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Look at Nuclear Weapons Objectively

Look at Nuclear Weapons Objectively
Look at Nuclear Weapons Objectively

It is absolutely necessary to remember what happened 70 years ago in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, see the movies from then and listen to the survivors, the hibakusa. But it is not enough for us to rid the world of these crimes-against-humanity weapons. And that we must.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are history and are also the essence of the age you and I live in, the nuclear age. If the hypothesis is that by showing these films, we create opinion against nuclear weapons, 70 years of ever more “nuclearism” should be enough to conclude that that hypothesis is plain wrong, Jan Oberg wrote for IPS News.

There is a need for a frontal attack on not only the weapons but on nuclearism, the thinking/ideology on which they are based and made to look “necessary” for security and peace.

At its core, terrorism is about harming or killing innocent people and not only combatants. Any country that possesses nukes is aware that nukes cannot be used without killing millions of innocent people, infinitely more lethal than Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and so.

Since the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York, governments and media have conveniently promoted the idea that terrorism is only about small non-governmental groups and thus tried to make us forget that the nuclear “haves” themselves practice state terrorism and hold humanity hostage to potential civilization genocide.

No nuclear state has ever dared to hold a referendum and ask its citizens: “Do you or do you not accept to be defended by a nuclear arsenal?”

Nuclear weapons with the omnicidal “kill all and everything” characteristics is pure dictatorship and incompatible with both parliamentary and direct democracy and freedom.

Citizens generally have more, or better, morals than governments and do not wish to see themselves, their neighbors or fellow human beings around the world burn up in a process that would make the most infamous mass killings in history look like a cozy afternoon tea party. In short, nuclear weapons states either arrange referendums or must accept the label dictatorship.

 Diluted Fascism

The idea that a few hundred politicians and military people in the world’s nuclear states have a self-appointed right to play God and decide whether “project mankind” shall continue or not belongs to the realm of the civilizational perverse or the Theater of the Absurd. Such people must run on the assumption, deep down, that they are “Chosen People” with a higher mission. Gandhi rightly called western civilization “diluted fascism.”

Simply speaking, there can be no political or other goal that justifies the use of this doomsday weapon and the killing of millions of people, or making the earth uninhabitable.

The trick played on us all since 1945 is that there are some “responsible,” and predominantly western christian countries, that can, should or must have nuclear weapons and then there are some irresponsible governments/leaders elsewhere that must be prevented by all means from acquiring them. In other words, that proliferation rather than possession is the problem.

However, it is built into the Non-Proliferation Treaty that those who do not have nuclear weapons shall abstain from acquiring them as a quid pro quo for the nuclear-haves to disarm theirs completely.

That is, the whole world shall become a nuclear-weapons-free zone. Those who have nuclear weapons provoke others to get them too. Possession leads to proliferation.

 Bizarre Worldview

The recent negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program is a good example of this bizarre worldview: The five nuclear terrorist states, sitting on enough nukes to blow up the world several times over and who have systematically violated international law in general and the NPT in particular, tell Iran, which abides by the NPT and does not want nuclear weapons, that it must never obtain nuclear weapons.

Simultaneously, they turn a blind eye to the nuclear terrorist regime, Israel’s 50+ years old nuclear arsenals.

And it is all actively assisted by mainstream media that seem to lack the knowledge/intellectual capacity to challenge this whole setup, including the racist belief structure that “we have a God-given right and are more responsible than everybody else, particularly non-Christians.”

You have heard this philosophical nonsense repeatedly over 70 years: Nuclear weapons are good to deter everyone from starting the “Third World War.” That nukes are here to never be used. That no one would start that war because they would know that there would be a mass murder on one’s own population in a second strike or retaliation. But think of these two small and simple counterarguments:

- You cannot deter anyone from doing something unless you are willing to implement your threat and your deterrent. If A knows that B would never use his nukes, A would not be afraid of the retaliation. Thus, every nuclear weapons state is ready to use nukes under some defined circumstance; if not, there is no deterrence whatsoever.

- The US has long ago done two things (as the only one on earth): Decided on a doctrine in which the use of small nukes in a conventional role is fundamental, blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons and said that its missile defense (which it also wants in Europe) is about preventing a second strike back, shooting down retaliatory missiles, so it can start, fight and win a nuclear war without being harmed itself. Or so it can hope.

 Hope for a Better World

Let’s rid the world of this civilizational mistake. Nuclearism and nuclear deterrence are the world’s most dangerous ideologies comparable to slavery, absolute monarchy and cannibalism that we have decided, because we are humans and civilized and can think and feel, to put behind us.

There is no coexistence possible between nuclear weapons on the one hand and democracy, peace and civilization on the other.

It is time to regain hope by looking at all the civilized, non-nuclear countries and follow their example. Thus, 99% of the southern hemisphere landmass are nuclear weapons-free with 60% of its 193 states, with 33% of the world’s population included in this free zone.

The West, the US in particular, that started the terrible Nuclear Age, should now follow the great majority of humanity, apologize for its nuclearism and move to zero.

 

Financialtribune.com