Rising Nuclear War Possibility (Natanz Iranian Nuclear Facility) *Iran's Nuclear Program "The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete." —Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006 "The second concern is that if an underground laboratory is deeply buried, that can also confound conventional weapons. But the depth of the Natanz facility - reports place the ceiling roughly 30 feet underground - is not prohibitive. The American GBU-28 weapon - the so-called bunker buster - can pierce about 23 feet of concrete and 100 feet of soil. Unless the cover over the Natanz lab is almost entirely rock, bunker busters should be able to reach it. That said, some chance remains that a single strike would fail." —Michael Levi, New York Times, April 18, 2006 A familiar means of denying a reality is to refuse to use the words that describe that reality. A common form of propaganda is to keep reality from being described. In such circumstances, silence and euphemism are forms of complicity both in propaganda and in the denial of reality. And the media, as well as the major presidential candidates, are now complicit. The stories in the major media suggest that an attack against Iran is a real possibility and that the Natanz nuclear development site is the number one target. As the above quotes from two of our best sources note, military experts say that conventional "bunker-busters" like the GBU-28 might be able to destroy the Natanz facility, especially with repeated bombings. But on the other hand, they also say such iterated use of conventional weapons might not work, e.g., if the rock and earth above the facility becomes liquefied. On that supposition, a "low yield" "tactical" nuclear weapon, say, the B61-11, might be needed. If the Bush administration, for example, were to insist on a sure "success," then the "attack" would constitute nuclear war. The words in boldface are nuclear war, that's right, nuclear war — a first strike nuclear war. We don't know what exactly is being planned — conventional GBU-28's or nuclear B61-11's. And that is the point. Discussion needs to be open. Nuclear war is not a minor matter. The Euphemism As early as August 13, 2005, Bush, in Jerusalem, was asked what would happen if diplomacy failed to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program. Bush replied, "All options are on the table." On April 18, the day after the appearance of Seymour Hersh's New Yorker report on the administration's preparations for a nuclear war against Iran, President Bush held a news conference. He was asked, "Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?" He replied, "All options are on the table." The President never actually said the forbidden words "nuclear war," but he appeared to tacitly acknowledge the preparations — without further discussion. Vice-President Dick Cheney, speaking in Australia last week, backed up the President. "We worked with the European community and the United Nations to put together a set of policies to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations and resolve the matter peacefully, and that is still our preference. But I've also made the point, and the president has made the point, that all options are on the table." Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, on FOX News August 14, 2005, said the same. "For us to say that the Iranians can do whatever they want to do and we won't under any circumstances exercise a military option would be for them to have a license to do whatever they want to do ... So I think the president's comment that we won't take anything off the table was entirely appropriate." But it's not just Republicans. Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, in a speech in Herzliyah, Israel, echoed Bush. "To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table. Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table." Although, Edwards has said, when asked about this statement, that he prefers peaceful solutions and direct negotiations with Iran, he has nonetheless repeated the "all options on the table" position — making clear that he would consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but without using the fateful words. Hillary Clinton, at an AIPAC dinner in NY, said, "We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table." Translation: Nuclear weapons can be used to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Barack Obama, asked on 60 Minutes about using military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, began a discussion of his preference for diplomacy by responding, "I think we should keep all options on the table." Bush, Cheney, McCain, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all say indirectly that they seriously consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but will not engage in a public discussion of what that would mean. That contributes to a general denial, and the press is going along with it by a corresponding refusal to use the words. If the consequences of nuclear war are not discussed openly, the war may happen without an appreciation of the consequences and without the public having a chance to stop it. Our job is to open that discussion. Of course, there is a rationale for the euphemism: To scare our adversaries by making them think that we are crazy enough to do what we hint at, while not raising a public outcry. That is what happened in the lead up to the Iraq War, and the disaster of that war tells us why we must have such a discussion about Iran. Presidential candidates go along, not wanting to be thought of as interfering in on-going indirect diplomacy. That may be the conventional wisdom for candidates, but an informed, concerned public must say what candidates are advised not to say. More Euphemisms The euphemisms used include "tactical," "small," "mini-," and "low yield" nuclear weapons. "Tactical" contrasts with "strategic"; it refers to tactics, relatively low-level choices made in carrying out an overall strategy, but which don't affect the grand strategy. But the use of any nuclear weapons at all would be anything but "tactical." It would be a major world event – in Vladimir Putin's words, "lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," making the use of more powerful nuclear weapons more likely and setting off a new arms race. The use of the word "tactical" operates to lessen their importance, to distract from the fact that their very use would constitute a nuclear war. What is "low yield"? Perhaps the "smallest" tactical nuclear weapon we have is the B61-11, which has a dial-a-yield feature: it can yield "only" 0.3 kilotons, but can be set to yield up to 170 kilotons. The power of the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. That is, a "small" bomb can yield more than 10 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. The B61-11 dropped from 40,000 feet would dig a hole 20 feet deep and then explode, send shock waves downward, leave a huge crater, and spread radiation widely. The idea that it would explode underground and be harmless to those above ground is false — and, anyway, an underground release of radiation would threaten ground water and aquifers for a long time and over wide distance. To use words like "low yield" or "small" or "mini-" nuclear weapon is like speaking of being a little bit pregnant. Nuclear war is nuclear war! It crosses the moral line. Any discussion of roadside canister bombs made in Iran justifying an attack on Iran should be put in perspective: Little canister bombs (EFP's — explosively formed projectiles) that shoot a small hot metal ball at a humvee or tank versus nuclear war. Incidentally, the administration may be focusing on the canister bombs because it seeks to claim that the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 permits the use of military force against Iran based on its interference in Iraq. In that case, no further authorization by Congress would be needed for an attack on Iran. The journalistic point is clear. Journalists and political leaders should not talk about an "attack." They should use the words that describe what is really at stake: nuclear war — in boldface. Then, there is the scale of the proposed attack. Military reports leaking out suggest a huge (mostly or entirely non-nuclear) airstrike on as many as 10,000 targets — a "shock and awe" attack that would destroy Iran's infrastructure the way the US bombing destroyed Iraq's. The targets would not just be "military targets." As Dan Plesch reports in the New Statesman, February 19, 2007, such an attack would wipe out Iran's military, business, and political infrastructure. Not just nuclear installations, missile launching sites, tanks, and ammunition dumps, but also airports, rail lines, highways, bridges, ports, communications centers, power grids, industrial centers, hospitals, public buildings, and even the homes of political leaders. That is what was attacked in Iraq: the "critical infrastructure." It is not just military in the traditional sense. It leaves a nation in rubble, and leads to death, maiming, disease, joblessness, impoverishment, starvation, mass refugees, lawlessness, rape, and incalculable pain and suffering. That is what the options appear to be "on the table." Is nation destruction what the American people have in mind when they acquiesce without discussion to an "attack"? Is nuclear war what the American people have in mind? An informed public must ask and the media must ask. The words must be used. Even if the attack were limited to nuclear installations, starting a nuclear war with Iran would have terrible consequences — and not just for Iranians. First, it would strengthen the hand of the Islamic fundamentalists — exactly the opposite of the effect US planners would want. It would be viewed as yet another major attack on Islam. Fundamentalist Islam is a revenge culture. If you want to recruit fundamentalist Islamists all over the world to become violent jihadists, this is the best way to do it. America would become a world pariah. Any idea of the US as a peaceful nation would be destroyed. Moreover, you don't work against the spread of nuclear weapons by using those weapons. That will just make countries all over the world want nuclear weaponry all the more. Trying to stop nuclear proliferation through nuclear war is self-defeating. As Einstein said, "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." Why would the Bush administration do it? Here is what conservative strategist William Kristol wrote last summer during Israel's war with Hezbollah. "For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak. The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement." —Willam Kristol, Weekly Standard 7/24/06 "Renewed strength" is just the Bush strategy in Iraq. At a time when the Iraqi people want us to leave, when our national elections show that most Americans want our troops out, when 60% of Iraqis think it all right to kill Americans, Bush wants to escalate. Why? Because he is weak in America. Because he needs to show more "strength." Because, if he knocks out the Iranian nuclear facilities, he can claim at least one "victory." Starting a nuclear war with Iran would really put us in a world-wide war with fundamentalist Islam. It would make real the terrorist threat he has been claiming since 9/11. It would create more fear — real fear — in America. And he believes, with much reason, that fear tends to make Americans vote for saber-rattling conservatives. Kristol's neoconservative view that "weakness is provocative" is echoed in Iran, but by the other side. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted in the New York Times of February 24, 2007 as having "vowed anew to continue enriching uranium, saying, 'If we show weakness in front of the enemies, they will increase their expectations.'" If both sides refuse to back off for fear of showing weakness, then prospects for conflict are real, despite the repeated analyses, like that of The Economist that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be politically and morally impossible. As one unnamed administration official has said (New York Times, February 24, 2007), "No one has defined where the red line is that we cannot let the Iranians step over." What we are seeing now is the conservative message machine preparing the country to accept the ideas of a nuclear war and nation destruction against Iran. The technique used is the "slippery slope." It is done by degrees. Like the proverbial frog in the pot of water – if the heat is turned up slowly the frog gets used to the heat and eventually boils to death – the American public is getting gradually acclimated to the idea of war with Iran. * First, describe Iran as evil – part of the axis of evil. An inherently evil person will inevitably do evil things and can't be negotiated with. An entire evil nation is a threat to other nations. * Second, describe Iran's leader as a "Hitler" who is inherently "evil" and cannot be reasoned with. Refuse to negotiate with him. * Then repeat the lie that Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons —weapons of mass destruction. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says they are at best many years away. * Call nuclear development "an existential threat" – a threat to our very existence. * Then suggest a single "surgical" "attack" on Natanz and make it seem acceptable. * Then find a reason to call the attack "self-defense" — or better protection for our troops from the EFP's, or single-shot canister bombs. * Claim, without proof and without anyone even taking responsibility for the claim, that the Iranian government at its highest level is supplying deadly weapons to Shiite militias attacking our troops, while not mentioning the fact that Saudi Arabia is helping Sunni insurgents attacking our troops. * Give "protecting our troops" as a reason for attacking Iran without getting new authorization from Congress. Claim that the old authorization for attacking Iraq implied doing "whatever is necessary to protect our troops" from Iranian intervention in Iraq. * Argue that de-escalation in Iraq would "bleed" our troops, "weaken" America, and lead to defeat. This sets up escalation as a winning policy, if not in Iraq then in Iran. * Get the press to go along with each step. * Never mention the words "preventive nuclear war" or "national destruction." When asked, say "All options are on the table." Keep the issue of nuclear war and its consequences from being seriously discussed by the national media. * Intimidate Democratic presidential candidates into agreeing, without using the words, that nuclear war should be "on the table." This makes nuclear war and nation destruction bipartisan and even more acceptable. Progressives managed to blunt the "surge" idea by telling the truth about "escalation." Nuclear war against Iran and nation destruction constitute the ultimate escalation. The time has come to stop the attempt to make a nuclear war against Iran palatable to the American public. We do not believe that most Americans want to start a nuclear war or to impose nation destruction on the people of Iran. They might, though, be willing to support a tit-for-tat "surgical" "attack" on Natanz in retaliation for small canister bombs and to end Iran's early nuclear capacity. It is time for America's journalists and political leaders to put two and two together, and ask the fateful question: Is the Bush administration seriously preparing for nuclear war and nation destruction? If the conventional GBU-28's will do the job, then why not take nuclear war off the table in the name of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons? If GBU-28's won't do the job, then it is all the more important to have that discussion. This should not be a distraction from Iraq. The general issue is escalation as a policy, both in Iraq and in Iran. They are linked issues, not separate issues. We have learned from Iraq what lack of public scrutiny does. Presented in its entirety as a Public Service by EuroYank Published on Wednesday, February 28, 2007 by *Common Dreams The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War by George Lakoff George Lakoff is the author of Thinking Points (with the Rockridge Institute staff) and Whose Freedom? He is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and a founding senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute. Stumble It!

