* Cooking Up Two New Wars: Paul Craig Roberts

[teryang]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09302005.html

Bush is Cooking Up Two New Wars
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

<Mired in interminable conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration is moving toward initiating two more wars, one with Iran and one with North Korea. With no US troops available, the Bush administration is revamping US war doctrine to allow for "preventative nuclear attack." In short, the Bush administration is planning to make the US the first country in history to initiate war with nuclear weapons. The Pentagon document, "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," calls for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries in order "to ensure success of US and multinational operations."

...However, a nuclear attack on Iran would leave the Bush administration isolated. The US would instantly become a pariah nation, loathed and hated everywhere else.

Moreover, it would leave our battered troops in Iraq in a perilous situation. The only reason our army in Iraq has not been destroyed is that the Shi'ites, who comprise the vast majority of the population, have not taken up arms against us, expecting the US to turn over Iraq to them. As the Iraqi Shi'ites are allied with the Iranians, who also are Shi'ite, the US cannot attack Iran without destroying its position in Iraq.

The Bush administration, filled with hubris and delusion, is too stupid to know this.<snip>

[randomelement]

1. Attention Agent Mike

Would you please do us all a favor and just walk over and arrest the idiot in the WH before any of this becomes actual fact. Please feel free to include any of his delusional cohorts as well .....

The sane America thanks you .....

[Skittles]

15. howdy randomelement

you must have lurked a while! :hi:

[marmar]

2. Very scary...

but sadly, not beyond the realm of belief...

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[90-percent]

3. Cool

We get to be the first and last country in the history of eternity to use a nuke offensively!

What could anyone think of to make the USA self destruct quicker?

Who the fuck would benefit from this madness?

-85% Jimmy

[Spoonerian]

13. I disagree.

The nukings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were offensive incinerations of civilians not defensive (as though incinerating a couple hundred thousand civilians could somehow be defensive). So the honor of being the first country to use nukes offensively was bestowed upon the US long ago.

The Japanese were perfectly willing to agree to withdraw from the US's newly defended Asian empire, but the offensive minded 'mericans insisted on invasion and occupation in order to prove that they are the masters and all others are their slaves.

[newswolf56]

4. If this happens, it will change domestic and international politics...

beyond recognition. If this happens, it will be tantamount to Bush declaring himself the successor to der Fuhrer and the United States the successor to grosse Deutschland, the "Thousand-year Reich." And the whole network of foreign alliances will shift accordingly (probably with China elevated to the role played by the Soviet Union in 1941), with a concurrent transformation of domestic politics thus also inevitable.

The semiotics experts who are sorely troubled by the stahlhelm profile of the present U.S. military helmet will thus be confirmed in all their apprehensions...

I don't think Bush is that insane -- and though I already regard him as the most cunningly dangerous tyrant in U.S. history -- I think the object-lesson of Hitler's fate is yet preventatively potent.

I hope.

And pray.

[teryang]

6. Great comments

The US is in unprecedented decline by many standards. Some of the same fears and insecurities motivated interwar German elites to promote Nazism.

Seeing themselves outdistanced by their imperial rivals, irrevocably, if major grabs for continental resources weren't undertaken immediately, they embraced fascism, belligerence and destruction.

Obviously, there are many flaws in application of social darwinism to human events and foreign relations. Above all fascism represents the rejection of reason and an abyss of pessimism.

If you abandon production to low wage nations with slave markets to pursue a financial economy, you have nothing to trade for natural resources. The fascist solution is to take resources by force.

[NEOBuckeye]

12. The paranoia of the elites is destroying the US, and threatens the world

Loss of their sense of unquestioned superiority combined with their stubborn unwillingness/inability to adapt and pursue development of renewable alternative resources, is what is driving this collapse.

Endgame Capitalism results when the fat kings have all gorged themselves on the resource of choice (namely OIL) having manipulated its' scarcity to amass huge fortunes for themselves. Now, that resource has become scarce beyond their own artificial means of manipulation, and they begin to fight amongst themselves, and against anyone else perceived to be even a mild threat to them.

[OneBlueSky]

14. "I don't think Bush is that insane" . . .

maybe not, but he's not calling the shots . . . this is all the PNAC crew's doing, and they most assuredly ARE that insane . . . just read some of their documents . . .

