by
Paul Craig Roberts
Did
you know that Washington keeps 450 nuclear ICBMs on “hair-trigger
alert”? Washington thinks that this makes us “safe.” The
reasoning, if it can be called reason, is that by being able to
launch in a few minutes, no one will try to attack the US with
nuclear weapons. US missiles are able to get on their way before the
enemy’s missiles can reach the US to destroy ours.
If
this makes you feel safe, you need to read Eric Schlosser’s book,
Command and Control.
The
trouble with hair-triggers is that they make mistaken, accidental,
and unauthorized launch more likely. Schlosser provides a history of
almost launches that would have brought armageddon to the world.
In
Catalyst, a publication of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Elliott
Negin tells the story of Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov. Just after
midnight in 1983 the Soviet Union’s early warning satellite system
set off the alarm that 5 US ICBMs were headed for the Soviet Union.
Col.
Petrov was supposed to inform the Soviet leader, who would have 8 to
10 minutes to decide whether to launch in retaliation. Who knows what
he would have decided. Instead Col. Petrov used his judgment. There
was no reason for the US to be attacking the Soviet Union. Moreover,
Petrov reasoned that an American attack would involve hundreds of
ICBMs, possibly thousands. He checked whether Soviet ground-based
radar had detected incoming ICBMs, and it had not. Petrov decided it
was a false alarm, and sat on it.
It
turned out that the early warning system had mistaken a pattern of
sunlight reflection on clouds as missiles. This was a close call, but
Negin reports that 'a failed computer chip, and an improperly
installed circuit card are some of the culprits' that could initiate
nuclear war. In other words, the sources of false alarms are
numerous.
Fast
forward to today. Imagine an American officer monitoring the US early
warning system. This officer has been listening to 15 years of war
propaganda accompanied by US invasions and bombings of 8 countries.
Terrorist warnings and security alerts abound, as do calls from
American and Israeli politicians for nuking Iran. The media has
convinced him that Russia has invaded Ukraine and is on the verge of
invading the Baltics and Poland. American troops and tanks have been
rushed to the Russian border. There is talk of arming Ukraine. Putin
is dangerous and is threatening nuclear war, running his strategic
bombers close to our borders and holding nuclear drills. The American
officer has just heard a Fox News general again call for “killing
Russians.” The Republicans have convinced him that Obama is selling
out America to Iran, with Senator Tom Cotton warning of nuclear war
as a consequence. We will all be killed because there is a Muslim in
the White House.
Why
isn’t anyone standing up for America, the patriotic American
officer wonders, just as the alarm goes off: Incoming ICBMs. Are they
Russian or Iranian? Was Israel right after all? A hidden Iranian
nuclear weapons program? Or has Putin decided that the US is in the
way of his reconstruction of the Soviet Empire, which the American
media affirms is Putin’s goal? There is no room for judgment in the
American officer’s mind. It has been set on hair-trigger by the
incessant propaganda that Americans call news. He passes on the
warning.
Obama’s
Russophobic neocon National Security Advisor is screaming: “You
can’t let Putin get away with this!” “It might be a false
alarm,” replies the nervous and agitated president. “You liberal
pussy! Don’t you know that Putin is dangerous!? Push the button!”
And
there goes the world.
Considering
the extreme Russophobia being created among Americans by the Ministry
of Propaganda, the demonization of Vladimir Putin–the “new
Hitler,” Vlad the Impaler– the propagandistic creation of “the
Russian threat,” the crazed neocon desire for US world hegemony,
the hatred of Russia and China as rising rivals capable of exercising
independent power, the loss of American Uni-power status and
unconstrained unilateral action. In the midst of these emotions and
minds swayed not by facts but by propaganda, hubris, and ideology,
there is a great chance that Washington’s response to a false alarm
will bring the end of life on earth.
How
much confidence do you have in Washington? How many times has
Washington–especially the crazed neocons–been wrong?
Remember
the 3-week “cakewalk” Iraq war that would cost $70 billion and be
paid out of Iraqi oil revenues? Now the cost is $3,000 billion and
rising, and after 12 years the radical Islamic State controls half of
the country. To pay for the wars the Republicans want to “privatize,”
that is, take away, Social Security and Medicare.