See the Video *America In the Second Nuclear Age Video With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, many Americans gave a deep sigh of relief and pronounced the nuclear threat at an end. The rise of Asian military power heralds the beginning of a second nuclear age as different from the first, that of the Cold War, as that contest was from World War II. The world that the West created is being challenged -- not just in military ways but in cultural and philosophical terms as well. Just as Asia began asserting itself economically in the 1960s and 1970s, it now does so militarily, backed by arms that would make Western interference in Asia far more treacherous and costly -- even in peacetime -- than ever before. Western military power has always been about more than just winning battles against the weaker forces of non-Europeans. It has been a tool for shaping the world along Western lines, a symbol of general supremacy in commerce and technology that separated the developed from the undeveloped. Those who actively opposed the West's vision of the future would inevitably lose, and the West in the early 1990s believed that no one would dare try. But for all the spectacular displays of American armaments in the Persian Gulf war and the former Yugoslavia, other nations have indeed contested the point -- not by trying to close the arms gap but by exploiting disruptive technologies that thwart America's advantages and exploit the Achilles' heel of its military position in Asia. The dawning of a second nuclear age overturns fundamental strategic assumptions about both the techno-military balance and preserving Western dominance in other areas. For example, the Western agenda today is defined almost exclusively in economic terms. Throughout the 1990s, the echo of "It's the economy, stupid" has had as much influence on foreign as on domestic policy. The integration of the Asian giants into a Western-led economic system has been seen as the era's central task. When should China be allowed into the World Trade Organization? How can India be made to loosen restrictions on foreign investment? How can the next financial crisis be prevented? These questions remain relevant, but the presumption that the West can still set the agenda and determine which hoops Asia must jump through to join the world system is now in serious doubt. Ballistic missiles carrying conventional warheads or weapons of mass destruction (WMD), along with other cutting-edge technologies, are now within reach of as many as ten Asian nations from Israel to North Korea -- a major shift in the world's balance of power. From a vantage point of more than 12 years after these tectonic shifts in geopolitics, we can see that the Nuclear Age, with new and growing dangers, is still with us. The first half-century of the Nuclear Age was marked by a mad arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union that resulted in the development and deployment of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons capable of destroying civilization and most life on Earth. While the nuclear standoff between the US and former USSR is no longer the extraordinary danger it was, new nuclear dangers have arisen that have led many astute observers to the conclusion that we have entered a second Nuclear Age. Among these new dangers are: * the nuclear standoff between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, two countries that have more than a fifty-year history of warfare and serious tensions; * the partial breakdown of command and control systems that protect nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials in the former Soviet countries, giving rise to the increased possibility that these weapons and materials could fall into the hands of other countries and terrorist organizations; * the pursuit of nuclear weapons programs and the development of nuclear arsenals by countries, such as North Korea and Iran, that feel threatened by the Bush administration’s policy of preemptive war; * the impetus that Israel’s nuclear arsenal gives to other countries in the Middle East to develop their own nuclear arsenals; * the provocative policies of the Bush administration to pursue smaller, more usable nuclear weapons and those with a specific use in warfare such as the so-called “bunker busters,” blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear arms; and * the possibility that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has already lost its first member, North Korea, could fall apart due to the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty to engage in good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. The United States, as the world’s sole surviving superpower, has had the opportunity to lead the world toward a nuclear weapons free future. It is an opportunity that our country has largely rejected, and has done so at its own peril. Political leaders in the United States have yet to grasp that nuclear weapons make us less secure rather than more so, and their policies have reflected this failure to comprehend the dangers of the second Nuclear Age. In the year 2000, the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the United States, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. These included “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals,” along with specific steps such as ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and applying the principle of irreversibility to nuclear disarmament. In each of these areas the United States, under the Bush administration, has led in the opposite direction. The administration’s policies have sent a message to the world that the world’s strongest military power finds nuclear weapons useful for its national security and plans to maintain its nuclear arsenal for the indefinite future. The Bush administration has opposed ratification of the CTBT and has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty. Its approach to nuclear disarmament has been to employ maximum flexibility and make reductions fully reversible. The US pact with Russia, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), signed by Presidents Bush and Putin in May 2002, calls for reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons on each side by the year 2012. The treaty has no timetable other than the final date to achieve these reductions, and there is no requirement to make these reductions irreversible. The Bush administration has already announced that it plans to put the weapons it takes off active deployment status into storage ready for redeployment on short notice. Thus, these weapons will be put into storage. The Russians are likely to follow suit, creating more opportunity for the stored nuclear weapons in both countries to fall into the hands of terrorists. In the meantime, the US and Russia are each maintaining over 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, subject to being launched accidentally. In addition, the Bush administration pursued an illegal preventive war against Iraq because of its purported, but never found, weapons of mass destruction. This action sent a message to North Korea, Iran and other states that if they want to be more secure from US attack, they had better develop nuclear forces to deter the US. North Korea has repeatedly made a simple request of the US. They have asked for security assurances from the US that they will not be attacked. This is not unreasonable considering that the Korean War has never officially ended, that the US maintains some 40,000 troops near the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, that the US keeps nuclear-armed submarines in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, and that the Bush administration has pursued a doctrine of preemption. In return for a Non-Aggression Pact from the US, the North Koreans have indicated that they would give up their nuclear weapons program and rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would be a great shame if Americans only awakened to the dangers of the second Nuclear Age with the detonation of one or more nuclear weapons somewhere in the world. Given the increased threats associated with terrorism and the dangers that nuclear weapons or bomb-grade nuclear materials could fall into the hands of terrorists, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the next detonation of a nuclear weapon or other weapon of mass destruction could take place in a city in the United States. It is of critical importance that Americans be made aware of these dangers and reverse our policies before we are confronted by such tragedy. References *The most Terrible Invention of Mankind *Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb? *Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age *World closer than ever to nuclear Armageddon - scientists *Officials fear a second nuclear age with spread of technology accelerates Stumble It!

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions. Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law." Read more *What is Bush Preparing For? *Bush Declares Himself Dictator *Bush Moves Toward Martial Law Posse Comitatus The main obstacle to Bush's militarization-scheme is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. The Act bans the military from participating in policing activities on US soil. It does not, however, prevent the military from helping out in national disasters. This is what is so troubling about Bush's request to change the law; it shows a clear intention to assert military authority wherever the troops are deployed. It is clearly not an attempt simply to help out. The intention to use the military in a "policing role" creates a permanent state of martial law that can't be fully grasped out of context. In the last few months the administration has made a number of dramatic changes to the system which have upset the critical balance between the co-equal parts of government. Just three months ago, Bush issued an executive order that created the National Security Service (NSS); a branch of the FBI that now works entirely under his authority. It is America's first secret police; no different than the East German Stasi or the Soviet Union's KGB. It operates completely beyond congressional oversight and is answerable to the president alone. It is Bush's personal Gestapo. Also, less than a month ago the 4th Circuit Court ruled that the president had the power to declare any American citizen an "enemy combatant" and summarily rescind all of his human and civil rights; including even the right to know the reason for which he is being he imprisoned. The ruling confers absolute authority on the president and ends of any meaningful notion of "inalienable rights". Also, just last week the Senate Intelligence Committee "approved legislation that allows Pentagon Intelligence operatives to collect information from US citizens without revealing their status as government spies." The Pentagon may now conduct clandestine investigations of American citizens without the traditional safeguards that are applied to FBI. In effect, the legislation revokes the fundamental guarantees of privacy under the 4th amendment and "green-lights" the Pentagon to operate covertly against American citizens whether they are legitimate terrorist suspects or simply political enemies. In another shocking development, President Bush said he will veto the upcoming Pentagon budget of $435 Billion if the bill contains any provision that limits the "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners". The President's action implies that he has the right to torture and abuse according to his own judgment, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, the 1996 Treaty on Torture and the 8th amendment. And, finally, the revised version of Patriot Act is quickly moving through the Congress. The new edition eviscerates the last feeble strands of the 4th amendment and paves the way for "administrative subpoenas", which allow law enforcement to carry out searches without judicial oversight. The Posse Comitatus Act, is the last bit of rickety scaffolding that protects the country from becoming a de facto military dictatorship. The power to deploy troops within the nation is the power to use the military against American citizens. It transforms the "people's army" into a direct threat to the democracy it is supposed to serve. Bush’s Martial Law Act of 2007 modifies the Insurrection Act and deals yet another blow to the Posse Comitatus Act. “Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, ‘Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,’” “Section 333, ‘Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law’ states that ‘the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (’refuse’ or ‘fail’ in) maintaining public order, ‘in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.’” Read more *Bush’s Martial Law Act of 2007 Stumble It!

