It happened before, not so long ago.

It's said that during the height of the Cuban Missiles Crisis, when President Kennedy was faced with backing-off or starting World War III, he looked seriously rattled. Understandable for a normal human being you might think. Fortunately for the world it was the Russians who had the sense to defuse the confrontation by turning their ships away. Life went on.

Forty-four years later the world is again faced with the prospect of a US President incumbent (albeit fraudulently elected) unleashing a nuclear holocaust. What's different is not that people are going to die --between 1 to 3 million will according to Pentagon calculations-- but that the target is a non-nuclear, west Asian country and that the intended missiles are 'tactical' and thus deemed safe. Safe, that is ... except to the millions of innocent lives that will be sacrificed in their blast and subsequent radioactive poisoning. The country concerned, Iran, has done nothing to deserve such a punishment but has huge reserves of oil which the gangsters running the USA want and consider theirs by right. Right, that is, through Might.

In a normal world this would be called nuclear blackmail, terrorism and the people behind the threat to be criminals of the worst kind. They would be arrested, tried, executed or at best given life sentences.

Clearly we no longer live in a normal world. Not when the scum of the earth can wheedle themselves into positions of the higest power through rigged elections, not when journalists faced with the juiciest story of the century are silenced by editors who in turn have been commanded by their corporate bosses to do so. Not when the same scum engineer the mass-murder of thousands and the deliberate detonation and destruction of public buildings by airliners used as missiles in the middle of a teeming city. Not when they declare this premeditated mass-murder to have been a "terrorist" act --for certainly it was that-- justifying the most repressive onslaught against civil rights and freedoms in "the interests of security."

Reality has been turned upside-down and made to stand on its head. The very leaders who spend so much time warning us all about terrorism turn out to be the very worst liars and terrorists of all. But, cynically, they persist with their lies in the hope that by invoking fear among the masses, fear of an enemy within and without, the majority will be taken in by their crude emotional blackmail. As for the rest who aren't, they can be effectively marginalized.

And so, in this era of total control through fear we find ourselves facing the very worst nightmare of all. Nuclear holocaust.

But, hey, who's doing the nuking on whom? Imagine the relief when the masses realize that they aren't the target and that, actually, it's the Good Guys who are going to do the nuking on those Bad, dark-skinned ragheads who threaten our security. That's ok then, they deserve it for not sharing our values, threatening our security and for putting-up the price of gasoline. Besides which, if we don't nuke them right now they might, just might, nuke us some day.

Twenty-five years ago, when the US planned to turn Europe into a "limited theatre of Nuclear War" the alarms bells rang loud and clear and peace groups blossomed spontaneously across the sub-continent, North America and the rest of the world. It was said that the collective Peace Movement resulting from that mobilization was the largest known throughout recorded history.

It is a sad comment on human nature that when the threat of annihilation is faced by someone else, not us, there isn't quite the same urgency to do something about it. For what other reason can there be for the shameful silence emanating from all quarters of western society regarding the proposed nuclear annihilation of Iran? Where are the peace groups, the churches, the labour movements, the social democratic political parties? Just what kind of trance are we all under that even at this late hour we have lost the ability to speak out against this most terrible crime?

Years ago, studying modern European history, we debated how it was possible for a civilized country like Germany to have been taken over by the obscene thuggery of the Nazis. "If the Germans had stopped it in time, if only they had, if we had ..."

Now look at us! What prevents us, today, still with the relative freedoms we still have to stop our societies going totalitarian? Nuremburg was ok for the losing side. Examples had to be made of. But where is the Nuremburg for our war criminals today? How many of us have the clear-sighted honesty to draw the frightening parallels between the Nazis and the new Nazis in Washington DC and 10 Downing Street?

The worst aspect of human tribalism is how it blinds us from reality.

Yet, if we do not stand up to the dark forces of tribalism that are being deliberately manipulated by the warmongers we, too, shall become its victims. In a global village there can be no freedom from fear, no security, where any group or nation is under a tribal threat of annihilation. What goes round comes round. Like radioactive clouds.

We must stand up, collectively, to the real terrorists now and take whatever action is required to remove them. If we don't the chances are we'll soon find ourselves on their hit list.

It happened before, not so long ago.

