To Bob on Empire

The following was prompted by a comment on my essay, 'Reactions to American Extremism'; by a guy named Bob. 

Bob wrote, 'I just can't stand the message that America is to blame for all the faults that go around the world that is just not true we are the greatest nation in the WORLD, also read what she is saying, it almost seems to me that she is kinda taking sides with bin laden and she is quoting castro'.

by Diane V. McLoughlin, September 1, 2010

Bob. Hi. I hope everything is well with you. I have a toothache I can't fix. How I feel these days (beyond the immediate of the tooth and its broader implications) is this way: I see things in a particular way because I have been studying current affairs full-time now for several years; a luxury not open to most.

The spirit of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are embedded in my DNA. I believe these rights are the inalienable rights of every single person living on this planet. People have a right to be free - from discrimination, from fear, from want, from occupation, from oppression, from resource-hungry military-backed multinational corporations, and from remote-controlled U.S. drones dropping bombs on your village compound. That's me.

I believe most Americans feel the same way, too. But the government (or, more precisely, interests with a powerful influence on government) does not believe it. And the more I learn, the more I see that it almost never has. When it looked like the government might be led in a better direction by President John F. Kennedy, for example, he was assassinated; November 22, 1963.

His brother Robert Kennedy was bravely willing to take up the challenge to run for President, by 1968. 'Kennedy stood on a platform of racial and economic justice, non-aggression in foreign policy, decentralization of power and social improvement...He aroused rabid animosity in some quarters, with J. Edgar Hoover's Deputy Clyde Tolson reported as saying, 'I hope that someone shoots and kills the son of a bitch.'[]...It has been widely commented that Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency far outstripped, in its vision of social improvement, that of President Kennedy...;'. (1)

Robert F. Kennedy was, like his brother, assassinated in cold blood; June 6, 1968.   You know what I remember about Robert Kennedy? I remember hearing that he wanted to see what life was really like for Blacks in the Deep South. What I remember is that he came back stunned that Black kids weren't getting milk. Their families could not afford milk.

Patrick Buchanan gets a lot of flack from the left, and it may well be that it's fair criticism and that I just don't know much about him. But I picked up a book of his in a Salvation Army store a few years ago, and although it could have been edited better, the message rang true in the choice facing the United States:  Republic - or Empire?

Bob, you spit out Fidel Castro's name as if he were a minion of the devil. He's a man. People have flaws. We make mistakes. But he was motivated in his younger years by the suffering of his people, to try to do something about it. He seems motivated now to stress the perils nuclear weapons pose to the people of the whole world. I see nothing but good in that.

As for my discussing the events of 9/11 and what motivated Osama bin Laden - that for one thing, we murdered over 500,000 Iraqi children during our siege of Iraq 1993-2003 - that is a discussion that is long overdue.

Empires are vicious, blood-thirsty, soulless entities, as my Mom put it to me in a chat earlier today; it doesn't matter which one, or which time in history we pick to talk about - they are all the same. Empires don't know when to stop trying to expand their centers of control, either, and that is one of the reasons they fall apart.

But another thing that empires do is lie to the people, Bob. You can't get people to occupy other countries or kill other people unless you have a damned good reason to do it - defense from imminent attack - or you lie to them because you don't have a good reason; you have evil, racist, greedy reasons. American companies such as Halliburton, now headquartered off-shore to avoid paying taxes; Kellogg, Brown and Root; Blackwater, and others - have profited beyond the dreams of Midas from the foreign adventures our government has conducted overseas.  The profit motive motivates.  Diversification of American industry  away from war is going to be key to peace.

Image, right: Donald Rumsfeld, Special
Envoy of President Ronald Reagan, and his pal,
Saddam Hussein - 1983 - Getty Images (1a)




Now, it is my view that you have been lied to your whole life, Bob.  Americans are daily inundated with lies. I view myself as a failure, because, so far at least, I have not found the right words to help. I'm only one person, I know. But who will save the people from self-destruction? I view it as self-destruction, if and when the enemies we have made for ourselves retaliate.

We have 1,000 - one-thousand - military bases and outposts; U.S. personnel is situated in 156 countries around the world.(2) That's an empire.

The take-over of the government is not complete. The people can change things. I would share that at 'War Is A Crime.org', - (link: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/caws ) - you can find a list of candidates who have signed a pledge to refuse to authorize any more war funding, if they are voted in.

There is another list, here - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/whipwars - where you can check your current representative's voting record on war funding, too.

For anyone reading this (hello, how are you, hope all is well), the first question comes down to this: Are you prepared, as a citizen of whatever country you reside in, to countenance the possibility that those in power are abusing that power? If you are not prepared to even consider that as a possibility, then time may either be short - or it is already too late.

---------------------------------
Notes:

(1)  Wikipedia, Robert F. Kennedy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy ;

(1a) 'Shaking Hands With Saddam Hussein; The U.S. Tilts Towards Iraq:  1980 - 1984'; National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 82; Edited by Joyce Battle; February 25, 2003;
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ ;

(2)  'The Worldwide Network of Military Bases; The Global Deployment of U.S. Military Personnel'; by Professor Jules Dufour; Global Research; July 1, 2007;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5564 ;

Main website:  mcloughlinpost.com
(back, 'To Bob, on Empire' posted at main website.)

Strong Recommend: Youtube - What It Means To Be An American - Have You Forgotten?

The parallels between pre-fascist Germany and today's America are as profound as
they are disturbing - Diane V. McLoughlin

Reactions to American Extremism

I don't know exactly how, but we need to stop.
They need to forgive, but I don't know how they could. 

by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 27, 2010

Writer Ross Douthat faults Americans for 'failing to recognize extremism when it’s staring them in the face...'; whenever they are, in his opinion, taken in by Islamic extremist polemicists.(1) Although there are aspects to his article where I find myself agreeing with him, when, for example, he suggests that we can't expect Muslims to behave exactly like ourselves and we should seek common ground with moderates, I think the above quote best describes most Americans about the United States itself.

When it comes to American extremism Americans don't see it, even though it is as plain as day - American Exceptionalism; American spiritual (Christian and Jewish and democratic) purity; caring, philanthropic America: this is the fiction.

Soldiers returning, some of them, come home seeing things quite differently: the reality. (1a)

If anything spurs an Islamic reactionism toward America, it has to be two things: American hypocrisy, and American terrorism.