The American Military Industrial Complex Democratic Republic Since 1787 the United States has had a two party system. First there were *Federalists and Anti-Federalists when the *Constitution of the United States was created. Only two political parties usually have had any substantial chance of victory in national elections. Indeed, since the Civil War, the same two parties, the Democratic and Republican, have constituted the American two-party system. The national two-party system of the late nineteenth century was an aggregate of one-party states. The Democrats maintained a one-party supremacy in the states of the Deep South from the Reconstruction period into the 1960s and in some cases into the 1970s (the Republicans dominated the South from the late 1980s into the early twenty-first century). Neither major party is strong enough to win with just its stalwarts. The winner must capture a majority of independents, crossovers or newly registered voters. 2001 Data 204 million eligible voters (age 18 or older) 63 million registered Democrats 47 million registered Republicans 32 million registered as independents or with minor party 62 million not registered In every national election the major-party candidate who gets most of the independent votes wins. In recent elections the American people have tended to vote for a conservative President and a liberal congress or vice-versa. Historically America's political system as set up by our Founding Fathers had no political parties or factions. It wasn't that they didn't know about political parties, but that they were unwelcome. When looking at the factions of Europe, our Founders didn't like what they saw - political intrigue, conspiracy, and hostile divisions. They were afraid that such a system would rip apart the Union. The Reality Americans have been propagandized into following a two-party system by certain wealthy elites who have not only captured our two major parties, but also control many of our large corporations, our entertainment industry, the mass media, and government schools. These elite socialites are able to easily propagandize us through all such medium, especially the government schools where they are able to train our children from a very young age. The push is on to get to our children from birth. The Military Industrial Complex Almost 50% of American taxes go to the Military Industrial Complex. The military-industrial complex is defined as a coalition consisting of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government. Reference *Military Industrial Complex America was once a land of peoples who knew how to think independently. As we have become increasingly socialized and become dependent citizens, we have lost that capability. Stumble It!

Nuclear Deployment for an Attack on Iran The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neocon" fanatics such as Vice President Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring. See the Videos *Is Nuclear War Coming Video (50% of Americans believe in this point of view) *Keith Olbermann Iraq-Iran Video *US Plans to Use Nuclear Weapons against Iran Video *Dangers of a Nuclear War-impacts of a nuclear attack on Iran Video (Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations – until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear program to military use. The "threat" from Iran is entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran's "nuclear ambitions," just as the vocabulary of Saddam's non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage. Accompanying this is a demonizing that has become standard practice.) Read more *Iran Press News Iran Press (English version) Read more *Iran: A War Is Coming *The Coming War With Iran *The March to War: Iran Preparing for US Air Attacks *Iran Ignited Many Fires World Abandoning American Dollar The Iranians are preparing to launch an oil bourse in March that will trade in euros. The hyperinflation caused by the massive printing of dollars in reaction to the world no longer holding on to its dollars after they start to trade in PetroEuro's can no longer be hidden. In the run up to March 20, I can see many countries trying to diversify their U.S. dollar reserve holdings - predominantly into Euros. Do not underestimate the Chinese - perhaps letting their currency "suddenly" float completely free to try and capture the deluge of loaded dollars that is sure to come. This turn of events will likely send huge "shudders" through the global financial system - if it does not shake it right to the ground. The U.S. dollar will fall dramatically, so much so in fact, American lifestyles will likely be dramatically altered - forever. Read more *The coming war against Iran The President Only Can Launch Nuclear War The decision to employ nuclear weapons at any level in a military conflict rests with the president. Neither Congress nor state governments nor you nor I have to be consulted. In preparation for the nuclear strike on Iran, the Bush administration in its second term has deployed into key positions hardliners that have both expertise in nuclear weapons and a known history of advocating the aggressive use thereof. Thus the president can say, "I feel like I'm getting really good advice from very capable people" to justify nuking Iran. In a recent interview, Joseph "dismissed Iran's contention it seeks only civilian nuclear power," said that "Iran is closing in on production of nuclear weapons and even UN sanctions may not deter the aggressive government in Tehran," and averred that "once they begin to enrich, that is the point of no return," echoing similar statements by Israeli officials. The Bush administration has been busy in recent years "deploying" the doctrine that will underpin the upcoming nuclear strike against Iran. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America of September 2002 codifies the doctrine of preemptive attacks, with phrases such as "We cannot let our enemies strike first…" - "We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries…" - "Even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack…" - "The United States cannot remain idle while danger gathers…" This doctrine was used with Iraq and will be used next with Iran. The Nuclear Posture Review delivered to Congress in 2001 is classified, but portions have been made public. It substantially broadens the role of nuclear weapons from their traditional role as deterrents against nuclear countries to encompass non-nuclear "rogue" nations. It states that "U.S. nuclear forces will now be used to dissuade adversaries from undertaking military programs or operations that could threaten U.S. interests or those of allies and friends," and that "Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack." Read more *Nuclear Deployment for an Attack on Iran *US signs up Poland and Czech Republic for missile shield European Union Negotiations The EU believes Iran is unlikely to negotiate seriously on its nuclear program and that there is little the international community can do little to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb, the Financial Times has reported. The internal "reflection paper" prepared for Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's staff and seen by the FT said that it was "difficult to believe" that Tehran would in the coming months resume talks on its nuclear program. At their meeting EU foreign ministers welcomed possible new talks to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions but pushed ahead with UN sanctions to punish Tehran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium. Meeting in Brussels, they pledged to press on with their "twin track" approach of keeping the door open to negotiations with Iran while endorsing specially targeted UN Security Council measures. Iran insists its program aims to generate nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but world powers suspect it of wanting to develop nuclear arms. The internal document was sceptical however of the chances of sanctions being effective and concludes there is little that can be done from preventing Iran from developing the technical infrastructure to build its own nuclear bomb. "In practice ... the Iranians have pursued their program at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the UN or the International Atomic Energy Agency," the document said. "Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded ... The problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions alone," it added. "At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons program," the document which was dated February 7 said, according to the business daily. It adds that Iran's rejection last year of a European offer trade incentives to halt enrichment "makes it difficult to believe that, at least in the short run, (Iran) would be ready to establish the conditions for the resumption of negotiations." Read more *EU:Brussels Rushes To Clarify 'Nuclear Iran' Report Stumble It!