Animation of Nuclear Bunker Buster: Destructive impact on civilian population in Iran and beyond
11 April 2006 (source: Union of Concerned Scientists)

To view the animation, please visit http://urlsnip.com/829127

Administration’s Nuclear Saber Rattling on Iran Threatens Global Security
Statement by Dr. Kurt Gottfried, Chairman, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Emeritus Professor of Physics, Cornell University

"Recent reports suggest that the Bush administration is considering using nuclear weapons against Iran. The very fact that nuclear weapon use is being discussed as an option—against a state that does not have nuclear weapons and does not represent a direct or imminent threat to the United States—illustrates the extent to which the Bush administration has changed U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

"The Bush administration has explicitly rejected the basic precept that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons should be to deter the use of nuclear weapons. It has assigned a new, and provocative, mission to U.S. nuclear weapons: to dissuade or prevent other countries from undertaking military programs that could threaten U.S. interests in the future. A 'preventive' nuclear attack on Iran would fall into this category. It has also blurred the line between nuclear and conventional weapons by declaring that nuclear weapons can be used as part of military operations.

"This nuclear policy increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used, and ultimately decreases U.S. as well as international security. Instead, the United States should commit itself to strengthen the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons that has developed over the past 60 years.

"Plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran also fail to recognize the immediate dangers inherent in the use of nuclear weapons. The administration is reportedly considering using the B61-11 nuclear 'bunker buster' against an underground facility near Natanz, Iran. The use of such a weapon would create massive clouds of radioactive fallout that could spread far from the site of the attack, including to other nations. Even if used in remote, lightly populated areas, the number of casualties could range up to more than a hundred thousand, depending on the weapon yield and weather conditions.

"Threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iran provides the strongest of incentives for nuclear proliferation, since it would send the message that the only way for a country to deter nuclear attack is to acquire its own nuclear arsenal. The administration cannot have its cake and eat it, too—it cannot have a viable nuclear non-proliferation policy while continually expanding the roles for its own nuclear weapons."

CASMII

Psychotics Rule

You would think that in a 'normal' world any threat by a political leader to use nuclear weapons as a form of blackmail against another non-belligerent nation would not only be considered insane but would seriously put the sanity of that leader's mind into question.

Despite his animal-torturing, alcoholic, coke-sniffing past very few have questioned George Bush's sanity.

You would think that the allies of a leader-gone-insane would find him such a political embarassment as to require a necessary distancing. But in the case of George Bush this is clearly not happening and Blair, for one, remains fully in support of "all options" to be taken against a country whose only mistake was to find itself on the hit list of a superpower stolen by defective computers in the interests of a political mafia.

You would think that the rest of the 'normal' world would roundly denounce such an insanity and look for every possible means to remove such gangsters and maniacs from power.

But none of this has happened. A world in which such behaviour is justified must, itself, be suffering a form of mass psychosis. None in the media are going to risk losing their job by suggesting that our political leaders are psychotic, are they?

There must be many in society with not only the qualifications required but the funds needed to declare George Bush (and Cheney) mad for committing and threatening mass-murder and to apply for a judicial injunction to have him/them removed from office.

The future of our planet might depend upon it.

White Man Who Speaks with Forked-Tongue

You would think from the apparently conflicting news reports that there is a deep division in the Blair cabinet as there appears to be in Washington about whether or not to conduct a military strike against Iran. In an interview last Sunday, Blair assured us that British forces would not be involved in such an attack. But questioned in parliament a few days later he gave Bush support for an attack. Giving him support, of course, is not the same thing as involving UK troops. And not involving troops isn't, by any means, a full dissociation from an attack.

UK bases in places like Fairford and Diego Garcia would still be used. RAF AWACs might still provide support as well as clandestine SAS troops based on Iran's frontiers. So UK complicity in a US-led attack would still remain high. This would, in turn, lead to making the UK a prime target for revenge attacks by Iran. Once again, Blair is shown up for his cavalier disregard for the welfare of his own people.

What is it, I wonder, that leads him to hold his people in such low regard? What is it that the US secret services have in his dossier that makes him so easily blackmailable? Since fooling the electorate into giving his party the greatest electoral landslide since 1945 he has done nothing but betray Britain and its European partners over and over in the most sickening sell-offs to America's extreme right.

Firmly attaching his colours to the Project for a New American Century, Blair has done everything he could to revive an Anglo-Saxon hegemony in a world where the dollar -and inevitably the pound- live on strictly borrowed time and that only thanks to an Asian super-power, China. Perhaps the intention was never more than to squeeze a little bit more borrowed time but the price that the world and its people have been forced to pay has been horrendous.

