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While its contents remain classified, the presumption is that
NSPD 35 pertains to the stockpiling and deployment of tactical
nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater in compliance
with CONPLAN 8022.
In recent developments, there are reports that Washington is
planning to launch air attacks from military bases in Romania
and Bulgaria. "American forces could be using their two USAF
bases in Bulgaria and one at Romania's Black Sea coast to launch
an attack on Iran in April [2007]," according to the Bulgarian
news agency Novinite.
3. The
Ultimate War Crime: Using Nuclear Weapons in a Conventional War
theater
Despite Pentagon statements, which describe tactical nuclear
weapons as "safe for the surrounding civilian population", the
use of nukes in a conventional war theater directed against Iran
would trigger the ultimate war crime: a nuclear holocaust. The
resulting radioactive contamination, which threatens future
generations, would by no means be limited to the Middle East.
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B61-11 NEP Thermonuclear Bomb |
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4. The
"War on Terrorism": Pretext to Wage War
In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have
instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a contingency plan "to be
employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on
the United States". Mass casualty producing events, involving
the death of civilians are being used to galvanize public
opinion in support of a military agenda. The deaths of civilian
are used to justify preemptive actions to defend the American
homeland against an alleged outside enemy, who are identified as
"Islamic terrorists".
Mass Casualty Producing Events
"A terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur]
somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States
of America – that causes our population to question our own
Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to
avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event."
General Tommy Franks,
"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is
the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World
Order." (David Rockefeller)
"As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it
may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign
policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive
and widely perceived direct external threat." (Zbigniew
Brzezinski in the Grand Chessboard)
The presumption was that if such a 9/11 type event involving the
deaths of civilians (mass casualty producing event) were to take
place, Iran would, according to Cheney, be behind it, thereby
providing a pretext for punitive bombings, much in the same way
as the US sponsored attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001,
allegedly in retribution for the alleged support of the Taliban
government to the 9/11 terrorists
More recently, several analysts have focused on the creation of
a "Gulf of Tonkin incident", which would be used by the Bush
administration as a pretext to wage war on Iran
5. The
Real Objective Of This War Is Oil
The oil lies in Muslim lands. The objective is to take
possession of the oil, transform countries into territories and
redraw the map of the Middle East
War builds a fake "humanitarian agenda". Throughout history,
vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again with a
view to ultimately justifying war and war crimes.
Demonization of the enemy serves geopolitical and economic
objectives. Likewise, the campaign against "Islamic terrorism"
(which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the
conquest of oil wealth. The term "Islamo-fascism," serves to
degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of
Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of "Western
democracy" and the "free market" as the only alternative for
these countries.
The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region
consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the
world's reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil
giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline
routes out of the region.
MIDDLE EAST
THEATRE OF WAR
Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the
United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria,
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, possess
between 66.2 and 75.9 percent of total oil reserves, depending
on the source and methodology of the estimate.
In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent
of total oil reserves. Western countries including its major oil
producers ( Canada, the US, Norway, the UK, Denmark and
Australia) control approximately 4 percent of total oil
reserves. (In the alternative estimate of the Oil and Gas
Journal which includes Canada's oil sands, this percentage would
be of the the order of 16.5%.
The largest share of the World's oil reserves lies in a region
extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian sea basin
and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the
Persian Gulf. This broader Middle East- Central Asian region,
which is the theater of the US-led "war on terrorism"
encompasses according to the estimates of World Oil, more than
sixty percent of the World's oil reserves. (See table below).
Iraq has
five times more oil than the United States.
Muslim
countries possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western
countries.
The major non-Muslim oil reserve countries are
Venezuela, Russia, Mexico,
China and Brazil. (See table)
The victims of war crimes are vilified Demonization is applied
to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world's oil
reserves. "Axis of evil", "rogue States", "failed nations",
"Islamic terrorists": demonization and vilification are the
ideological pillars of America's "war on terror". They serve as
a casus belli for waging the battle for oil.
The Battle for Oil requires the demonization of those who
possess the oil. The enemy is characterized as evil, with a view
to justifying military action including the mass killing of
civilians. The Middle East Central Asian region is heavily
militarized. (See map). The oil fields are encircled: NATO war
ships stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean (as part of a UN
"peace keeping" operation), US Carrier Strike Groups and
Destroyer Squadrons in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian deployed
as part of the "war on terrorism".
REDRAWING THE MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
6.