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Bye Bye Miss American Pie Part One (Updated Daily) My continuing personal Autobiography here online. Excerpts from my forthcoming NOVEL Foreword Follow me through my journey of self-discovery as I uncover my past, which had defined my previous American life, and started me on a new road far removed from American shores. At 16, I began to research the history of Germany after the war and the Dark Side of American History. I began to uncover secrets kept from the American people. What I uncovered gave me the incentive to relearn my German Immigrant roots. The results of my discoveries are contained here ..... Ellis Island circa 1957 Immigration Point New York City When I started this work I knew most of my readers would be American. Americans just are not interesting anymore to Europeans. The dollar keeps loosing to the stronger Euro, and many can now afford to live the party life. The middle class is strong. Union representation and work contracts are the norm. Credit cards are 4%-5%. Most have six weeks paid vacations, and universal health care, and numerous other social benefits. Thousands of beers and wines and gourmet foods, and ongoing festivals, and numerous holidays make most content. Europeans know Americans. They know our politics, and millions have traveled the USA (90% have passports; *19% of Americans do.) American movies, and music, and culture have been part of the European scene for over 50 years; blues and jazz since the 1930's. Yet only 9% of Americans speak a foreign language. In Germany, and Holland, in Denmark and Sweden, in Austria and beyond, English is the second language. The truth is that Americans since the 1970's have become less engaged with the world in general. While the world was turning into a global village, the average American was moving to the suburbs, and up to now had tuned the world out. Because of America's pre-eminent position in world affairs, and its role in globalization, its foreign policy matters more than any other country. How can America shape a responsible foreign policy with such an uninformed electorate? Are things different now? As the new Europe had emerged, I started writing. America is at war again, and the Republicans are taking from the poor and giving to the rich again. The military budget is now over *710 billion dollars a year.Medical benefits, school lunch programs, education, every American *entitlement is being stripped to the bone to pay for war. Hundreds of thousands of Veterans no longer receive benefits - (reclassified), and 47 million Americans have no health care. The American *Savings Rate is now lower than during the Great Depression of 1929. One illness, one accident, one incident in court and most Americans will be history and wiped out. Yes, we are pitied now and no longer held in high esteem. The Military Industrial Complex Now Big oil and the military industrial complex are profiting as never before. The difference between what U.S. citizens think their rulers are doing in the world and what these rulers actually are doing is one of the great propaganda achievements of history. In reality, the overriding goal of U.S. policy is to make the world ever safer and more profitable for the Fortune 500 Corporations and international finance capital. See the Video *The Rise of the Military-Industrial Complex -- Video Documentary Other References *Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit *The Living Reality of Military-Economic Fascism Dulles-Bush Dynasty helped fund the NAZI Military Industrial complex Uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners. Prescott Bush also led a group called the American Liberty League in a treasonous conspiracy with JP Morgan and the DuPont family. He tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Also involved in the Funding of the NAZI war machine were Eugenics champions Ford...and Brown Brothers Harrimen. The Dulles Bros. were international finance specialists for the powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell... Alan Dulles went on to become head of the CIA... and John Foster Dulles went on to become secretary of state! Read more *Bush Family Links to the Third Reich Back To the Future This generation of Americans are not mine of the 1960's. They are more easily manipulated and fooled then we were during the ten years of Vietnam, and now after 15 years of the Iraq War and an eventual war cost that will be 2 Trillion before its all over, they seem to be finally waking up after most of the Constitution has been trashed, and the Bill of Rights is just old paper. The *doomsday clock is again set at five minutes to midnight, just as it was during the cold war. It is the 1960's again, or worse. Queen Elizabeth I I was six years old when we left Germany back in the late 1950's. I remember my father selling his worldly goods just to book passage on the Queen Elizabeth 1 back then, outbound from Hamburg, Germany to Ellis Island, New York *as millions of Germans had done for generations. This is the beginning of this autobiography and I will just hit some main points for now ... Hamburg, Germany I remember sleeping on restaurant floors in Germany on our travel to Hamburg. I remember some stuffed ice bears in Hamburg, and I remember being sea sick on the two week sea voyage to the USA. I remember my German shepherd Hasso that used to pull my sister and me on the sled in winter, and I remember him every breakfast morning going to the baker in the village with a bread basket hung around his neck and bringing back to the family table warm rolls for us to feast on. I also remember the French officers that quartered in our 1920's home, since my part of Germany was under French occupation. I remember one day when one of these Frenchies slapped me for not getting out of his way in time and Hasso attacked him and was about to be shot but my grandmother stood in the way. But all these childhood memories remained buried as we reached New York and faced a new life in a new world. America was just too big, and life was too fast, and the people were all in such a hurry. Back then you had to have a sponsor and a skilled trade that was in demand to immigrate to the USA. Your health was checked, as was your family background, and you had to have a job and references. Nothing was left to chance, because the new country did not want freeloaders. America wanted people to assimilate and become part not apart of the society. And then as now, Americans were not comfortable with a foreign language spoken in their midst. 94% of Americans Classify Themselves Not As A m e r i c a n Only However, my young eyes did not interpret the facts as they really were, for America is a land of immigrants and the facts are not as they seemed. (The various ethnic and racial origins of the residents and immigrants remain important sources of personal identity. Of the 224 million people reporting their ancestry in the 1990 census, only 13 million, or 6 percent, identified themselves as Americans only. The rest chose one or more broad racial or linguistic groupings (such as African American or Hispanic) or national heritages (German, English, Irish, and Italian were most common) to define their origins. Most Americans possess varied national, ethnic, and racial identities that reflect both the origins of their ancestors and their own affiliation to the United States.) Reference *United States People America was more successful in expanding and winning wars and conquering territory. America had never known defeat, and she was the big victor in the big war. Everything was red, white and blue in every city, in every town, in every state. It was 1957. It was uncomfortable being a German kid not knowing English in an American school. Especially living in a small American town where most of my classmates were sons and daughters of farmers; the most conservative group of Americans. Luckily I was in a catholic school and my teachers were *Franciscan nuns. In those days the classes were run by the iron fist of those nuns, and each hand had a stick in it, and if you did not behave as expected you got whacked. I had a significant advantage over my parents, because being a child and growing up in America I never developed an accent and could speak American English like a native - a fact that helped me tremendously in my future. On American television all you could see were German war movies and German hate films. That is really how I learned English. American War Crimes Against the German People At 16 I began to research the history of Germany after the war and to uncover secrets kept from the American people. What I uncovered gave me the incentive to relearn my German language and my German culture ..... Between 1 and 2 million German POWs died in American captivity after surrender (1945) "Starting in April 1945, the United States Army and the French Army casually annihilated one million [German] men, (POW's - prisoners of war,) most of them in American camps . . . Eisenhower's hatred, passed through the lens of a compliant military bureaucracy, produced the horror of death camps unequalled by anything in American history . . . an enormous war crime." -- Col. Ernest F. Fisher, PhD Lt. 101 st Airborne Division, Senior Historian, United States Army How three to six million Germans died after VE Day After the Reich discusses the murder of at least three million Germans, primarily women, children, and the elderly, after VE day. In actual fact, at least another 3 to 6 millions Germans perished in the East long before VE Day: they were murdered, raped, and ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland in what was central and eastern areas of Germany. This Holocaust of millions of innocent Germans, of course, has received little of the attention of the the Jewish Holocaust. Most people are not even aware of the massive atrocities against the German people at the end of the Second World War. The months that followed May 1945 brought no peace to the shattered skeleton of Hitler’s Reich, but suffering even worse than the destruction wrought by the war. After the atrocities that the Nazis had visited on Europe, some degree of justified vengeance by their victims was inevitable, but the appalling bestialities that MacDonogh documents so soberly went far beyond that. Read more ... *How three million Germans died after VE Day Reference *Eisenhower's Holocaust: His Slaughter of 1.7 Million Germans While German soldiers from the British and Canadian zones were quickly regaining strength and were helping rebuild Europe, Germans taken by the Americans were dying by the hundreds of thousands - emaciated figures in diarrhea smeared clothing, huddling pitifully in watery holes with perhaps a scrap of cardboard over their heads and a rotten potato for supper. At times many of them were reduced to drinking urine and eating grass. Did all this happen because of one supremely unprincipled and influential man named Eisenhower? Or was Ike in turn influenced by a small circle around him or by his superiors in Washington? Historians will be probing this question for decades to come. Eisenhower, in his personal letters, did not merely hate the Nazi Regime, and the few who imposed its will down from the top, but HE HATED THE GERMAN PEOPLE AS A RACE. It was his personal intent to destroy as many of them as he could, and one way was to wipe out as many prisoners of war as possible. Reference *US War Crimes in World War II "Since the end of the war about 3,000,000 people, mostly women and children and overaged men, have been killed in eastern Germany and south-eastern Europe; about 15,000,000 (15 million) people have been deported or had to flee from their homesteads and are on the road. Reference *History and Forgetting About 25 per cent of these people, over 3,000,000 have perished. About 4,000,000 men and women have been deported to eastern Europe and Russia as slaves. It seems that the elimination of the German population of eastern Europe - at least 15,000,000 people (15 million) - was planned in accordance with decisions made at Yalta. Churchill had said ... "Don't mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them. You will have no trouble with them: they will cease to exist." Quoted by Sen. Homer Capehart in speech before U.S. Senate, Feb. 5, 1946. German children released from detention camps in 1950; five years after the end of the war Of course, that was illegal under International law, so he issued an order on March 10, 1945 and verified by his initials on a cable of that date, that German Prisoners of War be predesignated as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" called in these reports as DEF. He ordered that these Germans did not fall under the Geneva Rules, and were not to be fed or given any water or medical attention. The Swiss Red Cross was not to inspect the camps, for under the DEF classification, they had no such authority or jurisdiction. Months after the war was officially over, Eisenhower's special German DEF camps were still in operation forcing the men into confinement, but denying that they were prisoners. As soon as the war was over, General George Patton simply turned his prisoners loose to fend for themselves and find their way home as best they could. Eisenhower was furious, and issued a specific order to Patton, to turn these men over to the DEF camps. Knowing Patton as we do from history, we know that these orders were largely ignored, and it may well be that Patton's untimely and curious death may have been a result of what he knew about these wretched Eisenhower DEF camps. The book, OTHER LOSSES, found its way into the hands of a Canadian news reporter, Peter Worthington, of the OTTAWA SUN. He did his own research through contacts he had in Canada, and reported in his column on September 12,1989 the following, in part: "...it is hard to escape the conclusion that Dwight Eisenhower was a war criminal of epic proportions. His (DEF) policy killed more Germans in peace than were killed in the European Theater during war." "For years we have blamed the 1.7 million missing German POW's on the Russians. Until now, no one dug too deeply ... Witnesses and survivors have been interviewed by the