If anything could take the gas out of the tank of Islamic reactionism it is that we stop being hypocrites and we stop terrorizing.

For individual Americans, there are acceptable excuses for not knowing or understanding America's war crimes. But Osama bin Laden didn't seem to think so, in his 2002, 'Letter to America':

'The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.' (2).

I guess nobody took the time to tell him about the Bush-Gore farce of a 2000 presidential election, or how that all turned out.

To him, in a democracy, the people choose leaders who represent their views, unlike in a dictatorship; politicians enact the will of the people in a democracy; ipso facto: all Americans are guilty.

Too simplistic. I totally disagree. In order to make good choices, you have to have information; you need to be an informed voter.

Also, stupidity is an excuse, to a degree. Stupidity has a genetic component. Half of any population has an I.Q. of 100 or less. There are all kinds of intelligence, of course: social intelligence; moral intelligence; the latter, in my view, being of far greater importance than whether or not one knows a hypotenuse from a hippopotamus.  

THE FUCKING MORONS - this is what I yelled, for example, at my T.V. during the beyond-evil American 'Shock-and-Awe' bombing campaign of Iraq when that began to unfold in 2003 - the fucking morons in the military and political leadership that dream these things up - they are another category entirely - the one labeled 'Guilty'.

Stupidity is not to be equated with illiteracy. You can be smart and not know how to read. But it is tragic that one in seven American adults can't read, making it that much less likely that they would be able to ferret out
alternative news sources beyond the mainstream. Illiteracy itself is a threat to a functioning democracy. (2a)

Wisdom only comes with time and experience, no matter how intelligent you are.
 
So, if you're stupid and you don't know or don't realize that your country is doing wrong, personally, I think you get a pass. Young and naive, again, personally, no one should blame you for not knowing what your government has been doing to others. In my own heart of hearts, young and naive tragically describes the majority of American troops, duped into fighting corporate resource wars. Ignorance and youth are two of the most important reasons why moral leadership is so vitally important to right conduct of any nation.

It is a war crime, or a crime against humanity, to target civilians. It is important to understand, however, that we have committed the same war crime of targeting civilians, ourselves.

Osama bin Laden seemed not to realize the important role mass communications and education both play in controlling what the people know and what they think. If the people are not told the truth about their country's activities, either in the news or in schools, where, exactly, are they supposed to get it in order to vote for the men and women who will best represent them? It isn't always exactly impossible, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as easy, either, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Living in a so-called democracy brings up another issue: Politicians lie.

Perhaps it is also news to bin Laden and his followers that democracy in the United States is corrupted by monied interests; it isn't working as it should. I can't bring myself to say that America's political culture is corrupt straight to the bone, but like a computer with a hidden virus using power behind the scenes for its own purposes, there is corruption.

Based on bin Laden's own argument, then, 9-11 was a crime against innocent civilians. Osama bin Laden's group thinks that Americans know what's going on and that they approve of it. And my bedrock conviction is the polar opposite: No they don't.

Most Americans do not know. Some have some degree of knowledge, but the magnitude? No way.

Perhaps this is the biggest lie of all told by America's leaders to the people: The downplaying of the sheer magnitude of the destruction, just the vast scale of the human cost in the wars we have waged in both Iraq and Afghanistan - and are now beginning to quietly wage in Pakistan with remote-controlled, armed planes called drones - as if hunting down and killing people were like some sort of computer game. The carnage in the imprecision of it is mind-boggling - for Pakistani villagers, of course, not for us.

Those in the news business that don't agree with American foreign policy, some of them say something (3). There are a few courageous writers. But more either say nothing or hold their nose and repeat the fiction. To what? Hold on to a job? I worry about maintaining a roof over my head, but I worry far more about my children living on after me in a viable world - a world with flowers, trees and honey bees. It may not happen.

That last, hints, I suppose, at one source of my impatience with right-wing writers droning on and on, or shouting, as the case may be, about radical versus moderate Islam - not an honest word nor the faintest whiff of a suggestion that we are anything but lily-white in our activities in the Middle East.

'Like what; what whiff?', the trusting citizen might ask. Good question.

A short, far from complete (with apologies) list:

Iran: 1950's CIA overthrow of the democratically-elected leadership of Iran, leading to an American puppet's reign of abject, despotic state terror against Iran's own people. Over what? Oil.
Great Britain has a hand in it. (4)

Iraq: Eight-year war between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran. The U.S. sides with Iraq, giving aid and weapons including chemical and biological weapons. A million people die. (4a)

Iraq: Ten-years military siege and bombing campaign of Iraq 1993-2003; 500,000-plus Iraqi children murdered via American biological warfare; (5; 5a)

Iraqi city of Fallujah: Alarmingly high numbers of Iraqi children today are being born genetically deformed, our use of depleted uranium nuclear-waste bullets and bombs suspected cause; (6)

2003-present: War and occupation of Iraq based on lies; (7)

Afghanistan: 2001-present, war of Afghanistan based on lies; (8) the longest war in American history, as of June 7, 2010; (8a)
(Image, right:  Rumsfeld/Saddam Hussein; Dec. 20, 1983;
                                                                             Getty Images)

1947-present: 3 billion American dollars worth of military hardware gifted to Israel every year, making the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians possible; support for Israel's various attacks, occupation, of Lebanon; destruction, cluster-bombing of Southern Lebanon, 2006.

(Image, right:  Israel attacks Gaza, code-named 'Operation Cast Lead',
                                     late-2008 - early 2009.)


----------------------------

9-11 was blow-back. It had nothing to do with religion. America's intellectual and political
leadership are afraid - they'd have to be - because of what we've done, and because of
what we continue to do.

We're the bully in the school yard sitting on some poor schmuck - sooner or later, you have to get off. What happens next, is anyone's guess.

Some of the people pissed at us come from parts of the world where most people are Muslim. But that is only the half of it. We've been stirring it up making enemies all over the place - including placing, or attempting to place, nuclear missiles at Russia's doorstep.

We have over 700 military outposts around the globe. We're in Africa; Central and South America, too. We'll be challenging, no doubt, Canada and Russia over control of the melting Arctic marine shipping routes, along with the imagined pot of gold of Arctic oil exploration. Gulf II plus territorial disputes. Grand.