Historical Background: From Hiroshima to the Preemptive Warfare
Doctrine
What are the historical roots of this military agenda? What is
the balance sheet of US sponsored war crimes extending from 1945
to the present?
WHO ARE THE
WAR CRIMINALS:
BUSH IS NOT
THE ONLY WAR CRIMINAL ON THE BLOCK
US war crimes and atrocities should be seen as the direct
consequence of a foreign policy and military agenda, which
supports US corporate interests, including the oil giants, the
Wall Street financial establishment and the big six defense
contractors.
The Middle East war is the culmination of a history of US
sponsored military interventions.
The bombing of Hiroshima was the initial landmark leading to the
formulation of a "preemptive" nuclear doctrine, where nukes are
to be used in the conventional war theater.
There is a continuum: the bombing of Hiroshima was presented to
public opinion as "safe for civilians" because Hiroshima was
identified in President Truman’s August 9, 1945 radio address as
"a military base".
"The
World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this
first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of
civilians.."
(President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation,
August 9, 1945,
Listen to Excerpt of his speech,
By going through Truman’s diary, one has the distinct impression
that he firmly believed that Hiroshima was a military target.
Was he briefed on the consequences of the atom bomb?(President
Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945).
Similarly, the use of nukes against Iran is presented as an act
of self-defense, which according to the Pentagon, will minimize
the risk of "collateral damage" and protect the lives of
civilians.Prior the invasion of Iraq, the use of tactical
nuclear weapons had been contemplated as a means to assassinate
Saddam Hussein:
"If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a
good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the
B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime"
(.Defense News, December 8, 2003).
More generally, mini-nukes are considered safe to be used in a
conventional war theater:
"What's needed now is something that can threaten a bunker
tunneled under 300 meters of granite without killing the
surrounding civilian population." (Pentagon Official quoted in
Michel Chossudovsky, 2006,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060217&articleId=1988
These statements, which reflect US nuclear doctrine promote
according to Federation of American Scientists (FAS) "the
illusion that nuclear weapons could be used in ways which
minimize their ‘collateral damage’, making them acceptable tools
to be used like conventional weapons."
(See
http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001
/ click v54nl, italics added)
7.
America’s Wars of the "Post War Era"
What is referred euphemistically as the "post war era" is in
fact a period of continuous war and militarization. Since the
end of the Second World War, this "long war" seeks to establish
US hegemony worldwide.
This period is marked by a succession of US sponsored theater
wars (Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Yugoslavia), various forms of military interventions including
low intensity conflicts, "civil wars" (The Congo, Angola,
Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan) military coups, US sponsored death
squadrons (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina,
Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines), covert wars led by US
intelligence , etc.
This entire period (1945- present) has been marked by a
succession of US sponsored wars and military-intelligence
interventions in all major regions of the World (see map below).
Accounting for these various operations, the United States has
attacked, directly or indirectly, some 44 countries in different
regions of the developing world, since August 1945, a number of
them many times (Eric Waddell, 2003):
"The avowed objective of these military interventions has been
to effect ‘regime change’. The cloaks of "human rights" and of
"democracy were invariably evoked to justify what were
unilateral and illegal acts." (Eric Waddell, 2003)
The foreign policy underpinnings of what is now referred to by
Bush officials as the "long war" are to be found in what is
known as the "Truman Doctrine", first formulated by foreign
policy adviser George F. Kennan in a 1948 in State Department
brief.
What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign
policy, from "Containment" to "Pre-emptive" War. It states in
polite terms that the US should seek economic and strategic
dominance through military means:
Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only
6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as
between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we
cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of
relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of
disparity without positive detriment to our national security.
To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality
and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be
concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.
We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the
luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. (…)
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense
now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our
thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with
the aspiration to "be liked" or to be regarded as the repository
of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop
putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper
and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We
should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal
objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living
standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we
are going
to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then
hampered by idealistic slogans, the better
(George f. Kennan, 1948 State Department Brief)
8.Destroying Internationalism
The planned disintegration of the United Nations system as an
independent and influential international body has been on the
drawing board of US foreign policy since the inception of the
United Nations in 1946. Its planned demise was an integral part
of the Truman doctrine as defined in 1948. From the very
inception of the UN, Washington has sought on the one hand to
control it to its advantage, while also seeking to weakening and
ultimately destroy the UN system. The outgoing Secretary General
Kofi Annan became a tool of US foreign policy.
In the words of George Kennan:
"Occasionally, it [the United Nations] has served a useful
purpose. But by and large it has created more problems than
it has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our
diplomatic effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for
major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon
which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which
warrants most careful study and foresight on our part.