author; one Allied officer compared the American camps to Buchenwald." It is known, that the Allies had sufficient stockpiles of food and medicine to care for these German soldiers. This was deliberately and intentionally denied them. Many men died of gangrene from frostbite due to deliberate exposure. Local German people who offered these men food, were denied. General Patton's Third Army was the only command in the European Theater to release significant numbers of Germans. Others, such as Omar Bradley and General J.C.H. Lee, Commander of Com Z, tried, and ordered the release of prisoners within a week of the war's end. However, a SHAEF Order, signed by Eisenhower, countermanded them on May 15th. The Air War No war in U.S. history claimed more civilian lives than the war against Germany. The death toll from both atomic bombs used against Japan does not equal the death toll from the fire and phosphorous bombs used against Germany. (These bombs created a firestorm that was so intense, German civilians were baked alive in their basement bomb shelters.) ... The German civilians who were burned alive in our bombing raids were no more likely to be Nazis than the Afghani civilians who've been hit by U.S. missiles are likely to be Taliban sympathizers. In our bombing of Germany, heavily populated civilian districts were intentionally targeted. The idea was that by targeting the civilian population, we would disrupt Germany's economy, destroy the morale of its citizens and create chaos by rendering millions of people homeless. Low-income areas were especially targeted for destruction because the population was denser and the buildings closer together. In February 1942, Allied bombers were specifically instructed to concentrate on built-up residential areas instead of targets such as dockyards and factories. Hamburg on July 27, 1943--when 739 Allied bombers killed 50,000 people mostly women, children and elderly people. High Capacity bombs were used and accuracy was not important - these bombs were designed for blowing the tiles off the roofs of buildings so that the smaller 4 lb (1.8 kg) incendiary bombs could reach the building interiors. According to historian Sven Lindquist, author of A History of Bombing, “The British air attacks on Hamburg killed more people than all German air attacks against English cities put together.” It was a brutal way to win a war - and it worked like a charm. By the war's end, more than 2.3 million German civilians were dead, about one-third of them killed in air raids (60,000 of these air raid victims were not even Germans; they were foreign laborers, including Jews). American Attitude Towards Rescuing Jews The attitude of the U.S. government toward rescuing European Jews was best summed up by R. Borden Reams of the State Department’s Division of European Affairs in May 1943. “While in theory, any approach to the German government would have met with blank refusal, there is always the danger that the German government might turn over to the United States and to Great Britain a large number of Jewish refugees,” Reams said. “In the event of our admission of inability to take care of these people, the onus for continued persecution would have been largely transferred from the German government to [the Allies.]” This reflected the anti-Semitism widespread within the U.S. and British governments. Reference *Allied War Crimes American Refusal To Sign "Laws of War" Treaties The United States has been particularly reluctant to sign treaties addressing the "laws of war". It has refused to sign The Declaration on the Prohibition of the Use of Thermo-Nuclear Weapons (1961); The Resolution on the Non-Use of Force in International Relations and Permanent Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons (1972); The Resolution on the Definition of Aggression (1974); Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Convention (1977); and the Declaration on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(1989) Equally disturbing was the U.S. refusal to sign the Convention on Rights of the Child, introduced into the United Nations General assembly on November 20, 1989 and subsequently ratified by 191 countries. Since World War II the US has bombed twenty-three nations. Author William Blum notes: "It is sobering to reflect that in our era of instant world wide communications, the United States has, on many occasions, been able to mount a large or small scale military operation or undertake other equally blatant forms of intervention without the American public being aware of it until years later if ever." Early Years When I was born, Germany had been divided into four occupation zones; the Soviets held the eastern part, the British the northwestern, the Americans the southeast, and the French held the southwest corridor. The occupation would continue this way for about 50 years. I started life in the French occupied (blue) zone in the Southwest across from Switzerland. At that time many of the French occupation troops were blacks from French Africa. Most of my area was either heavily forested or had deep valleys and rolling farm land. Going Cuckoo Father and grandfather had a cuckoo clock shop in the basement, and in those early years after the war, making cuckoo clocks was the mainstay of the family, that allowed us to survive and build up a business. The entire family was involved. Even today, original Black Forest German cuckoo clocks are not manufactured as a mass produced clock, but as hand-assembled masterpieces. To achieve the highest quality is the goal. Wood-carvings and clock cases are produced only in the Black Forest and thus are known around the world for their quality workmanship First step – where everything starts – is the wood which is used for the clocks. Most of the cuckoo clocks are made of Linden Tree. Those trees with their heart-shaped leaves are quite common in Europe and their wood can be used very well for carvings. After the trees are cut down the wood is pilled up and needs years to rest. Then the chances that the wood will move are low. The wood will be cut into appropriate pieces corresponding to the size of the clock. The basic pieces which are coming out of the sharper are checked carefully to avoid cracks or irregularities within the wood. Before the clock is assembled all pieces are finished in different working steps. In the meantime the inner life of the cuckoo clocks will be assembled. The different movements and the fine mechanics which will give live to the cuckoo and the dancing figurines on the front side of the clock will be put together. This requires a lot of subtle intuition due to the small and fragile parts used. The metal parts used within the clock are also done mostly by hand – for sure there is some support by machines but the work needs really a lot of experience. The following link *Cuckoo Clock Manufacturing process shows how it was done. Propaganda At the Top American Foreign Aid Myths I like most Americans, have always been a sucker for government propaganda. My research brought me to another example of one that the American people have swallowed for over 50 years. This strategy was and is still being used in the current Iraq adventure. The Myth of the Marshall Plan that Saved Western Europe Here is the standard American Government propaganda ... Summer 1947 Europe, still devastated by the war, had just survived one of the worst winters on record. Something had to be done, both for humanitarian reasons and also to stop the potential spread of communism westward. The United States offered up to $20 billion for relief, but only if the European nations could get together and draw up a rational plan on how they would use the aid. The Marshall Plan benefited the American economy as well. The money would be used to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels. But it worked. By 1953 the United States had pumped in $13 billion, and Europe was standing on its feet again. Moreover, the Plan included West Germany, which was thus reintegrated into the European community. Here Are the Standard Marshall Plan Propaganda sites ... *For European Recovery:The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Marshall Plan *Marshall Plan Home Page *The Marshall Plan 1947-1952 The Reality As economist Tyler Cowen has noted, the countries that received the most Marshall Plan money (allies Britain, Sweden, and Greece) grew the slowest between 1947 and 1955, while those that received the least money (axis powers Germany, Austria, and Italy) grew the most. In terms of post-war prosperity, then, it eventually paid to be a political enemy of the U.S. instead of a "beneficiary" of international charity. But the real upshot of the Marshall Plan was a political maneuver to loot American taxpayers to keep influential American corporations on the government dole. The Plan's legacy was the perpetual use of foreign aid for domestic political and economic purposes. After the war ended, Harry Truman's popularity in the polls began to plummet, as did the prestige of government generally. The American people had made huge sacrifices to fight the war and now wanted curbs in government, which had been administering a centrally planned economy. Most of all, they wanted the foreign policy recommended by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson: trade with all, entanglements with none. In the mainstream of thinking was Republican Senator Robert Taft, a hero of all free-market activists at the time. He demanded tax cuts, spending cuts, and an end to "constantly increasing interference with family life and with business by autocratic government bureaus and autocratic labor leaders." The Republican party swept midterm elections in 1946, taking back the Congress on a hard-core, anti-big government platform. Truman had to do something big and he knew it. As Charles Mee reports, he needed "some large program that would let him recapture the initiative, something big enough to enable him to gather in all the traditional factions of the Democratic Party and also some middle-of-the-road Republicans, and at the same time, something that would hamper the Republican phalanx," and establish him as a world leader. The issue was right before him: foreign aid, funneled through the corporate establishment and cloaked in the rhetoric of opposition to foreign (but not domestic) communism. Cynically, he would make good use of Russia, which only the day before had been our gallant ally in the war, and transform it into a monster that had to be destroyed. By stealing the Republican's anti-socialist rhetoric, Truman hoped to frazzle his opponents and make himself a hero on the world stage. A little-known business group, founded in 1942 and called the Committee for Economic Development, was elevated into a think tank for a new international order--the economic counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations. The Committee's founders were the heads of the top steel, automotive, and electric industries who had benefited from the New Deal's corporatist stateism. Its membership overlapped with the farther left National Planning Association, which was unabashedly national socialist in ideological orientation. These groups understood that they owed their profit margins to government subsidies provided by the New Deal and wartime production subsidies. Faced with post-war peace, they feared a future in which they would be forced to compete on a free-market basis. Their personal and institutional security was at stake, so they got busy dreaming up strategies to sustain a profitable stateism in a peacetime economy. Corporate economic interests, then, overlapped with Truman's political interests, and an unholy alliance between business and government was born. They would use Europe's miseries to line their own pockets in the name of "rebuilding" and providing "security" against trumped-up threats to American security. Most of all, the aid was used for purchases at distorted prices by American tax dollars in the hands of European governments. The mad scramble for tax dollars was a disgrace to behold, creating a low point in U.S. business history. Time and again, Congress intervened to grant corporate America what it really wanted: restrictions that forced Marshall aid to go to purchases of American oil, aluminum, wood, textiles, and machines. The aid was also used to directly subsidize particular firms in recipient countries, whether or not there were viable markets for their products. Instead, the firms received money because their continued existence would artificially support "full employment" policies. And since American labor union groups were intimately involved in choosing who got the money, the lion's share went to companies with closed union shops, paradoxically restricting the ability of labor markets to readjust to new economic realities. All told, the Marshall Plan dumped $13 billion, or nearly $100 billion in today's dollars. It was enough to firmly entrench American companies in European markets, especially in Britain, France, and Germany. American-controlled companies dominated industries such as shoes, milk, cereals, machines, cars, canned goods, petroleum refinement, locks and keys, printing, tires, soaps, clocks, farm machinery, and much more. A year after the Marshall Plan began sucking private capital out of the economy, the U.S. fell into recession, precisely the opposite of what its proponents predicted. Meanwhile, the aid did not help Europe. What reconstructed Europe was the post-Marshall freeing up of controlled prices, keeping inflation in check, and curbing union power that is, the free market The actual legacy of the Marshall Plan was a vast expansion of government at home, the beginnings of the Cold War rhetoric that would sustain the welfare-warfare state for 40 years, a permanent global troop presence, and an entire business class on the take from Washington. It also created a belief on the part of the ruling elite in D.C. that it could trick the public into backing anything, including the idea that government and its connected interest groups should run the world at taxpayer expense. References *A Look Behind The Marshall Plan Mythology *I'll Buy That Dream To be continued Stumble It!