Yet, all one hears is stuff about a religious faith called Islam, and in which ways it should be practiced that would be deemed acceptably uncritical of the U.S.; judged appropriate, or not - by us.

We need to wake up. We need everybody on board - Christians, Muslims, Jews, the Right, the Left - everybody. We have to realize that if we don't stop, and say 'enough!' - then it doesn't stop. Somehow, together, we must stop this evil building as it rolls downhill.

I don't know exactly how. But we need to stop. They need to forgive, but I don't know how they could.

Otherwise, where it ends could be the end. Cuba's Fidel Castro is thinking about this. He recently wrote, after conferring with scientific advisors, that it may be that it actually only takes a few nuclear bombs, rather than many, to make the world inhospitable for the continued survival of the human race in an ensuing nuclear winter; that a nuclear winter may last, not two years as is currently imagined, but ten. (9)

It is a shocking revelation to him. It is to me, too. I think I understand where Castro is coming from. He is on his way to checking out. What's going on? What's the big picture? To what aspect of world affairs might he make the most lasting contribution in the time left to him? He settles his gaze on the immensity of risk inherent in current world conflict.

Nuclear weapons have been put on the move. For several years it has been open debate about whether or not to use 'tactical' nuclear weapons against Iran.

In conclusion: If America is to be encouraged to pull back from this destructive course, the world will have to meet America half-way. For the sake of mankind's survival, the world needs to reassure an America fearful of retaliation that all efforts will be made to help defuse the justifiable anger - and let it go.

-------------------------------

Footnotes:

(1) New York Times Op Ed: 'Imam Rauf and Moderate Islam'; Ross Douthat; August 26, 2010;
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/imam-rauf-and-moderate-islam/#preview

(1a) See, for example, website, 'Iraq Vets Against the War';
http://ivaw.org/node/6111 ; also, 'Military Families Speak Out'; http://www.mfso.org/

(2) 'Letter to America'; Osama bin Laden; as published in observer.co.uk, November 24th, 2002;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

(2a) 'Literacy study: 1 in Seven U.S. Adults Are Unable to Read This Story'; Greg Toppo; USA Today; 1/8/2009;
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm

(3) For discussion, see: 'Iraq: Why the Media Failed'; Gary Kamiya; Salon.com; April 10, 2007; the writer
highlights notable and noble examples of American journalistic excellence in criticizing the proposed Iraq war.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/kamiya/2007/04/10/media_failure

(4) 'New York Times Special Report: CIA in Iran'; James Risen; NYT on the web; 2000; notes it was a joint goal of the CIA and Britain's SIS;
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

(4a) 'Partners in Crime: US Complicity in the War Crimes of Saddam Hussein'; Paul Rockwell; December 23, 2003; Common Dreams;
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1223-11.htm

(5) 'BBC News Middle East Iraqis blame sanctions for child deaths'; Jeremy Bowen; August 12, 1999; notes that the 500,000 figure comes from Unicef estimates;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/418625.stm ;

(5a) 'We Think the Price Is Worth It'; Rahul Mahajan; Fair Extra!; November/December 2001;
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084

(6) 'Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah'; David Randall; The Independent; September 15, 2009;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-munitions-may-be-cause-of-baby-deaths-and-deformities-in-fallujah-1820971.html ;

(7) Youtube clip: President George W. Bush admits there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE

(8) Excellent analysis by Eric Margolis: 'Afghanistan: A War Of Lies'; LewRockwell.com; c. Eric Margolis, 2009;
http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis165.html ;

(8a) 'Afghan war is now longest war in U.S. history'; Thomas Nagorski; ABC News; June 7, 2010;
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/afghan-war-now-longest-war-us-history/story?id=10849303

(9) 'Nuclear Winter'; Fidel Castro, as published in CounterCurrents; August 24, 2010;
http://www.countercurrents.org/castro240810.htm ;

Youtube clip ABC Primetime - How Muslims Are Treated In USA

An encouraging note to the majority of Americans:

In this video, in an experiment by the American television station ABC News,
far more Americans speak out than don't, in a shop,
against the hateful discrimination of the shop worker who refuses to serve
the young Muslim woman wanting to shop there.  (see at 3 min..)

One who speaks out is a man whose son served in Iraq. He is reduced to tears at the thought
that anyone in America would be treated this way; that this is not what his
country stands for (5 min. 20 secs.)   He would be apoplectic if he knew that
his son was used as a tool to destroy an entire country to get at its oil reserves,
as well as to maintain the evil Zionist regime in Israel which continues to ethnically cleanse
the Palestinian people.

                                                 - Diane V. McLoughlin, August 28, 2010

Video: Man Mistaken for Muslim Harassed at NY Anti-Mosque Rally

They think 9-11 was a religious act. It wasn't. 9-11 was retaliation
for the hundreds of thousands we murdered in Iraq - amongst other things -
Diane V. McLoughlin

Youtube: Ilan Pappe on "The Nakba of Palestine"

Ron Paul: Goal Of Protesting WTC Mosque Is To Blame Islam For 9/11

Link: Government Fund Divests from Settlement Companies - Norwatch

FTA: Norwegian government divests from Africa Israel Investments and its subsidiary Danya Cebus Ltd. which builds settlements on occupied West Bank land.

Government Fund Divests from Settlement Companies - Norwatch

Link: Quartet Statement, New York, 20 August 2010

Quartet Statement, New York, 20 August 2010

Ground Zero mosque: A monument to modernity

Comment:

This is a brilliant argument from Andrew Potter, the test for me always being 'damn! Why didn't I think of'' this or that point. However. It seems to me that the key is 9-11. Subtracting the flowery religious words in Osama bin Laden's 'Letter to Ameica', weherein he explains why they hit America that day, and it comes down to this:

'You attacked us [Iraq, Somalia, etc.] and you continue to attack us.'

9-11 had absolutely nothing to do with Islam or Muslims. It was an act of retaliation for international war crimes committed by the U.S. overseas. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered. Make that case, show that Muslims have been victimized, and this unfounded resentment and fear of Muslims would be gone.

But, that people think that they are bad, is the useful Big Lie. So now we ourselves face the test: Can we do any better against the Big Lie than those tested before us?