Remember
“Mission Accomplished” in Afghanistan? Twelve years later the
Taliban again control the country and Washington, after murdering
women, children, funerals, weddings, village elders, and kids’
soccer games, has been driven out by a few thousand lightly armed
Taliban.
The
frustrations of these defeats have mounted in Washington and in the
military. The myth is that we lost because we didn’t use our full
force. We were intimidated by world opinion or by those damn student
protesters, or blocked from victory by some gutless president, a
liberal pussy who wouldn’t use all of our power. For the
right-wing, rage is a way of life.
The
neocons believe fervently that History has chosen America to rule the
world, and here we are defeated by Vietnamese guerrillas, by Afghan
tribesmen, by Islamist fundamentalists, and now Putin has sent his
missiles to finish the job.
Whoever
the White House fool is, he will push the button.
The
situation is deteriorating, not improving. The Russians, hoping for
some sign of intelligence in Europe, contradict Washington’s
anti-Russian lies. Washington calls truthful contradiction of its own
propaganda to be Russian propaganda. Washington has ordered the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, a US government agency, headed by
Andrew Lack, a former chairman of NBC news, to counteract an alleged,
but non-existent, “Kremlin Troll Army” that is outshouting the
Western prostitutes and “perpetuating a pro-Russian dialogue” on
the Internet. In case you don’t remember, Lack is the idiot who
declared RT to be a “terrorist organization.” In other words, in
Lack’s opinion, one that he can enforce, a truth-teller is a
terrorist.
Lack
epitomizes well Washington’s view of truthful reporting: If it
doesn’t serve Washington’s propaganda, it is not true. It is
terrorism.
Lack
hopes to control RT with intimidation: In effect, he has told RT to
shut up and say what we want or we will close you down as a terrorist
organization. We might even arrest your American employees as aiders
and abettors of terrorism.
To
counteract a Revanchist Russia and its Internet Troll Army, the Obama
regime is handing $15,400,000 to the insane Lack to use to discredit
every truthful statement that emerges from the English language
versions of Russian media. This amount, of course, will rise
dramatically. Soon it will be in the billions of dollars, while
Americans are evicted from their homes and sent to prison for their
debts.
In
his budget request, Lack, who seems to lack every aspect of humanity,
including intelligence, integrity, and morality, justified his
request, which will be granted, for the hard-earned money of
Americans, whose standard of living is falling, with the wild
assertion that Russia “threatens Russia’s neighbors and, by
extension, the United States and its Western allies.”
Lack
promises to do even more: “The US international media is now set
forth to refute Russian propaganda and influence the minds of
Russians and Russian-speakers in the former Soviet Union, Europe and
around the world.” Lack is going to propagandize against Russia
inside Russia.
Of
course, the CIA organizations–the National Endowment for Democracy
and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty–will be enriched by this
anti-Russian propaganda campaign and will support it wholeheartedly.
Therefore,
the Union of Concerned Scientists’ call for cooperation with Russia
to take ICBMs off hair-trigger status is unlikely to occur. How can
nuclear tensions be reduced when Washington is building tensions as
fast as it possibly can? Washington’s Ministry of Propaganda has
reconstructed Putin as Osama bin Laden, as Saddam Hussein, demonized
figures, bogymen who evoke fear from the brainwashed American
sheeple. Russia is transformed into al Qaeda lusting for another
attack on the World Trade Center and for the Red Army (many Americans
think Russia is still communist) to roll across Europe.
Gorbachev
was a trick. He deceived the old movie actor. The deceived Americans
are sitting ducks, and here come the ICBMs. The crazed views of the
American politicians, military, and people are unable to comprehend
truth or to recognize reality.
The
propagandistic American “media” and the crazed neoconservatives
have set humanity on the path to destruction.
The
Union of Concerned Scientists, of which I am a member, need to come
to their senses. It is impossible to work out a reduction in nuclear
threat as long as one side is going all out to demonize the other.
The demonization of Russia and its leader by the New York Times,
Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and the rest of the American
Propaganda Ministry, by almost the entirety of the House and Senate,
and by the White House makes reducing the threat of nuclear war
impossible.
The
American people and the entire world need to understand that the
threat to life on earth resides in Washington and that until
Washington is fundamentally and totally changed, this threat will
remain as the worse threat to life on earth. Global Warming can
disappear instantly in Nuclear Winter.
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