The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War

Rising Nuclear War Possibility (Natanz Iranian Nuclear Facility) *Iran's Nuclear Program "The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete." —Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006 "The second concern is that if an underground laboratory is deeply buried, that can also confound conventional weapons. But the depth of the Natanz facility - reports place the ceiling roughly 30 feet underground - is not prohibitive. The American GBU-28 weapon - the so-called bunker buster - can pierce about 23 feet of concrete and 100 feet of soil. Unless the cover over the Natanz lab is almost entirely rock, bunker busters should be able to reach it. That said, some chance remains that a single strike would fail." —Michael Levi, New York Times, April 18, 2006 A familiar means of denying a reality is to refuse to use the words that describe that reality. A common form of propaganda is to keep reality from being described. In such circumstances, silence and euphemism are forms of complicity both in propaganda and in the denial of reality. And the media, as well as the major presidential candidates, are now complicit. The stories in the major media suggest that an attack against Iran is a real possibility and that the Natanz nuclear development site is the number one target. As the above quotes from two of our best sources note, military experts say that conventional "bunker-busters" like the GBU-28 might be able to destroy the Natanz facility, especially with repeated bombings. But on the other hand, they also say such iterated use of conventional weapons might not work, e.g., if the rock and earth above the facility becomes liquefied. On that supposition, a "low yield" "tactical" nuclear weapon, say, the B61-11, might be needed. If the Bush administration, for example, were to insist on a sure "success," then the "attack" would constitute nuclear war. The words in boldface are nuclear war, that's right, nuclear war — a first strike nuclear war. We don't know what exactly is being planned — conventional GBU-28's or nuclear B61-11's. And that is the point. Discussion needs to be open. Nuclear war is not a minor matter. The Euphemism As early as August 13, 2005, Bush, in Jerusalem, was asked what would happen if diplomacy failed to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program. Bush replied, "All options are on the table." On April 18, the day after the appearance of Seymour Hersh's New Yorker report on the administration's preparations for a nuclear war against Iran, President Bush held a news conference. He was asked, "Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?" He replied, "All options are on the table." The President never actually said the forbidden words "nuclear war," but he appeared to tacitly acknowledge the preparations — without further discussion. Vice-President Dick Cheney, speaking in Australia last week, backed up the President. "We worked with the European community and the United Nations to put together a set of policies to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations and resolve the matter peacefully, and that is still our preference. But I've also made the point, and the president has made the point, that all options are on the table." Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, on FOX News August 14, 2005, said the same. "For us to say that the Iranians can do whatever they want to do and we won't under any circumstances exercise a military option would be for them to have a license to do whatever they want to do ... So I think the president's comment that we won't take anything off the table was entirely appropriate." But it's not just Republicans. Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, in a speech in Herzliyah, Israel, echoed Bush. "To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table. Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table." Although, Edwards has said, when asked about this statement, that he prefers peaceful solutions and direct negotiations with Iran, he has nonetheless repeated the "all options on the table" position — making clear that he would consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but without using the fateful words. Hillary Clinton, at an AIPAC dinner in NY, said, "We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table." Translation: Nuclear weapons can be used to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Barack Obama, asked on 60 Minutes about using military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, began a discussion of his preference for diplomacy by responding, "I think we should keep all options on the table." Bush, Cheney, McCain, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all say indirectly that they seriously consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but will not engage in a public discussion of what that would mean. That contributes to a general denial, and the press is going along with it by a corresponding refusal to use the words. If the consequences of nuclear war are not discussed openly, the war may happen without an appreciation of the consequences and without the public having a chance to stop it. Our job is to open that discussion. Of course, there is a rationale for the euphemism: To scare our adversaries by making them think that we are crazy enough to do what we hint at, while not raising a public outcry. That is what happened in the lead up to the Iraq War, and the disaster of that war tells us why we must have such a discussion about Iran. Presidential candidates go along, not wanting to be thought of as interfering in on-going indirect diplomacy. That may be the conventional wisdom for candidates, but an informed, concerned public must say what candidates are advised not to say. More Euphemisms The euphemisms used include "tactical," "small," "mini-," and "low yield" nuclear weapons. "Tactical" contrasts with "strategic"; it refers to tactics, relatively low-level choices made in carrying out an overall strategy, but which don't affect the grand strategy. But the use of any nuclear weapons at all would be anything but "tactical." It would be a major world event – in Vladimir Putin's words, "lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," making the use of more powerful nuclear weapons more likely and setting off a new arms race. The use of the word "tactical" operates to lessen their importance, to distract from the fact that their very use would constitute a nuclear war. What is "low yield"? Perhaps the "smallest" tactical nuclear weapon we have is the B61-11, which has a dial-a-yield feature: it can yield "only" 0.3 kilotons, but can be set to yield up to 170 kilotons. The power of the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. That is, a "small" bomb can yield more than 10 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. The B61-11 dropped from 40,000 feet would dig a hole 20 feet deep and then explode, send shock waves downward, leave a huge crater, and spread radiation widely. The idea that it would explode underground and be harmless to those above ground is false — and, anyway, an underground release of radiation would threaten ground water and aquifers for a long time and over wide distance. To use words like "low yield" or "small" or "mini-" nuclear weapon is like speaking of being a little bit pregnant. Nuclear war is nuclear war! It crosses the moral line. Any discussion of roadside canister bombs made in Iran justifying an attack on Iran should be put in perspective: Little canister bombs (EFP's — explosively formed projectiles) that shoot a small hot metal ball at a humvee or tank versus nuclear war. Incidentally, the administration may be focusing on the canister bombs because it seeks to claim that the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 permits the use of military force against Iran based on its interference in Iraq. In that case, no further authorization by Congress would be needed for an attack on Iran. The journalistic point is clear. Journalists and political leaders should not talk about an "attack." They should use the words that describe what is really at stake: nuclear war — in boldface. Then, there is the scale of the proposed attack. Military reports leaking out suggest a huge (mostly or entirely non-nuclear) airstrike on as many as 10,000 targets — a "shock and awe" attack that would destroy Iran's infrastructure the way the US bombing destroyed Iraq's. The targets would not just be "military targets." As Dan Plesch reports in the New Statesman, February 19, 2007, such an attack would wipe out Iran's military, business, and political infrastructure. Not just nuclear installations, missile launching sites, tanks, and ammunition dumps, but also airports, rail lines, highways, bridges, ports, communications centers, power grids, industrial centers, hospitals, public buildings, and even the homes of political leaders. That is what was attacked in Iraq: the "critical infrastructure." It is not just military in the traditional sense. It leaves a nation in rubble, and leads to death, maiming, disease, joblessness, impoverishment, starvation, mass refugees, lawlessness, rape, and incalculable pain and suffering. That is what the options appear to be "on the table." Is nation destruction what the American people have in mind when they acquiesce without discussion to an "attack"? Is nuclear war what the American people have in mind? An informed public must ask and the media must ask. The words must be used. Even if the attack were limited to nuclear installations, starting a nuclear war with Iran would have terrible consequences — and not just for Iranians. First, it would strengthen the hand of the Islamic fundamentalists — exactly the opposite of the effect US planners would want. It would be viewed as yet another major attack on Islam. Fundamentalist Islam is a revenge culture. If you want to recruit fundamentalist Islamists all over the world to become violent jihadists, this is the best way to do it. America would become a world pariah. Any idea of the US as a peaceful nation would be destroyed. Moreover, you don't work against the spread of nuclear weapons by using those weapons. That will just make countries all over the world want nuclear weaponry all the more. Trying to stop nuclear proliferation through nuclear war is self-defeating. As Einstein said, "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." Why would the Bush administration do it? Here is what conservative strategist William Kristol wrote last summer during Israel's war with Hezbollah. "For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak. The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement." —Willam Kristol, Weekly Standard 7/24/06 "Renewed strength" is just the Bush strategy in Iraq. At a time when the Iraqi people want us to leave, when our national elections show that most Americans want our troops out, when 60% of Iraqis think it all right to kill Americans, Bush wants to escalate. Why? Because he is weak in America. Because he needs to show more "strength." Because, if he knocks out the Iranian nuclear facilities, he can claim at least one "victory." Starting a nuclear war with Iran would really put us in a world-wide war with fundamentalist Islam. It would make real the terrorist threat he has been claiming since 9/11. It would create more fear — real fear — in America. And he believes, with much reason, that fear tends to make Americans vote for saber-rattling conservatives. Kristol's neoconservative view that "weakness is provocative" is echoed in Iran, but by the other side. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted in the New York Times of February 24, 2007 as having "vowed anew to continue enriching uranium, saying, 'If we show weakness in front of the enemies, they will increase their expectations.'" If both sides refuse to back off for fear of showing weakness, then prospects for conflict are real, despite the repeated analyses, like that of The Economist that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be politically and morally impossible. As one unnamed administration official has said (New York Times, February 24, 2007), "No one has defined where the red line is that we cannot let the Iranians step over." What we are seeing now is the conservative message machine preparing the country to accept the ideas of a nuclear war and nation destruction against Iran. The technique used is the "slippery slope." It is done by degrees. Like the proverbial frog in the pot of water – if the heat is turned up slowly the frog gets used to the heat and eventually boils to death – the American public is getting gradually acclimated to the idea of war with Iran. * First, describe Iran as evil – part of the axis of evil. An inherently evil person will inevitably do evil things and can't be negotiated with. An entire evil nation is a threat to other nations. * Second, describe Iran's leader as a "Hitler" who is inherently "evil" and cannot be reasoned with. Refuse to negotiate with him. * Then repeat the lie that Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons —weapons of mass destruction. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says they are at best many years away. * Call nuclear development "an existential threat" – a threat to our very existence. * Then suggest a single "surgical" "attack" on Natanz and make it seem acceptable. * Then find a reason to call the attack "self-defense" — or better protection for our troops from the EFP's, or single-shot canister bombs. * Claim, without proof and without anyone even taking responsibility for the claim, that the Iranian government at its highest level is supplying deadly weapons to Shiite militias attacking our troops, while not mentioning the fact that Saudi Arabia is helping Sunni insurgents attacking our troops. * Give "protecting our troops" as a reason for attacking Iran without getting new authorization from Congress. Claim that the old authorization for attacking Iraq implied doing "whatever is necessary to protect our troops" from Iranian intervention in Iraq. * Argue that de-escalation in Iraq would "bleed" our troops, "weaken" America, and lead to defeat. This sets up escalation as a winning policy, if not in Iraq then in Iran. * Get the press to go along with each step. * Never mention the words "preventive nuclear war" or "national destruction." When asked, say "All options are on the table." Keep the issue of nuclear war and its consequences from being seriously discussed by the national media. * Intimidate Democratic presidential candidates into agreeing, without using the words, that nuclear war should be "on the table." This makes nuclear war and nation destruction bipartisan and even more acceptable. Progressives managed to blunt the "surge" idea by telling the truth about "escalation." Nuclear war against Iran and nation destruction constitute the ultimate escalation. The time has come to stop the attempt to make a nuclear war against Iran palatable to the American public. We do not believe that most Americans want to start a nuclear war or to impose nation destruction on the people of Iran. They might, though, be willing to support a tit-for-tat "surgical" "attack" on Natanz in retaliation for small canister bombs and to end Iran's early nuclear capacity. It is time for America's journalists and political leaders to put two and two together, and ask the fateful question: Is the Bush administration seriously preparing for nuclear war and nation destruction? If the conventional GBU-28's will do the job, then why not take nuclear war off the table in the name of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons? If GBU-28's won't do the job, then it is all the more important to have that discussion. This should not be a distraction from Iraq. The general issue is escalation as a policy, both in Iraq and in Iran. They are linked issues, not separate issues. We have learned from Iraq what lack of public scrutiny does. Presented in its entirety as a Public Service by EuroYank Published on Wednesday, February 28, 2007 by *Common Dreams The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War by George Lakoff George Lakoff is the author of Thinking Points (with the Rockridge Institute staff) and Whose Freedom? He is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and a founding senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.