- editor, mcloughlinpost.com
P.S.: free Gaza


Ground Zero mosque: A monument to modernity
Ottawa Citizen, Andrew Potter, August 22, 2010

Youtube - Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed

Youtube: VANUNU FREEDOM OF SPEECH MAY 23-2010.m4v

All U.S. Citizens - Muslims Included - Are Victims - Of The Big Lie

by Diane V. McLoughlin, main website mcloughlinpost.com

August 20, 2010:   Timothy McVeigh was Christian - so we should demolish all churches within two blocks of the Oklahoma City bombing. Right?   Of course not.

American Muslims died on 9-11 in the World Trade Center, too.

Please try to weigh this for yourself because you have been lied to by your government and the mainstream media. It is a big lie. The fascists in Nazi Germany somehow knew that big lies are actually more readily accepted by the people, because their minds reflexively refuse to believe that their government would tell lies so big - so they think, it must be true.

The 9-11 attack was not a religious act. It wasn't a group of people attacking the U.S. for our 'freedoms', or whatever. 9-11 was revenge - it was a reaction - to the war atrocities we had committed, and continue to commit, on a massive scale - in Iraq and elsewhere.

Yes, the people in the planes were Muslim. But they were in those planes to tell America to stop killing; that killing begets killing - and eye for an eye.  (Pictured left: An American soldier cradles a severely wounded Iraqi child.)

If a foreign power destroyed 500,000 of our children, as we did in Iraq, we'd send a message. We do send messages: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden - on the heads of civilians - we don't care about civilians, that's a lie - so we should stop the hypocrisy, because I am sick of it.
 
Diane V. McLoughlin is a writer and peace activist particularly interested in Israel-Palestine.

CENSORED - NYT comment to Douthat on the Mosque - wrong, wrong, wrong.

The following comment which I posted following a NYT article was bounced.

In a general way, Ross Douthat isn't wrong when he says that there are two aspects to America: The absolute ideal of liberty and justice for All is one side of America, along with the cultural imperative for new-comers to absorb certain American cultural norms - the latter having a lot to do with the first absolute, in my opinion.

We believe in individual rights. Within the law, each individual has the right to say, or do, or believe something different from their neighbor. This is something I am sure that has to be learned, but it is also, I am sure, highly desired by most immigrants - which inspired them to come to America in the first place.

So far so good. But the writer then tries to make a hard-right segue into arguing that the 'second America' that 'speaks English' and no other - the blend-and-assimilate America - is rightly offended at the proposal to establish a mosque or Muslim cultural center or whatever you want to call it, two blocks from 9-11's Ground Zero, why? Because it is a 'sign of disrespect', and because we harbor the 'darker suspicion that Islam in any form may be incompatible with the American way of life.'

He admits that this might sound a 'xenophobic note' but lightly steps over that slight quandry to his target of justifying the Second America's protest.

I'll give that there is some degree of necessity for societal cohesion in the expectation, to a degree, of assimilation. But all too often this line is crossed into hatred, racism and intolerance toward anyone different from ourselves.

The issue of the mosque is black and white. It cuts to the core of what it means to be American. There are no shades of gray. Out of this malodorous fog ignorance, intolerance, hatred and fear further spread.

This is strictly a religious freedom issue. It is a tolerance issue. It is playing out against a very black backdrop where, just as from time to time in America's past, darkened momentarily here, there - real people who, in this case, identify themselves as Muslims, are being discriminated against, shunned and worse in their communities.

Douthat insinuates that too many Muslims hold 'illiberal' views that are considered to be 'beyond the pale'. I've got news for him. Many Americans - White, non-Muslim Americans - believe that America WAS an accessory to the crime of 9-11.

Let's get this straight. Under President Clinton, we are responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. That's just the children. We starved them. And we poisoned them by bombing, deliberately, Iraq's water treatment plants - in a desert. Then, we refused to permit the importation of children's vaccines.

We maintained a military siege upon Iraq for TEN YEARS before we invaded militarily.

Osama bin Laden clearly cited what we did to Iraq as one of the top three reasons for the 9-11 attack.

But the people in the World Trade Center were civilians. Yes. That's true. It was wrong. But, what do you think: Were Iraq's children members of Saddam's army?

Three-thousand people here, we invade both Iraq and Afghanistan; we go to war. 500,000 children we kill somewhere else and it is forbidden to discuss it.

We are awash, in America, of so much spilled blood that it will be a wonder if we can ever wash this stain out of the national character.

On Israel, many Americans don't just believe - they know - that Hamas is the legitimate political party duly-elected by the Palestinian people, and that they should never have been designated a terrorist group. Such designations are too often used as a political ploy to avoid hammering out peace deals - and so it is in the case of the oppressed, dispossessed Palestinian people - long the victims of a racist Israel bent on its continuing program of ethnic cleansing.

Americans pay for Israel's armaments which enables Israel; to the tune of three billion in American tax dollars-worth of military hardware - each and every year.

Douthat's last point is as loathsome as it is incorrect. 9-11 was NOT committed in the name of Islam.

I applaud Mayor Bloomberg and the local community for giving their full backing to the planned mosque - for all the right reasons.

If we want a society built on the highest of constitutional and brotherly ideals, the shortest way to get there is to treat people the way we would wish to be treated. Here. And across the seas over there. It's as easy, and as profound, and as challenging as that.

editor, mcloughlinpost.com

---------------------------------------------
New York Times' Ross Douthat Op Ed column, 'Islam and the two Americas'; August 15, 2010

Today - NYT comment No. 70 Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings

Comment (link) by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 20, 2010


The cultural center must be built, as is, where is.

The cultural center is not the problem here. The problem is the country is deteriorating because the people have been lied to, for so long, that they no longer know what is true.

As Ground Zero is on the New York Times' home turf, I hold it highly responsible.

When 9-11 occurred, the thing of utmost importance that needed to transpire, above and beyond anything else - from a news organization's perspective - was to analyse why it occurred. All the other questions were addressed: How, where, who, when, what?

On too many fronts, 'why' has been MIA in the mainstream American press for too long. Why did 9-11 happen? Why did they do it?

They hate us for our 'freedoms', was a direct insult, a slap in the face, to the collective intelligence.

The answers, should a news organization care to look for them, were simple and easy to obtain. Osama bin Laden published his 'Letter to America' itemizing, in a short list, what he viewed as America's crimes.

Even now, the New York Times doesn't want to discuss it. My comment to Douthat's 'Two Americas' several days ago, was censored.

