aim of the German government, it has emerged. ... [and] the government has
bowed to NATO plans to not only keep the bombs in Germany, but to modernise them.
Billions will be spent [by the Americans] on modernising the bombs themselves, while the
Bundeswehr is expected to spend around 250 million to keep its Tornado fighter jets which
would be used to drop the US nuclear bombs serviceable until 2024. ...
Karl-Heinz Kamp, research director of the NATO Defence College in Rome, said ...the US was
planning to spend around $4 billion to modernise the bombs and make them steerable rather
than just drop bombs as they are now, yet this has also brought criticism.
The modernisation of these weapons by the USA threatens to remove the strict distinction
between tactical and strategic weapons, said Gernot Erler, foreign affairs spokesman for the
opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD).
What might the Americans be thinking? Perhaps that in a first-strike against Russia such
"steerable" nuclear bombs (almost, one might say, "missiles") launched from Germany could
be very helpful.
And why are the Germans making themselves a target (despite the fact that no-one outside
the German government wants atomic bombs in Germany)?