The Second Nuclear Age

See the Video *America In the Second Nuclear Age Video With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, many Americans gave a deep sigh of relief and pronounced the nuclear threat at an end. The rise of Asian military power heralds the beginning of a second nuclear age as different from the first, that of the Cold War, as that contest was from World War II. The world that the West created is being challenged -- not just in military ways but in cultural and philosophical terms as well. Just as Asia began asserting itself economically in the 1960s and 1970s, it now does so militarily, backed by arms that would make Western interference in Asia far more treacherous and costly -- even in peacetime -- than ever before. Western military power has always been about more than just winning battles against the weaker forces of non-Europeans. It has been a tool for shaping the world along Western lines, a symbol of general supremacy in commerce and technology that separated the developed from the undeveloped. Those who actively opposed the West's vision of the future would inevitably lose, and the West in the early 1990s believed that no one would dare try. But for all the spectacular displays of American armaments in the Persian Gulf war and the former Yugoslavia, other nations have indeed contested the point -- not by trying to close the arms gap but by exploiting disruptive technologies that thwart America's advantages and exploit the Achilles' heel of its military position in Asia. The dawning of a second nuclear age overturns fundamental strategic assumptions about both the techno-military balance and preserving Western dominance in other areas. For example, the Western agenda today is defined almost exclusively in economic terms. Throughout the 1990s, the echo of "It's the economy, stupid" has had as much influence on foreign as on domestic policy. The integration of the Asian giants into a Western-led economic system has been seen as the era's central task. When should China be allowed into the World Trade Organization? How can India be made to loosen restrictions on foreign investment? How can the next financial crisis be prevented? These questions remain relevant, but the presumption that the West can still set the agenda and determine which hoops Asia must jump through to join the world system is now in serious doubt. Ballistic missiles carrying conventional warheads or weapons of mass destruction (WMD), along with other cutting-edge technologies, are now within reach of as many as ten Asian nations from Israel to North Korea -- a major shift in the world's balance of power. From a vantage point of more than 12 years after these tectonic shifts in geopolitics, we can see that the Nuclear Age, with new and growing dangers, is still with us. The first half-century of the Nuclear Age was marked by a mad arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union that resulted in the development and deployment of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons capable of destroying civilization and most life on Earth. While the nuclear standoff between the US and former USSR is no longer the extraordinary danger it was, new nuclear dangers have arisen that have led many astute observers to the conclusion that we have entered a second Nuclear Age. Among these new dangers are: * the nuclear standoff between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, two countries that have more than a fifty-year history of warfare and serious tensions; * the partial breakdown of command and control systems that protect nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials in the former Soviet countries, giving rise to the increased possibility that these weapons and materials could fall into the hands of other countries and terrorist organizations; * the pursuit of nuclear weapons programs and the development of nuclear arsenals by countries, such as North Korea and Iran, that feel threatened by the Bush administration’s policy of preemptive war; * the impetus that Israel’s nuclear arsenal gives to other countries in the Middle East to develop their own nuclear arsenals; * the provocative policies of the Bush administration to pursue smaller, more usable nuclear weapons and those with a specific use in warfare such as the so-called “bunker busters,” blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear arms; and * the possibility that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has already lost its first member, North Korea, could fall apart due to the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty to engage in good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. The United States, as the world’s sole surviving superpower, has had the opportunity to lead the world toward a nuclear weapons free future. It is an opportunity that our country has largely rejected, and has done so at its own peril. Political leaders in the United States have yet to grasp that nuclear weapons make us less secure rather than more so, and their policies have reflected this failure to comprehend the dangers of the second Nuclear Age. In the year 2000, the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the United States, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. These included “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals,” along with specific steps such as ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and applying the principle of irreversibility to nuclear disarmament. In each of these areas the United States, under the Bush administration, has led in the opposite direction. The administration’s policies have sent a message to the world that the world’s strongest military power finds nuclear weapons useful for its national security and plans to maintain its nuclear arsenal for the indefinite future. The Bush administration has opposed ratification of the CTBT and has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty. Its approach to nuclear disarmament has been to employ maximum flexibility and make reductions fully reversible. The US pact with Russia, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), signed by Presidents Bush and Putin in May 2002, calls for reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons on each side by the year 2012. The treaty has no timetable other than the final date to achieve these reductions, and there is no requirement to make these reductions irreversible. The Bush administration has already announced that it plans to put the weapons it takes off active deployment status into storage ready for redeployment on short notice. Thus, these weapons will be put into storage. The Russians are likely to follow suit, creating more opportunity for the stored nuclear weapons in both countries to fall into the hands of terrorists. In the meantime, the US and Russia are each maintaining over 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, subject to being launched accidentally. In addition, the Bush administration pursued an illegal preventive war against Iraq because of its purported, but never found, weapons of mass destruction. This action sent a message to North Korea, Iran and other states that if they want to be more secure from US attack, they had better develop nuclear forces to deter the US. North Korea has repeatedly made a simple request of the US. They have asked for security assurances from the US that they will not be attacked. This is not unreasonable considering that the Korean War has never officially ended, that the US maintains some 40,000 troops near the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, that the US keeps nuclear-armed submarines in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, and that the Bush administration has pursued a doctrine of preemption. In return for a Non-Aggression Pact from the US, the North Koreans have indicated that they would give up their nuclear weapons program and rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would be a great shame if Americans only awakened to the dangers of the second Nuclear Age with the detonation of one or more nuclear weapons somewhere in the world. Given the increased threats associated with terrorism and the dangers that nuclear weapons or bomb-grade nuclear materials could fall into the hands of terrorists, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the next detonation of a nuclear weapon or other weapon of mass destruction could take place in a city in the United States. It is of critical importance that Americans be made aware of these dangers and reverse our policies before we are confronted by such tragedy. References *The most Terrible Invention of Mankind *Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb? *Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age *World closer than ever to nuclear Armageddon - scientists *Officials fear a second nuclear age with spread of technology accelerates

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions. Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law." Read more *What is Bush Preparing For? *Bush Declares Himself Dictator *Bush Moves Toward Martial Law Posse Comitatus The main obstacle to Bush's militarization-scheme is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. The Act bans the military from participating in policing activities on US soil. It does not, however, prevent the military from helping out in national disasters. This is what is so troubling about Bush's request to change the law; it shows a clear intention to assert military authority wherever the troops are deployed. It is clearly not an attempt simply to help out. The intention to use the military in a "policing role" creates a permanent state of martial law that can't be fully grasped out of context. In the last few months the administration has made a number of dramatic changes to the system which have upset the critical balance between the co-equal parts of government. Just three months ago, Bush issued an executive order that created the National Security Service (NSS); a branch of the FBI that now works entirely under his authority. It is America's first secret police; no different than the East German Stasi or the Soviet Union's KGB. It operates completely beyond congressional oversight and is answerable to the president alone. It is Bush's personal Gestapo. Also, less than a month ago the 4th Circuit Court ruled that the president had the power to declare any American citizen an "enemy combatant" and summarily rescind all of his human and civil rights; including even the right to know the reason for which he is being he imprisoned. The ruling confers absolute authority on the president and ends of any meaningful notion of "inalienable rights". Also, just last week the Senate Intelligence Committee "approved legislation that allows Pentagon Intelligence operatives to collect information from US citizens without revealing their status as government spies." The Pentagon may now conduct clandestine investigations of American citizens without the traditional safeguards that are applied to FBI. In effect, the legislation revokes the fundamental guarantees of privacy under the 4th amendment and "green-lights" the Pentagon to operate covertly against American citizens whether they are legitimate terrorist suspects or simply political enemies. In another shocking development, President Bush said he will veto the upcoming Pentagon budget of $435 Billion if the bill contains any provision that limits the "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners". The President's action implies that he has the right to torture and abuse according to his own judgment, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, the 1996 Treaty on Torture and the 8th amendment. And, finally, the revised version of Patriot Act is quickly moving through the Congress. The new edition eviscerates the last feeble strands of the 4th amendment and paves the way for "administrative subpoenas", which allow law enforcement to carry out searches without judicial oversight. The Posse Comitatus Act, is the last bit of rickety scaffolding that protects the country from becoming a de facto military dictatorship. The power to deploy troops within the nation is the power to use the military against American citizens. It transforms the "people's army" into a direct threat to the democracy it is supposed to serve. Bush’s Martial Law Act of 2007 modifies the Insurrection Act and deals yet another blow to the Posse Comitatus Act. “Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, ‘Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,’” “Section 333, ‘Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law’ states that ‘the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (’refuse’ or ‘fail’ in) maintaining public order, ‘in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.’” Read more *Bush’s Martial Law Act of 2007

America Today - Two Political Parties One Lunch

The American Military Industrial Complex Democratic Republic Since 1787 the United States has had a two party system. First there were *Federalists and Anti-Federalists when the *Constitution of the United States was created. Only two political parties usually have had any substantial chance of victory in national elections. Indeed, since the Civil War, the same two parties, the Democratic and Republican, have constituted the American two-party system. The national two-party system of the late nineteenth century was an aggregate of one-party states. The Democrats maintained a one-party supremacy in the states of the Deep South from the Reconstruction period into the 1960s and in some cases into the 1970s (the Republicans dominated the South from the late 1980s into the early twenty-first century). Neither major party is strong enough to win with just its stalwarts. The winner must capture a majority of independents, crossovers or newly registered voters. 2001 Data 204 million eligible voters (age 18 or older) 63 million registered Democrats 47 million registered Republicans 32 million registered as independents or with minor party 62 million not registered In every national election the major-party candidate who gets most of the independent votes wins. In recent elections the American people have tended to vote for a conservative President and a liberal congress or vice-versa. Historically America's political system as set up by our Founding Fathers had no political parties or factions. It wasn't that they didn't know about political parties, but that they were unwelcome. When looking at the factions of Europe, our Founders didn't like what they saw - political intrigue, conspiracy, and hostile divisions. They were afraid that such a system would rip apart the Union. The Reality Americans have been propagandized into following a two-party system by certain wealthy elites who have not only captured our two major parties, but also control many of our large corporations, our entertainment industry, the mass media, and government schools. These elite socialites are able to easily propagandize us through all such medium, especially the government schools where they are able to train our children from a very young age. The push is on to get to our children from birth. The Military Industrial Complex Almost 50% of American taxes go to the Military Industrial Complex. The military-industrial complex is defined as a coalition consisting of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government. Reference *Military Industrial Complex America was once a land of peoples who knew how to think independently. As we have become increasingly socialized and become dependent citizens, we have lost that capability.

The Coming Nuclear Showdown

Nuclear Deployment for an Attack on Iran The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neocon" fanatics such as Vice President Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring. See the Videos *Is Nuclear War Coming Video (50% of Americans believe in this point of view) *Keith Olbermann Iraq-Iran Video *US Plans to Use Nuclear Weapons against Iran Video *Dangers of a Nuclear War-impacts of a nuclear attack on Iran Video (Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations – until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear program to military use. The "threat" from Iran is entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran's "nuclear ambitions," just as the vocabulary of Saddam's non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage. Accompanying this is a demonizing that has become standard practice.) Read more *Iran Press News Iran Press (English version) Read more *Iran: A War Is Coming *The Coming War With Iran *The March to War: Iran Preparing for US Air Attacks *Iran Ignited Many Fires World Abandoning American Dollar The Iranians are preparing to launch an oil bourse in March that will trade in euros. The hyperinflation caused by the massive printing of dollars in reaction to the world no longer holding on to its dollars after they start to trade in PetroEuro's can no longer be hidden. In the run up to March 20, I can see many countries trying to diversify their U.S. dollar reserve holdings - predominantly into Euros. Do not underestimate the Chinese - perhaps letting their currency "suddenly" float completely free to try and capture the deluge of loaded dollars that is sure to come. This turn of events will likely send huge "shudders" through the global financial system - if it does not shake it right to the ground. The U.S. dollar will fall dramatically, so much so in fact, American lifestyles will likely be dramatically altered - forever. Read more *The coming war against Iran The President Only Can Launch Nuclear War The decision to employ nuclear weapons at any level in a military conflict rests with the president. Neither Congress nor state governments nor you nor I have to be consulted. In preparation for the nuclear strike on Iran, the Bush administration in its second term has deployed into key positions hardliners that have both expertise in nuclear weapons and a known history of advocating the aggressive use thereof. Thus the president can say, "I feel like I'm getting really good advice from very capable people" to justify nuking Iran. In a recent interview, Joseph "dismissed Iran's contention it seeks only civilian nuclear power," said that "Iran is closing in on production of nuclear weapons and even UN sanctions may not deter the aggressive government in Tehran," and averred that "once they begin to enrich, that is the point of no return," echoing similar statements by Israeli officials. The Bush administration has been busy in recent years "deploying" the doctrine that will underpin the upcoming nuclear strike against Iran. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America of September 2002 codifies the doctrine of preemptive attacks, with phrases such as "We cannot let our enemies strike first…" - "We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries…" - "Even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack…" - "The United States cannot remain idle while danger gathers…" This doctrine was used with Iraq and will be used next with Iran. The Nuclear Posture Review delivered to Congress in 2001 is classified, but portions have been made public. It substantially broadens the role of nuclear weapons from their traditional role as deterrents against nuclear countries to encompass non-nuclear "rogue" nations. It states that "U.S. nuclear forces will now be used to dissuade adversaries from undertaking military programs or operations that could threaten U.S. interests or those of allies and friends," and that "Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack." Read more *Nuclear Deployment for an Attack on Iran *US signs up Poland and Czech Republic for missile shield European Union Negotiations The EU believes Iran is unlikely to negotiate seriously on its nuclear program and that there is little the international community can do little to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb, the Financial Times has reported. The internal "reflection paper" prepared for Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's staff and seen by the FT said that it was "difficult to believe" that Tehran would in the coming months resume talks on its nuclear program. At their meeting EU foreign ministers welcomed possible new talks to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions but pushed ahead with UN sanctions to punish Tehran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium. Meeting in Brussels, they pledged to press on with their "twin track" approach of keeping the door open to negotiations with Iran while endorsing specially targeted UN Security Council measures. Iran insists its program aims to generate nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but world powers suspect it of wanting to develop nuclear arms. The internal document was sceptical however of the chances of sanctions being effective and concludes there is little that can be done from preventing Iran from developing the technical infrastructure to build its own nuclear bomb. "In practice ... the Iranians have pursued their program at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the UN or the International Atomic Energy Agency," the document said. "Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded ... The problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions alone," it added. "At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons program," the document which was dated February 7 said, according to the business daily. It adds that Iran's rejection last year of a European offer trade incentives to halt enrichment "makes it difficult to believe that, at least in the short run, (Iran) would be ready to establish the conditions for the resumption of negotiations." Read more *EU:Brussels Rushes To Clarify 'Nuclear Iran' Report