Bin Laden had three top reasons for the 9-11 attack. Woefully few are the numbers of Americans that know them. I'll get to Barack Obama's shamefully inadequate response to the mosque controversy in a second.

I forget the order, but One: America is directly responsible for the murders of 500,000 Iraqi children. That is, a half-million children, not counting the adults, we killed in the ten-year military bombing and siege campaign we waged against Saddam Hussein's Iraq under President Clinton.

We bombed the water treatment plants - in a place that is in large part desert. We embargoed children's vaccines.

It is important to understand what we did: We waged biological warfare against Iraq's most vulnerable citizens. As night follows day, they died.

Two: We assist in buttressing the non-democratic regime in Saudi Arabia
- bin Laden is/was a Saudi citizen.

Three: Our direct financial and military support of Israel's ongoing oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people (to the tune of 3 billion in U.S. tax-dollars, most in military hardware, each and every calendar year.)

9-11 was blowback. It was not, it had not, anything to do with Islam or Muslims. They happened to be Muslims. 9-11 was not part of a holy war to spread the faith or to destroy anothers'.

So three-thousand murdered over here, apparently this is sufficient for us to go to war over there.

But we kill 500,000 children over there before that, and you are going to sit there on your couch and tell me that they'll suck it up? There isn't an American on this planet that would think that - if they knew.

But Americans, instead, have been encouraged on the sly to assume that it's Muslims that are the enemy. They aren't the enemy. They are victims, just like good-hearted Americans have been hoodwinked - by their own government.

Obama should be ashamed of himself. When it reached his ears that some Americans wrongly had been led to believe that he is Muslim, he should have come out and challenged the bigots: So what? So what if I were? You got a problem with Muslims? What, you some kind of racist?

Instead, he reinforces the notion that Islam is somehow less desirable, not me, I'm no Muslim, deepening the threat to everybody's liberty because either we're all free, or none of us are secure in our freedom.

Now why would he do that?

Hopefully, you get the idea.

editor, mcloughlinpost.com

*Comment No. 70.  In response to, 'Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings Locally'; Paul Vitello, NYT; Aug. 20, 2010

Youtube: Palestinians under Occupation - women and children treated like cattle

No. 56 - on Why Not to Bomb Iran

by Diane V. McLoughlin
      


One small nuclear bomb did this to Hiroshima. Today's
nuclear weapons hold ten to fifteen times the destructive force.

August 18, 2010 - Comment No. 56:  I cannot get over the dreadful feeling that, on the business of speaking out against aggressive, unnecessary military action I am perpetually a dollar short and a day late no matter how hard I try. Today I read that John Bolton is telling the Israelis that in light of Russia's impending delivery of fuel rods for nuclear energy generation in Iran, there is but eight days left for Israel to strike. (see in J-Post.) Meanwhile, the U.S. is spending more on nuclear weapons funding (2) than in any time in U.S. history, New START or no New START. Enough false starts. Let's try something new: Full STOP.

- editor, mcloughlinpost.com

----------------------------

To:  'Why Not to Bomb Iran'; Robert Wright; Aug. 17, 2010; NYT

(1)  'Israel has 8 days to strike Iran'; J-Post.com staff; Aug. 17, 2010
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=185044

(2) 'Obama wants 80 billion to upgrade nuclear arms complex'; Susan Cornwell, Phil Stewart; Reuters; May 13, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64C5KP20100513

*My Amazon recommend:  'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' - by Israel-based historian Ilan Pappe

Link: Religious tolerance, then and now

Religious tolerance, then and now

FREE THE WIKILEAKS SUSPECT Bradley Manning

Link: Harvard University fund sells all Israel holdings - Globes

Harvard University fund sells all Israel holdings - Globes

Today's NYT's pro-war editorial: The State of War (Afghanistan) - comment No. 68

by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 13, 2010

68:  Comments posted before me have analysed and brilliantly debunked every argument in this NYT pro-Afghanistan war editorial.

Points made: Afghanistan did not cause 9-11. We impoverish ourselves, armaments manufacturers excepted, while unnecessarily destroying a third-world country. Our government has repeatedly lied to us - there is no acceptable rationale for attacking Afghanistan. Vietnam, not Afghanistan, was America's longest war - we learned nothing from it and repeat many of the same mistakes. The American people are against the Afghanistan war. The disconnect between the voters' wishes and the power elite is complete; so I would add, this is no democracy.

Another item: a huge oil deposit has been 'discovered' in Northern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, as per usual, the Chinese - brilliance, plus - slip quietly in the back door, signing deals to extract natural resources - as we should. Apparently impoverishing ourselves, risking the lives of our young people, and taking the lives of Afghanis is our idea of taking the higher road.

-----------------
1. 'The State of War'; New York Times; August 13, 2010;  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/opinion/13fri1.html ;

2.  Huge Oil Deposit Discovered in Northern Afghanistan; tolonews; August 12, 2010;
http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/278-huge-oil-deposit-discovered-in-northern-afghanistan

FREE GAZA - dialogue with an Israel supporter

by Diane V. McLoughin

The following is an interesting personal message sent to me which is critical of my recent piece, 'FREE GAZA'.

I responded using the greater-than (>) sign to pin my points where I respond. I feel bad about the acrimony:

Dear Ms. McLoughlin,

This article is an example of distorted news coverage.

>I disagree.

While there is legitimately much to criticize in the way that Israel responds

>This paints Israel as the victim - *reacting* - never instigating - revealing a misinformed bias;

I object to one-sided, dishonest and manipulative reporting

>I also have objections: to one-sided, dishonest and manipulative responses;

I object to a double standard

>Me, too

Israel being painted as the sole villain while Hamas is exonerated despite exploiting its own people and committing terrorism

>Hamas is the democratically-elected representative political party of the Palestinian people; the P.A. exploits its people in my opinion, and colludes with the occupier, Israel; you are woefully uninformed as to who and what Hamas is and what Hamas proposes (1), which is most unfortunate, considering your apparent engagement in the public square;

There has been both a continuous Jewish presence and a continuous Arab presence in the holy land since antiquity

>This is a complete misrepresentation of the historical facts. Palestine was an Arab region with a tiny Jewish minority. Jews, misguided by fanatical, lieing political and religious leadership, in their European plight, were hoodwinked into immigrating to 'a land with no people' - which was a complete, out-and-out lie.

