from Laurie Ross

posted July 31, 2007

by Larry Ross

July 7, 2007

Why The Nuclear Research Centre Needs Your Support
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Culture of Peace

APPEAL TO ALL HUMANITY

By Larry Ross, Updated May, 2007

 

We live in the most dangerous times in human history. We are systematically exploiting earth's resources, destroying our environment, increasing global warming while we wage illegal wars based on lies and threaten nuclear war.  We have grown accustomed to living on the brink of a nuclear precipice with a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over us all, as President Kennedy warned in 1962. There are 8 or 9 nuclear weapon states with thousands of nuclear missile on hair trigger alert that have almost been set off by accident, miscalculation, or intention in the heat of war. This can still happen at any time and will lead to massive destruction of our planet. Billions of people would be killed – many dying slowly in great agony, with no relief or treatment. There would be few survivors if any, living miserably in appalling conditions. This would be the end of human history on a burnt-out planet earth - a failed experiment. With nuclear war there are no second chances. It would be man's fatal mistake leading to oblivion. A very few people can make decisions that will lead to human extinction. There are many wars and flash points where more wars can occur. Wars can and do expand to include more and larger weapons, even nuclear weapons, and more nations.

Widespread awareness of our growing hair-trigger nuclear perils, have motivated people, groups and governments of the world since world war II to engage in numerous disarmament discussions, international treaties, and organisation like the United Nations. Their mission was to reduce, outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons and to abolish the scourge of war. It was widely agreed, that once a nuclear war started, it could, or would, quickly escalate to a total, global, nuclear holocaust.

Yet the great powers kept making more and more nuclear weapons – enough to kill the entire population of the world 15 times over. The US and USSR had suicidal nuclear doctrines, to go with their nuclear arsenals. They said these were designed to deter a potential opponent from attacking. If deterrence failed, as it almost did on several occasions, it would be mutual suicide for all of us.

Although the facts are there - Hiroshima , Nagasaki , Chernobyl and many near misses, most of humanity remains ignorant, or have become immune, or used to, the growing nuclear threats. It has become a part of the background or an unchallenged 'fact-of-life' of our existence.

Many have been conditioned to believe and accept the necessity and usefulness of nuclear weapons to ‘keep the peace'. Governments and the mass media do not tell their publics that one mistake – that one madman in power – can destroy the world, all life, and all future generations. The potential use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations is being normalised by the Bush Administration with it's new nuclear doctrines. These are: (1) to allow the President to launch a pre-emptive nuclear war against either or both, nuclear or non-nuclear states and (2) To allow introduction of nuclear weapons into a conventional weapons conflict. Many expert articles on internet, and Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine, suggest Bush has plans to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran . The normalisation conditioning with media participation, has resulted in little public awareness, discussion or protest against the extremely dangerous and destabilizing new nuclear war doctrines, or against Bush's plans to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran .

Courageous people in the United States , England , India and many other countries have struggled for years to warn their fellow countrymen of our mutual nuclear peril. Millions clogged the streets throughout the world protesting President Bush's illegal and unjustified, lie-based war on Iraq , which could have led to a nuclear holocaust. Bush and Blair threatened to use nuclear weapons in pursuit of their illegal attack on Iraq , just as the Bush is doing now with Iran .

The risks are ever greater, and growing, because, one man, President Bush has lowered the nuclear barrier and said he could now use nuclear weapons in a variety of war situations. Bush has withdrawn from nuclear disarmament treaties and is set to make a new generation of nuclear weapons. The new US doctrines, which they invented to allow pre-emptive nuclear attacks, are based on lies and false propaganda. President Bush and his Administration have said they will make the decision when to go to war, just as they made the decision to go to war with Iraq and kill thousands of people and lay waste the country.

Yet there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ; no links with the terrorist organisation Al Qaeda; no preparations to make nuclear weapons and no intention or capability to launch an attack on the US or Britain as George Bush and Tony Blair claimed. This was all well known by millions of people who looked at the facts and evidence before the conflict. The Iraq war has become one of history's biggest hoaxes. Unfortunately they were able to fool most of their own public's and lead them into war. Although condemned by many legal organizations and by previous UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as "illegal" the US has pressured the UN to sanction and encourage other countries to help pay the costs, rebuild, repair and send troops to help pacify the new US  colony. In fact after 4 years, the Iraq war has become a nightmare quagmire killing hundreds of thousands of innocent, men, women and children and getting worse. It has become a breeding ground for terrorism where there was none before the US-UK invasion. In spite of the US lie-based Iraq nightmare, Bush, Blair and his successors, and probably John Howard are set to repeat the whole lie-based quagmire war on Iran . The UN has even been pressured by the US and  UK  to issue sanctions against Iran if it does not stop its legal activity of enriching uranium ore to fuel nuclear power reactors.

Britain has accepted the permissive new US nuclear weapons doctrines and also threatened to use nuclear weapons. Both countries are likely to use nuclear weapons if they encounter too much opposition in their future wars.

No longer are nuclear weapons considered to be weapons of last resort, but weapons of optional choice in pre-emptive strikes against both nuclear and non-nuclear enemies, selected on the basis of very lame, unproven, and even false accusations.

The world has been made a very dangerous place by the Bush Administration and its allies - Britain , Australia and Israel . Their policies are creating more terrorists encouraging nuclear proliferation and encouraging nuclear weapon states to also lower their nuclear barriers and make new battlefield nuclear weapons.

That is why we are making this appeal to you – not to allow these leaders to fulfil their promises to make more wars, potentially use nuclear weapons and risk precipitating a nuclear holocaust that could end all life.

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