interviews and recorded speeches, from Ellie Smeal to Bill O'Reilly, and
including his own thoughts. This powerful documentary is all on today's
Democracy Now! The two submissions below are fitting.
ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Suzanne de Kuyper" <suzannedk@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2009 10:30 AM
Subject: [R-G] Torture
Torure has a sexual element at the root of it. Torture is symbolic of
complete control. It's use becomes and begins with obsessiveness. As the
dog or shark that tastes human flesh, the torturer tastes complete control
and that goes to the head and the viscera. Witness the Israeli settlers as
they destroy the Palestinians. Humans are prone to be engulfed by
precivilized animal drives when the rule of law is removed. Add a regular
infusion of universal 'Terrorist Threats' to universal 'Viral Threats',
rising seas, to a lawless world and one has the perfect prescription for a
World War Empire to thrive. Everything chaotic is food for war.
suzannedk@gmail.com
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Rad-Green@lists.econ.utah.edu
***
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/27/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-us
After Iraq, it's not just North Korea that wants a bomb
The nuclear weapons states are the main drivers of proliferation. Only
radical disarmament can halt their spread.
"Mohammed ElBaradei, the outgoing director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Guardian that without radical
disarmament by the major powers, the number of nuclear weapons states would
double in a few years, as "virtual weapons states" acquire the capability,
but stopped just short of assembling a weapon, to "buy insurance against
attack"."
By Seumas Milne
guardian.co.uk,: Wednesday 27 May 2009
The big power denunciation of North Korea's nuclear weapons test on Monday
could not have been more sweeping. Barack Obama called the
Hiroshima-scale underground explosion a "blatant violation of international
law", and pledged to "stand up" to North Korea - as if it were a military
giant of the Pacific - while Korea's former imperial master Japan branded
the bomb a "clear crime", and even its long-suffering ally China declared
itself "resolutely opposed" to what had taken place.
The protests were met with further North Korean missile tests, as
UN security council members plotted tighter sanctions and South Korea
signed up to a US programme to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons
of mass destruction. Pyongyang had already said it would regard such a move
as an act of war. So yesterday, nearly 60 years after the conflagration that
made a charnel house of the Korean peninsula, North Korea said it was no
longer bound by the armistice that ended it and warned that any attempt to
search or seize its vessels would be met with a "powerful military strike".
The hope must be that rhetorical inflation on both sides proves to be
largely bluster, as in previous confrontations. Even the US doesn't believe
North Korea poses any threat of aggression against the south, home to nearly
30,000 American troops and covered by its nuclear umbrella. But the idea,
much canvassed in recent days, that there is something irrational in North
Korea's attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is clearly absurd. This is, after
all, a state that has been targeted for regime change by the US ever since
the end of the cold war, included as one of the select group of three in
George Bush's axis of evil in 2002, and whose Clinton administration
guarantee of "no hostile intent" was explicitly withdrawn by his successor.
In April 2003, North Korea drew the obvious conclusion from the US and
British aggression against Iraq. The war showed, it commented at the time,
"that to allow disarmament through inspections does not help avert a war,
but rather sparks it". Only "a tremendous military deterrent force", it
stated with unavoidable logic, could prevent attacks on states the world's
only superpower was determined to bring to heel.
The lesson could not be clearer. Of Bush's "axis" states, Iraq, which had no
weapons of mass destruction, was invaded and occupied; North Korea, which
already had some nuclear capacity, was left untouched and is most unlikely
to be attacked in future; while Iran, which has yet to develop a nuclear
capability, is still threatened with aggression by both the US and Israel.
Of course, the Obama administration is a different kettle of fish from
its predecessor; it had earlier floated renewed dialogue with North Korea
and has made welcome noises about nuclear disarmament. Whether such talk was
ever going to impress the cash-strapped dynastic autocracy in Pyongyang -
which had had its fill of broken US commitments and the new belligerence
from its southern neighbour - seems doubtful. In any case, having gone so
far, it was surely inevitable the regime would want to rerun its half-cocked
2006 test to demonstrate its now unquestioned nuclear power status.
Yet not only has America's heightened enthusiasm for invading other
countries since the early 1990s created a powerful incentive for states in
its firing line to acquire nuclear weapons for their own security. But all
the main nuclear weapons states have, by their persistent failure to move
towards serious disarmament, become the single greatest driver of nuclear
proliferation.
It's not just the breathtaking hypocrisy that underpins every western
pronouncement about the "threat to world peace" posed by the "illegal
weapons" of the johnny-come-latelys to the nuclear club. Or the double
standards that underpin the nuclear indulgence of Israel, India and
Pakistan - now increasing its stock of nuclear weapons, even as the country
is rocked by civil war - while Iran and North Korea are sanctioned and
embargoed for "breaking the rules". It's that the obligation of the nuclear
weapons states under the non-proliferation treaty - and the only
justification of their privileged status - is to negotiate "complete
disarmament".
Yet far from doing any such thing, both the US and Britain are investing in
a new generation of nuclear weapons. Even the latest plans to agree new cuts
in the US and Russian strategic arsenals would leave the two former
superpower rivals in control of thousands of warheads, enough to wipe each
other out, let alone the smaller fry of global conflict. So why North Korea,
no longer even a signatory to the treaty and therefore not bound by its
rules, or any other state seeking nuclear protection, should treat them as a
reason to disarm is a mystery.
Obama's dramatic plea for a "world without nuclear weapons" in Prague last
month was qualified by the warning that such a goal would "not be reached
quickly - perhaps not in my lifetime". But a lifetime is too long if the
mass proliferation of nuclear weapons is to be halted. Earlier this
month, Mohammed ElBaradei, the outgoing director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Guardian that without radical
disarmament by the major powers, the number of nuclear weapons states would
double in a few years, as "virtual weapons states" acquire the capability,
but stopped just short of assembling a weapon, to "buy insurance against
attack".
This is what Iran is widely assumed to be doing, despite its denial of any
interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. And the evidence is now growing that
the US administration is heading towards harsher sanctions against Tehran
rather than genuine negotiation, as two former US national security council
staffers, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, argued in the New York Times at
the weekend. That was also the message Hillary Clinton sent to North Korea
last month when she said talks with the regime were "implausible, if not
impossible".
In fact, they are desirable, if not essential. Obama has set out a positive
agenda on the nuclear test ban treaty, arms cuts and control of fissile
material. But if, instead of slapping more sanctions on Pyongyang, the US
were to push for far broader negotiations aimed at achieving the
long-overdue reunification of Korea, its denuclearisation and the withdrawal
of all foreign troops - now that would be a historic contribution to peace.
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