And in recent times, additional Jews, and additional Arabs, have migrated there from other lands.

>Again, misrepresentation.

Both people have a right to live there in peace.

>Yes. But what I take you to really mean to say is that Jewish settlers, then, have an equal right to outright steal - murder, if necessary - that which is not theirs, because there is an 'equal' claim.

It is equally tragic when civilians are killed, whether they are Arab or Israeli.

>Show me where I ever stated otherwise.

However, you are misrepresenting history. Example; The map of Israel that you have labeled "Israel 1949-1967" is actually a map of Israel after the 6 Day War of 1967. Israel annexed this land in 1967, only after being threatened with annihilation on all fronts by its Arab neighbors.

>I suggest accessing real history books, such as Ilan Pappe's, 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'.

I support Palestinian statehood, but not at the cost the destruction of Israel.

>Define 'destruction of Israel'. I suspect it will be racist in nature, that is, that to you, if Israel is not exclusively Jewish in character, then it is not 'Israel'. 23% of Israel proper is Palestinian-Israeli; plus besieged Gaza, plus occupied West Bank, plus the refugees, plus, plus, plus. The fact of the matter is that the numbers of Palestinians to Jews is pretty close to a perfect 50-50 split. The chorus grows ever louder for one
bi-national state.

I accept legitimate criticism of Israel, as I do of my own country, the USA, but I can't accept slander in either case.

>The typical Zionist slant: All time taken up with attack, a pastiche at the end saying that of course, legitimate criticism of Israel is permitted - but admission of Israel's crimes never actually transpires.

I am trying to figure out if you are just misinformed or you are being paid to tell lies.

>I am informed. Paid?  No, I am not in anybody's pocket.
I don't like getting personal - I am trying to help - but your insults border on slander. So the truth of it is that in my opinion you are brainwashed with bromides that are lies. And until enough people like you are able to see the situation for what it is, Israel, that which you care about so, will never have peace, because her supporters do not realize her self-destructive ways and so do nothing to steer her clear from rocky shoals. Is it peace you want, though?

>Or land.

In either case, the truth matters.

>Yes, that would be what I care about. The truth. Justice. And peace.

--------------
Footnote:  The woman wrote back to say that her main objection was that in her opinion the map which accompanies my FREE GAZA article is inaccurate.  I wrote her back again with a few observations to share while expressing my sincere regret at the poor tone of our original exchange.

(1)  'Hamas renews offer to end fight if Israel withdraws'; with editing by Kevin Liffey; Reuters; May 30, 2010; http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64T2AM20100530

Link - Huge Oil Deposit Discovered in Northern Afghanistan

Huge Oil Deposit Discovered in Northern Afghanistan

Link - Is QE2 finally the economic collapse? - Aug. 11, 2010

Is QE2 finally the economic collapse? - Aug. 11, 2010

Link: ECESG Response to Israeli PM Netanyahu’s testimony to the TurkelCommission: Statement is a “pointless pantomime of political propaganda.”

Israel - Obstruction One, Peace Blank

 by Diane V. McLoughlin

August 11, 2010:  The New York Times appears to be stuck in some sort of fantastical time-warp, while Israel's master planners have marched on. There are over 500,000 illegal Jewish colonizers on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank. There is, interestingly, not one word about that wrinkle in your two-state argument.

The two-state solution is dead. See the Youtube where Netanyahu is caught telling settlers that he 'killed Oslo', proudly so. I feel it important enough to have it front-paged.

Abbas? Abbas has no mandate. For him to deal on behalf of the Palestinian people would be a criminal act, it would seem to me. Abbas's political term in office expired many months ago. A new election must be held.

As for the continued attempts to de-legitimize Hamas, that they are, quote: 'rejectionist rivals', does not square with Reuters' report in May, 2010:

'Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has stated explicitly that the Palestinian Islamist group will end its armed struggle against Israel if the Jewish state withdraws from Palestinian land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.' (1)

Israel is an Apartheid regime, with rights, privileges and the vote for Jews and none for occupied Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

*Comment 104 to NYT editorial, 'President Abbas and Peace Talks'; August 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/opinion/11wed1.html

(1) 'Hamas renews offer to end fight if Israel withdraws'; Reuters; May 30, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64T2AM20100530

Free Gaza

by Diane V. McLoughlin

August 9, 2010: Israel's September, 2005 withdrawal of troops and colonizers from Gaza did not cause the Hamas 'problem'. Israel turning Gaza into the world's largest prison camp, did.
Israel, the United States and the European Union refusing to respect the results of the January, 2006 Palestinian election - an election that was internationally monitored and deemed free and fair - in which Hamas won 74 of 132 seats (56%) - is the problem.

 The U.S. colluding to arm the electoral losers, encouraging an attempted coup (1; 1a) against Hamas in Gaza, forcing Hamas to defend the voters' democratic choice while hardening political and philosophical differences between Palestinians - these are all problems squelching prospects for peace.

Israel utilizing terrorism on the 1.5 million men, women and children of Gaza in the effort to so demoralize them that they will accept crumbs in place of life's banquet to which they are entitled, as all free peoples are - again, this is the root of the Israel-Palestine problem.*

In the most recent humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it has come about that Gaza's hospitals have had to declare a state of emergency. (2) Gaza's main power plant has had to curtail electricity generation for twelve hours of each day due to a severance of fuel supply over a payment dispute.  Without power to run medical equipment, such as dialysis machines and new-born incubators, dozens of lives are at risk of being lost.

Gaza, into its fourth year of a vicious military siege by Israel, is dependent upon a tenuous supply chain that runs through both the West Bank and Israel, for its fuel.  As relayed in the press, who should have paid the bill, but didn't, is unclear to me.  But if the problem emanates from Gaza, the fault lies with Israel's programme of Gaza's economic destruction.

The darkest of ironies is that Gaza is rich in off-shore energy resources. (3)  There are natural gas fields valued in the billions situated within Gaza's territorial waters.  Gaza's natural gas field is being exploited by Israel with the collusion of Egypt - while Gaza starves, shivering in rags, in the dark:




It is factually untrue that Hamas cannot be tested on peace. They have made numerous gestures and sacrifices that were, have been, and are opportunities that Israel could and should have seized upon - but Israel chooses otherwise.   In a 2006 interview with the Washington Post, Ismail Haniyah, Hamas's prime minister stated: "If Israel withdraws to the '67 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages." (4)  Which, of course, hasn't happened.