(George Kennan, 1948)
In our efforts to use the UN majority for major political
purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some
day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most
careful study and foresight on our part.
(George Kennan, 1948)
Although officially committed to the "international community",
Washington has largely played lip service to the United Nations.
In recent years it has sought to undermine it as an institution.
Since Gulf War I, the UN has largely acted as a rubber stamp. It
has closed its eyes to US war crimes, it has implemented
so-called peacekeeping operations on behalf of the
Anglo-American invaders, in violation of the UN Charter.
9. From
the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives
The Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should
be viewed as the culmination of a (bipartisan) "Post War"
foreign policy framework, which provides the basis for the
planning of the contemporary wars and atrocities including the
setting up of torture chambers, concentration camps and the
extensive use of prohibited weapons directed against civilians.
From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored
military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the
objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global
economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman
Doctrine". Despite significant policy differences, successive
Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to
George W. Bush have carried out this global military agenda.
10. US
War Crimes and Atrocities
This entire "post war period" is marked by extensive war crimes
resulting in the death of more than ten million people. This
figure does not include those who perished as a result of
poverty, starvation and disease.
What we are dealing with is a criminal US foreign policy agenda.
Criminalization does not pertain to one or more heads of State.
It pertains to the entire State system, it’s various civilian
and military institutions as well as the powerful corporate
interests behind the formulation of US foreign policy, the
Washington think tanks, the creditor institutions which finance
the military machine.
War crimes are the result of the criminalization of the US State
and foreign policy apparatus. We are dealing specifically with
individual war criminals, but with a process involving decision
makers acting at different level, with a mandate to carry out
war crimes, following established guidelines and procedures.
What distinguishes the Bush administration in relation to
historical record of US sponsored crimes and atrocities, is that
the concentration camps, targeted assassinations and torture
chambers are now openly considered as legitimate forms of
intervention, which sustain "the global war on terrorism" and
support the spread of Western democracy.
11.
Mechanisms of US Intervention
US sponsored crimes are not limited to the casualties of war and
the physical destruction of the nation’s infrastructure.
Countries are destroyed, often transformed into territories,
sovereignty is foregone, national institutions collapse, the
national economy is destroyed through the imposition of "free
market" reforms, unemployment becomes rampant, social services
are dismantled, wages collapse, and people are impoverished.
In turn, the nation’s assets and natural resources are
transferred into the hands of foreign investors through a
privatization programme imposed by the invading forces.
12. The
Perdana Initiative: Reversing the Tide of War
The Perdana Initiative to Criminalize War seeks to break the
consensus.
Once that consensus is broken, the shaky legitimacy of the
"Global War on Terrorism" collapses like a deck of cards. The
War criminals in high office do not have a leg to stand on.
To reverse the tide of war requires a massive campaign of
networking and outreach to inform people across the land,
nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces,
parishes, mosques, schools, universities, municipalities, on
the dangers of a US sponsored war which contemplates the use of
nuclear weapons. The message should be loud and clear: It is not
Iran which is a threat to global security but the United States
of America and Israel.
Debate and discussion must also take place within the Military
and Intelligence community, particularly with regard to the use
of tactical nuclear weapons, within the corridors of the US
Congress, in municipalities and at all levels of government.
Ultimately, the legitimacy of the political and military actors
in high office must be challenged.
There seems to be a reluctance by members of Congress to
exercise their powers under the US Constitution, with a view to
preventing the unthinkable: the onslaught of a US sponsored
nuclear war. The consequences of this inaction could be
devastating. Once the decision is taken at the political level,
it will be very difficult to turn the clock backwards.
Moreover, the antiwar movement has not addressed the US
sponsored nuclear threat on Iran in a consistent way, in part
due to divisions within its ranks, in part due to lack of
information. Moreover, a significant sector of the antiwar
movement considers that the "threat of Islamic terrorism" is
real. "We are against the war, but we support the war on
terrorism." This ambivalent stance ultimately serves to
reinforce the legitimacy of the US national security doctrine
which is predicated on waging the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT).
At this juncture, with the popularity of the Bush-Cheney regime
at an all time low, a real opportunity exists to
initiate an
impeachment process, which could contribute to
temporarily stalling the military agenda.
The corporate media also bear a heavy responsibility for the
cover-up of US sponsored war crimes. Until recently these war
preparations involving the use of nuclear weapons have been
scarcely covered by the corporate media. The latter must also be
forcefully challenged for their biased coverage of the Middle
East war.