In a thoroughly corrupt world where might is again right and legislatures and judiciaries are coerced by the jack-boot mentality the likes of Blair, Bush and Cheney may never have to pay the full price that their guilt requires of them. They should, at least, be made to know that never in the history of modern politics were ever a bunch more hated and despised than they and should such a thing as natural justice exist then theirs is soon nigh.

The Armed Forces Bill is being discussed in the UK Parliament. Section 8 introduces a new tougher definition of desertion: soldiers who intend to avoid serving in a "military occupation of a foreign country or territory" can be imprisoned for life.

NO life sentence for soldiers who refuse to be occupiers!

The Armed Forces Bill – now going through the UK Parliament – would impose harsh penalties on soldiers who refuse to take part in military occupations.

Section 8 –which has hardly been mentioned in the media -- introduces a new tougher definition of desertion: soldiers who intend to avoid serving in a “military occupation of a foreign country or territory” can be imprisoned for life.

This major redrafting of military law has been introduced at a time when the number of soldiers absconding from the British Army has trebled since the invasion of Iraq – a clear attack on the growing movement of men and women in the military who refuse to be part of wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. . . . It contravenes the Nuremberg Charter which enshrined in international law the responsibility that each of us has to refuse to obey illegal and immoral orders from any government. At the same time the UK Defence Secretary is urging that the Geneva Convention be rewritten to legalise pre-emptive military action.

Poll after poll has demonstrated overwhelming public rejection of the war and occupation of Iraq.

This has been reflected in the actions and views of troops who have refused to go, or go back, to Iraq. Military families, mostly mothers, have campaigned against the killing and maiming of their own loved ones and of the civilian population in Iraq and elsewhere, and demanded that troops be brought back home from a war nobody wants.

We are outraged that Section 8 of this Bill with its blatant violation of the human rights of soldiers and in particular of their right to conscientious objection -- is proceeding quickly through Parliament without any public debate.

Please act now to stop this terrible miscarriage of justice from becoming law.

NOTES
· See Independent on Sunday, of 19 March 2006
http://www.refusingtokill.net/UKGulfwar2/Soldiersgoingawolhavetrebled.htm
· Nuremberg Charter, Article 8: “The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility . . .”.

Payday is a network of men working with the Global Women’s Strike
Invest in Caring not Killing.
See our website www.refusingtokill.net
Information: 0207 209 4751 payday@paydaynet.org

WHAT YOU CAN DO

· If you live in the UK, write to your MP demanding that they vote against Section 8.

Find your MP and email her/him using www.writeToThem.com or write to the House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA (see model letter below or write your own).

· If you live outside the UK, write to the British Embassy or High Commission to let them know your opposition to Section 8 of the Bill (see model letter below or write your own) and cc payday@paydaynet.org. Details can be found at
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029395231

· Sign the petition at Petition on Line
http://www.petitiononline.com/UKArmedF/petition.html

· Write to the press, newsletters, websites asking them to publicise this attack on human rights.

· Tell all your contacts and networks – anti-war, religious, community, trade union –- about it. Ask them to contact your MLP, the British Embassy/High Commission, the press and to sign the petition.

MODEL LETTER

Dear

I understand that the Armed Forces Bill 2006 is being discussed in the British Parliament.

Section 8 of the Bill introduces a new definition of desertion, according to which soldiers who intend to avoid serving in a “military occupation of a foreign country or territory” can be imprisoned for life (see Sub-sections 3c, 4a and 5a). This is introduced at a time when the number of soldiers absconding from the British Army has trebled since the invasion of Iraq.

I consider Section 8 to be an attack on the human rights, including the crucial right to conscientious objection, of individuals in the military who refuse to be part of present or future wars, and who have a responsibiity, enshrined in the Nuremburg charter, to refuse to obey illegal and immoral orders. I am outraged that this militaristic Section is going through Parliament without public awareness, let alone discussion.

Poll after poll has shown public rejection of the war and the occupation of Iraq in Britain and everywhere. This has been reflected in the actions and views of troops who have refused to go to Iraq and military families who have demanded that the troops be brought back home.

I urge you to request the withdrawal of Section 8 of the Armed Forces Bill.

Yours sincerely,

Payday
Homepage: http://www.refusingtokill.net/