In fact, as recently as May, 2010, Hamas has explicitly restated this position:  Withdrawal by Israel from Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, and the armed struggle would end. (5)

There isn't a group of people on this Earth that is entirely comprised of saints - that includes Hamas.  But the main problem is Israel. The problem will remain Israel until the U.S. - which donates over 3 billion in U.S. tax dollars every year to Israel - actually means peace when it talks peace.
Israel does not want peace as much as Israel wants the land - and of course, the debate is, really, with or without the Palestinians in it.

And the two-state solution? Israel chose to destroy that option by occupying and populating Palestinian land.  Israel today is an Apartheid regime - rights, status and privilege for Jews - oppression for the Palestinians. And when the Palestinians try to defend themselves, Israel and allies throw up their hands in faux-despair, 'See?!'

In their collective self-delusion, they fail to realize that yes, more and more do see.

We see.

----
*The West Bank is currently occupied and terrorized as well; Palestinian population of West Bank approx. 2,000,000 (CIA World Fact Book); efforts at ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem continue.

(1)  'The Coup Against Hamas'; Eric Margolis; LewRockwell.com; June 26, 2007 ;

(1a)  Noam Chomsky on the Israel-U.S. 'project'; 2007, as published in New Internationalist.

(2)  'Gaza hospitals declare emergency'; Press TV; August 8, 2010 ;

(3) YouTube link for above; Press TV:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWNb5Oho-Wg  ;

(4)  'We Do Not Wish to Throw Them Into the Sea'; Lally Weymouth interview with Ismail Haniyah; February 26, 2006 ;

(5)  'Hamas renews offer to end fight if Israel withdraws'; with editing by Kevin Liffey; Reuters; May 30, 2010

The Brotherhood of Man (1946; 10 min.36 sec)

Even The Troops Are Waking Up

The Israeli Lobby - A Danger To The World - Banned Documentary (4/5)

Edward R. Murrow YouTube on Defending Freedom During the So-Called Red Scare (March 9, 1954)

Jewish Voice for Peace on the Moral Decay of American Jewish Leadership

August 5, 2010:  The plan to build a mosque in the vicinity of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan has predictably brought out a fresh wave of Islamophobia and calls to move the mosque elsewhere. Sadly, some of the Jewish organizations that are supposed to oppose bigotry have placed themselves on the wrong side of the issue.

The American Jewish Committee, tasked with promoting democratic and pluralistic societies, has given its conditional approval for the building the mosque as planned, but only after equating Islam with terrorism.(1) The Anti-Defamation League--tasked with fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism--has called for the Manhattan mosque to be moved to a different location.(2) The Simon Wiesenthal Center, tasked with confronting bigotry and racism, also opposes the building of the mosque in its location.(3) Meanwhile it continues to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.(4)

They are failing us in Manhattan. They are failing us in Jerusalem.

Jewish-American political writer Peter Beinart looked at the ADL's opposition to the mosque and connected the dots: "Indifference to the rights and dignity of Palestinians is a cancer eating away at the moral pretensions of the American Jewish establishment. Last Friday, in the case of the ADL, we learned just how far that cancer has spread."(5)

In their public statements, the ADL and the AJC have counted the many ways they've come in defense of Muslims, be they in the US, Bosnia, Germany, France-everywhere except Israel and Palestine. They are unlikely to speak out if the Israeli Army follows through on plans to demolish a mosque in Jenin in the Occupied West Bank.(6)

Please ask your friends to sign our open letter to the leaders of the Anti Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, and Simon Wiesenthal Center, insisting that they denounce Israel's increasing violations of human rights, dignity, and democratic values, including midnight raids on activists, media gag orders, crushing nonviolent protest, and silencing NGO's.(7)

These American Jewish leaders are too often on the wrong side of issues and betray our Jewish values of truth and justice. Their blind support for Israel's government is leading them to engage in Islamophobia and support injustices, both here and abroad. We deserve better.

Thanks,

Sydney Levy,  Jewish Voice for Peace

(1) American Jewish Committee Opposes Mosque Too, Aug 3, 2010 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/american-jewish-committee_b_669424.html), Build the Cordoba Center? Aug 2, 2010 (http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=6154567&ct=8552121¬oc=1)

(2) The Mosque at Ground Zero, Aug 2, 2010 (http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Interfaith/Mosque_Ground_Zero.htm)

(3) Call to the SWC, Aug 4, 2010.

(4) Petition to Save Palestinians' Mamilla Cemetery from the Simon Wiesenthal Center's plans to Build over It (http://www.juancole.com/2010/03/petition-to-save-palestinians-mamilla.html)

(5) Hateful Ground Zero Hypocrisy, Aug 2, 2010 (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-02/the-anti-defamation-leagues-ground-zero-mosque-hypocrisy/full/)

(6) IOF gives demolition notices to a mosque and houses in Jenin, Jul 31, 2010 (http://www.globalpost.com/webblog/israel-and-palestine/iof-gives-demolition-notices-mosque-and-houses-jenin)

(7) Take for example the case of Ameer Makhoul, a prominent Palestinian Israeli human rights defender, who was arrested in the middle of the night in front of his children, held without charges, denied a lawyer for 12 days, tortured, and then disappeared under a strict media gag order which was partially lifted after widespread protest. You can read more about his case in a letter we sent to the State Department last week (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11431.shtml). Many other cases are documented here: http://theonlydemocracy.org/ for details.

Can Migraines Cause Mood Swings? - Consults Blog - NYTimes.com

Exceptional health series on migraines.  Today's article:

Can Migraines Cause Mood Swings? - Consults Blog - NYTimes.com

No More Hiroshimas Republicans - Lets Make a Deal

By Diane V. McLoughlin, mcloughlinpost.com

August 6, 2010:   This year marks both the 65th anniversary of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima, and renewed negotiations between Russia and the United States to drastically reduce the number of launch-ready nuclear weapons between the two most heavily nuclear-armed countries in the world;  an act of sane world stewardship.