[jedr]

5. Hartman kicked this around last week;

If we did nuke Iran , we would be nuked by another nation almost immediately and may well have war declared on us by most of the rest of the world including France ,Germany and England... don't know if that holds up, but is a damn good discussion.

[NEOBuckeye]

7. That's totally M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction)

And entirely possible. Fearing for their own safety and well-being, the rest of the world would have no other choice but to retaliate against the US with nukes -- but at a horrific cost. Civilization would be destroyed, and the human population... decimated.

Life on Earth might not be completely oblitterated, but it certainly would never again be the same.

If there are any sane people left in our government, Dear God, let them be working on a plan to "neutralize" the Bush-Cheney monsters.

[jedr]

11. The rest of the world views us as the weird uncle in the attic;

Europe is watching us very closely , just smiling and agreeing and wondering what insane thing we will do next...If anyone here has friends overseas , please post their friends veiws...the ones I know are in shock and disbelief....we are not well liked .

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. My view, from the UK, is that it wouldn't develop into war

(although I also think that there are enough sane, if nasty, people in the Bush regime to stop Bush using nuclear weapons in the first place - they'd realise how catastrophic using nuclear weapons would be).

There would be immediate trade sanctions on the US - of which oil and Canada's natural gas would be the most immediately important. At the same time, I would expect a sizeable proportion of the US people would be looking at an uprising anyway, and the sanctions would encourage it; and, unofficially and maybe even officially, other countries would encourage and support a rebellion. The key would be finding sane people in the military who would do the right thing, or at least not support the Bush regime after they'd used nuclear weapons, and politicians who would take charge temporarily (I don't think many honest US military officers would be comfortable running the government themselves).

But I doubt other countries would actually attack the USA (they might demand the surrender of overseas US military bases, I suppose). No-one thinks the US population has given Bush a mandate to use nuclear weapons, and war on the US people could therefore not be justified.

[jedr]

18. thank you, very good insight from the UK

[tnlefty]

8. Please entertainment me for a moment. What do you think the

semi-sane Bush** voters would do if he pulled a disgusting stunt like this? Would there be enough outrage between the people who are already outraged about Iraq and other semi-sane people to form a sort of solidarity movement into civil disobedience, say no one to work or school one day each week? Or will most of the country just try to go about it's business until some sort of retaliation is enacted upon the US? Would there be enough outrage for people to just "stop" everything in an act of solidarity?

I've wondered about this often during the past couple of years.

[jedr]

10. Most of this country doesn't give a damn about anything,

until it effects them...the currant outrage about * is far more about gas prices than the utter failure of FEMA...Let N Korea do a dead end stunt like lob a nuke at the west coast in retaliation to nukes in Iran and then all hell breaks loose.

[Skittles]

16. you know it, jedr

these assholes didn't care about a war based on lies, thousands of dead and wounded US soliers, thousands of dead Iraqi civilians but HEAVEN FORBID they should have to pay 3 bucks a gallon. CLUELESS, IGNORANT BASTARDS.

[jimshoes]

9. Personal note to whom it may concern;

Hey, you guys suck at war. Give it a rest and just try to ride out your miserable terms without getting thrown in jail. The world will be a better place for it. Thank you.

[KoKo]

19. "Nuke Em" screamed the evil Chimp and the PNAC/NEO-CONS chirped

"Bring it ON!" And the world looked on in horror as Armageddon began.

At home Congress held hearings...supposedly "bi-Partisan" and Tony Blair announced to Parliament why it was so "devastatingly necessary" for the cooperation with America in this venture to stabilize the Middle East.

The DJIA and the NASDAQ moved up 10 points and 30 points respectively and the Gold Bugs had a very good day along with the Bond Market. All was well with the joint move by Bush and Blair as the Markets sensed this would mean a lowering of Oil prices and and was not a threat to the world currencies. Paul Wolfowitz sais the World Bank would manange any fall out from the nuclear defense and Alan Greenspan said he had left the Fed with ample ability to handle any small destabilization which might occur as an "aftershock."

And, Americans went to bed and slept soundly, knowing that our world is so much safer now than at any time in our history.

[cassiepriam]

20. If gas prices are low, the people won't care what Bush does.

Killing more foreigners? The public simple does not care.