What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the
media lies and distortions, confront the criminal nature of the
US Administration and of those governments which support it, its
war agenda as well as its so-called "Homeland Security agenda"
which has already defined the contours of a police State.
In response to the Perdana initaitve to criminalize war, it is
essential to bring the US-Israeli war project to the forefront
of political debate, particularly in North America, Western
Europe and Israel. Political and military leaders who are
opposed to the war must take a firm stance, from within their
respective institutions. Citizens must take a stance
individually and collectively against war.
ANNEX
A1 Categorization, Nature of US Intervention (44
countries)
CASUALTIES ARE NOT LIMITED TO KILLINGS IN THE WAR
THEATER OR OTHER MILITARY-TYPE OPERATIONS,
WE MUST ALSO ASSESS THE BROAD ECONOMIC, SOCIAL
AND INSTITUIONAL MECHANISMS AS WELL AS
THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF WAR AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
With
regard to military and covert intelligence or other command type
operations, we may distinguish between:
TW
Theater War
MC
US Instigated Military Coup
CW
US Sponsored Civil War
MP
Military policing
CO,
Covert Intelligence operation, proxy armies, death squadrons,
Countries
Afghanistan TW CW MC CO,
Angola CW CO,
Argentina MC CO,
Bangladesh MC,
Bolivia MC, Bosnia TW CW,
Brazil MC CO,
Cambodia TW CW CO,
Chile MC CO, Colombia CW CO,
Congo TW CW, Dominican
Republic MC MP CO,
El Salvador CW, MC CO,
Eritrea CW, Ethiopia
CW ,
Guatemala MC CO,
Grenada MP, Haiti MC MP CO,
Honduras MC MP
CO,
Indonesia MC CO,
Iran MC,
Iraq MC TW CO,
Japan TW ,
Laos TW
CW,
Lebanon TW CW CO MP,
Liberia, CW,
Macedonia MP,
CW CO,
Mozambique CW CO,
Nicaragua CW CO,
Nigeria CW CO,
North Korea TW
CW,
Pakistan MC CO,
Palestine CW CO,
Panama MC MP,
Philippines
MC MP CO,
Rwanda CW CO,
Serbia CW CO,
Somalia CW MP CO,
Sierra
Leone CW,
South Korea CW TW CO,
Sudan CW MP CO,
Thailand MC CO,
Uruguay MC CO,
Venezuela MC,
Vietnam TW MC CW,
Zimbabwe CW
Historical examples of US sponsored war crimes
SELECTED COUNTRY CASES
Korea (1950-1953)
North Korea lost nearly a third its population of 8 - 9 million
people during the 37-month long "hot" war, 1950 - 1953,
an
unprecedented percentage of suffered by any nation as a result
of an armed conflict. General Lemay in charge of US
operations in Korea candidly
acknowledges that the US
killed up to
20 percent of North Korea's population over that
three period of intensive bombings’
Vietnam (1954-1975)
According to Vietnamese sources,
civilian casualties resulting from the Vietnam War were of the
order of 4 million. Out of a population of 38 million during the
period 1954-1975, Vietnamese casualties represent a
12-13%
of the entire population
Indonesia
While Indonesia was not invaded by US forces, it experienced
according to a CIA report, "one of the worst
mass murders
of the
twentieth century."
Ironically it was the CIA which instigated
this plan.
"The 300-page CIA text fails to acknowledge the direct role of
the US in the massacres It essentially "blames the victims of
the killings -- the supporters of the Communist Party of
Indonesia (PKI) -- for their own deaths…
The hundreds of thousands of people shot, stabbed, bludgeoned,
or starved to death were labeled perpetrators, or would-be
perpetrators of atrocities, just as culpable for the murder of
the army generals as the handful of people who were truly
guilty."
The Congo (1998-2000)
The Congo (1998-2000) and The Sudan were US sponsored "civil
wars". Two years of war in the Congo (1998-2000) caused the
deaths of an estimated
3.8 million people, mostly from
starvation and disease.
Sudan
Two million deaths resulted from Sudan's 18-year "civil war",
which is tied into securing control over oil reserves.
Nigeria-Biafra
One million people also died during the US sponsored Nigeria-Biafra
conflict of the late 1960s, which was also linked to oil
interests.
Rwanda (1994-1995)
Between
500,000 and a million people died as a result of the
Rwandan "civil war" and genocide. Recent reports confirm that
the
US and Britain played a key role in triggering the ethnic
massacres.
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