New START (strategic arms reduction treaty), which was signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian Federation President Demitri Medvedev, on April 8, 2010, is to be roundly praised and applauded. (1)

It is bordering on a psychotic break with reality that Republican obstructionism and cheap electioneering could find the U.S. side scuttling a golden opportunity to drastically reduce the number of deployed nuclear warheads in the world - potentially increasing the odds of an eventual nuclear Armageddon.   Republican partisanship by extreme-right ideologues such as Mitt Romney is now beneath contempt. (2)

Why shouldn't U.S. law makers ratify the nuclear weapons reduction treaty? Some of the obvious arguments that need to be addressed:

We can't trust them; what about China (and Pakistan, India, North Korea, Iran and Israel?);  and 'first-strike' capability concerns.

Trust is something we build. It doesn't magically spring up from out of the ground, folks. In order to pull back from possible confrontation, to avoid misunderstanding, we must take measures to build trust.

China and other countries: If we step back a distance from total world nuclear destruction, as with New START, even if measured in inches, it's a statement. And in New START, the proposal is to reduce the total number of U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 - a whopping reduction by two-thirds from 1991 levels, and a thirty percent reduction from 2002.  One negative with this nuclear warhead reduction treaty is that the number of nuclear warheads that are 'operationally inactive' (stockpiled) will continue to be counted in the thousands.

So there is still more to do.  I cannot imagine that a single city or town would be left standing, either in the United States or in Russia, in a full-on nuclear confrontation with 1,550 nuclear warheads at the ready. (3) But a step back is not either nothing - or a step forward toward the abyss. New START is aptly named; it would encourage more inches away from the edge of mankind's destruction. Should we invite other nuclear-armed states to the arms-reduction party? Uh...yes?

A NYT editorial alludes to a crucial point: We should not use this New START as a cover to initiate development of even bigger and more lethal nuclear weapons to replace those we dismantle.  (4)

It doesn't get much more weird than to say that there are some businesses that are in the nuclear weapons manufacture and maintenance business.  And anyone in a business wants to stay in business.

Wherever businesses are located they are, guaranteed, to be located in some politician's backyard who has to look somewhere for money to husk for votes in order to stay in power.

Lead, persuade or follow: the politician's perennial choice. While weighing the options, the new movie,
'The Road' (5) should be compulsory viewing for, come to think of it, every single one of the world's politicians - and citizens. It's a good refresher on just how bad a post-nuclear apocalyptic world will be. I would throw in this clip 'Nuclear Nightmare' (6) from the movie, 'Terminator II', as well as this YouTube clip from 'The Day After':





The truth of it is that if anyone, anywhere, pushes the button, it's MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction - game over - where you are over there, and where I am, over here, as illustrated in the Matthew Broderick movie, 'War Games'. In the movie, it was feared that the Pentagon supercomputer confused a war game with the real thing.  The computer illustrates the trajectory of nuclear weapons that would be deployed; the computer concludes that no one can win:



The longer time stretches out without nuclear incident, without the world's complete nuclear disarmament, I fear the more complacent our false sense of security will become.

One of the biggest nuclear war building blocks of trust the world had, the Bush II administration destroyed, actually. It is impossible to overstate what a dangerous move this is. Before, it was American policy that we would never be first to reach for the nuclear button. Post 9-11, Bush changed that. He said that from henceforth we reserved the right to strike preemptively.  As an emotional reaction, understandable; nevertheless, that was a bad, bad move. What did W's administration think opponents would do with their own nuclear strategy other than adopt preemption themselves? 

At roughly 900 military installations around the globe, one gets a strong feeling that the U.S. can only push things so far without fear of blowback.  Logically, fear of blowback must be a tremendous source of inertia inhibiting American pullback. 

In the end, there are only a few ways to deal with who we perceive as our enemies:  Ignore them, destroy them or befriend them. The most revered of American Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, famously disclosed that to him the latter is the preferred course - eliminate our enemies by making them our friends.  To achieve critical MAS - Mutually Assured Survival - it is the only course open to us that will sustain the human race.

With ever-increasing pressures threatening to destabilize peace and human security, from global population growth causing all of us to scramble for fewer and fewer natural resources, to global warming and, conversely, depleting fossil fuel sources, mankind is imminently capable of creative problem solving - that's the positive - but we have got to get it together.  

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is a welcome ray of hope in these politically unstable and troubled times.

Republicans, Democrats:  Embrace New START.   It may be the most important vote you ever make. 

- Writer,  Diane V. McLoughlin

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes

*There are thousands of nuclear bombs in existence in the world today.  The average size (destructive force) of one bomb is approximately 300 kilotons (kT) which is equal to 600 million pounds of dynamite.  A cursory Google search finds that the largest U.S. nuclear bomb is the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), at 335 kT.

A nuclear weapon of this size causes destruction 10 - 15 times greater than that of the nuclear blast at Hiroshima, and creates a mass fire radius outward from the blast's center of approximately 65 miles. Destruction:  Total.  Radiation contamination downwind would render hundreds of square miles of land uninhabitable.   (For more, please see: 'The effects of a 300 kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above Washington D.C.'; by Steven Starr; Nov. 2005. wagingpeace.org)

Even a minor nuclear conflict between two lesser states could blast and burn so much particulate matter into the atmosphere that the world's protective ozone layer would be severely damaged, and catastrophic cooling would affect our ability to grow food.

A major nuclear war is capable of creating what is referred to as a global 'nuclear winter'; possibly plunging the temperature even to below freezing in summer over much of the world's agricultural production zones. The ability to grow crops would be destroyed for most, it is feared, with obvious and catastrophic results.

(1)  Treaty Between the United States of America and the
Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of  Strategic Offensive              Arms; initial signing, April 8, 2010, ratification yet pending.   http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140035.pdf

(2) See: 'John F. Kerry:  How New START Will Improve Our Nation's Security'; Washington Post; July 7, 2010;   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/06/AR2010070603942.html?sub=AR ;

(3)  Key Facts about the New START Treaty
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/key-facts-about-new-start-treaty ;

(4)  NYT editorial, 'Ratify the Treaty'; Aug. 1, 2010;  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/opinion/02mon1.html?_r=1 ;

(5)  YouTube clip, movie, 'The Road'; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CwJHxEQ0WA&feature=related ;

(6) YouTube clip of the 'Nuclear Nightmare scene', from the movie, 'Terminator II'
[CAUTION:  Extremely disturbing; Not suitable for young viewers]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR_midwZ2f0&feature=related