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Bye Bye Miss American Pie Part One (Updated Daily) My continuing personal Autobiography here online. Excerpts from my forthcoming NOVEL Foreword Follow me through my journey of self-discovery as I uncover my past, which had defined my previous American life, and started me on a new road far removed from American shores. At 16, I began to research the history of Germany after the war and the Dark Side of American History. I began to uncover secrets kept from the American people. What I uncovered gave me the incentive to relearn my German Immigrant roots. The results of my discoveries are contained here ..... Ellis Island circa 1957 Immigration Point New York City When I started this work I knew most of my readers would be American. Americans just are not interesting anymore to Europeans. The dollar keeps loosing to the stronger Euro, and many can now afford to live the party life. The middle class is strong. Union representation and work contracts are the norm. Credit cards are 4%-5%. Most have six weeks paid vacations, and universal health care, and numerous other social benefits. Thousands of beers and wines and gourmet foods, and ongoing festivals, and numerous holidays make most content. Europeans know Americans. They know our politics, and millions have traveled the USA (90% have passports; *19% of Americans do.) American movies, and music, and culture have been part of the European scene for over 50 years; blues and jazz since the 1930's. Yet only 9% of Americans speak a foreign language. In Germany, and Holland, in Denmark and Sweden, in Austria and beyond, English is the second language. The truth is that Americans since the 1970's have become less engaged with the world in general. While the world was turning into a global village, the average American was moving to the suburbs, and up to now had tuned the world out. Because of America's pre-eminent position in world affairs, and its role in globalization, its foreign policy matters more than any other country. How can America shape a responsible foreign policy with such an uninformed electorate? Are things different now? As the new Europe had emerged, I started writing. America is at war again, and the Republicans are taking from the poor and giving to the rich again. The military budget is now over *710 billion dollars a year.Medical benefits, school lunch programs, education, every American *entitlement is being stripped to the bone to pay for war. Hundreds of thousands of Veterans no longer receive benefits - (reclassified), and 47 million Americans have no health care. The American *Savings Rate is now lower than during the Great Depression of 1929. One illness, one accident, one incident in court and most Americans will be history and wiped out. Yes, we are pitied now and no longer held in high esteem. The Military Industrial Complex Now Big oil and the military industrial complex are profiting as never before. The difference between what U.S. citizens think their rulers are doing in the world and what these rulers actually are doing is one of the great propaganda achievements of history. In reality, the overriding goal of U.S. policy is to make the world ever safer and more profitable for the Fortune 500 Corporations and international finance capital. See the Video *The Rise of the Military-Industrial Complex -- Video Documentary Other References *Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit *The Living Reality of Military-Economic Fascism Dulles-Bush Dynasty helped fund the NAZI Military Industrial complex Uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners. Prescott Bush also led a group called the American Liberty League in a treasonous conspiracy with JP Morgan and the DuPont family. He tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Also involved in the Funding of the NAZI war machine were Eugenics champions Ford...and Brown Brothers Harrimen. The Dulles Bros. were international finance specialists for the powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell... Alan Dulles went on to become head of the CIA... and John Foster Dulles went on to become secretary of state! Read more *Bush Family Links to the Third Reich Back To the Future This generation of Americans are not mine of the 1960's. They are more easily manipulated and fooled then we were during the ten years of Vietnam, and now after 15 years of the Iraq War and an eventual war cost that will be 2 Trillion before its all over, they seem to be finally waking up after most of the Constitution has been trashed, and the Bill of Rights is just old paper. The *doomsday clock is again set at five minutes to midnight, just as it was during the cold war. It is the 1960's again, or worse. Queen Elizabeth I I was six years old when we left Germany back in the late 1950's. I remember my father selling his worldly goods just to book passage on the Queen Elizabeth 1 back then, outbound from Hamburg, Germany to Ellis Island, New York *as millions of Germans had done for generations. This is the beginning of this autobiography and I will just hit some main points for now ... Hamburg, Germany I remember sleeping on restaurant floors in Germany on our travel to Hamburg. I remember some stuffed ice bears in Hamburg, and I remember being sea sick on the two week sea voyage to the USA. I remember my German shepherd Hasso that used to pull my sister and me on the sled in winter, and I remember him every breakfast morning going to the baker in the village with a bread basket hung around his neck and bringing back to the family table warm rolls for us to feast on. I also remember the French officers that quartered in our 1920's home, since my part of Germany was under French occupation. I remember one day when one of these Frenchies slapped me for not getting out of his way in time and Hasso attacked him and was about to be shot but my grandmother stood in the way. But all these childhood memories remained buried as we reached New York and faced a new life in a new world. America was just too big, and life was too fast, and the people were all in such a hurry. Back then you had to have a sponsor and a skilled trade that was in demand to immigrate to the USA. Your health was checked, as was your family background, and you had to have a job and references. Nothing was left to chance, because the new country did not want freeloaders. America wanted people to assimilate and become part not apart of the society. And then as now, Americans were not comfortable with a foreign language spoken in their midst. 94% of Americans Classify Themselves Not As A m e r i c a n Only However, my young eyes did not interpret the facts as they really were, for America is a land of immigrants and the facts are not as they seemed. (The various ethnic and racial origins of the residents and immigrants remain important sources of personal identity. Of the 224 million people reporting their ancestry in the 1990 census, only 13 million, or 6 percent, identified themselves as Americans only. The rest chose one or more broad racial or linguistic groupings (such as African American or Hispanic) or national heritages (German, English, Irish, and Italian were most common) to define their origins. Most Americans possess varied national, ethnic, and racial identities that reflect both the origins of their ancestors and their own affiliation to the United States.) Reference *United States People America was more successful in expanding and winning wars and conquering territory. America had never known defeat, and she was the big victor in the big war. Everything was red, white and blue in every city, in every town, in every state. It was 1957. It was uncomfortable being a German kid not knowing English in an American school. Especially living in a small American town where most of my classmates were sons and daughters of farmers; the most conservative group of Americans. Luckily I was in a catholic school and my teachers were *Franciscan nuns. In those days the classes were run by the iron fist of those nuns, and each hand had a stick in it, and if you did not behave as expected you got whacked. I had a significant advantage over my parents, because being a child and growing up in America I never developed an accent and could speak American English like a native - a fact that helped me tremendously in my future. On American television all you could see were German war movies and German hate films. That is really how I learned English. American War Crimes Against the German People At 16 I began to research the history of Germany after the war and to uncover secrets kept from the American people. What I uncovered gave me the incentive to relearn my German language and my German culture ..... Between 1 and 2 million German POWs died in American captivity after surrender (1945) "Starting in April 1945, the United States Army and the French Army casually annihilated one million [German] men, (POW's - prisoners of war,) most of them in American camps . . . Eisenhower's hatred, passed through the lens of a compliant military bureaucracy, produced the horror of death camps unequalled by anything in American history . . . an enormous war crime." -- Col. Ernest F. Fisher, PhD Lt. 101 st Airborne Division, Senior Historian, United States Army How three to six million Germans died after VE Day After the Reich discusses the murder of at least three million Germans, primarily women, children, and the elderly, after VE day. In actual fact, at least another 3 to 6 millions Germans perished in the East long before VE Day: they were murdered, raped, and ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland in what was central and eastern areas of Germany. This Holocaust of millions of innocent Germans, of course, has received little of the attention of the the Jewish Holocaust. Most people are not even aware of the massive atrocities against the German people at the end of the Second World War. The months that followed May 1945 brought no peace to the shattered skeleton of Hitler’s Reich, but suffering even worse than the destruction wrought by the war. After the atrocities that the Nazis had visited on Europe, some degree of justified vengeance by their victims was inevitable, but the appalling bestialities that MacDonogh documents so soberly went far beyond that. Read more ... *How three million Germans died after VE Day Reference *Eisenhower's Holocaust: His Slaughter of 1.7 Million Germans While German soldiers from the British and Canadian zones were quickly regaining strength and were helping rebuild Europe, Germans taken by the Americans were dying by the hundreds of thousands - emaciated figures in diarrhea smeared clothing, huddling pitifully in watery holes with perhaps a scrap of cardboard over their heads and a rotten potato for supper. At times many of them were reduced to drinking urine and eating grass. Did all this happen because of one supremely unprincipled and influential man named Eisenhower? Or was Ike in turn influenced by a small circle around him or by his superiors in Washington? Historians will be probing this question for decades to come. Eisenhower, in his personal letters, did not merely hate the Nazi Regime, and the few who imposed its will down from the top, but HE HATED THE GERMAN PEOPLE AS A RACE. It was his personal intent to destroy as many of them as he could, and one way was to wipe out as many prisoners of war as possible. Reference *US War Crimes in World War II "Since the end of the war about 3,000,000 people, mostly women and children and overaged men, have been killed in eastern Germany and south-eastern Europe; about 15,000,000 (15 million) people have been deported or had to flee from their homesteads and are on the road. Reference *History and Forgetting About 25 per cent of these people, over 3,000,000 have perished. About 4,000,000 men and women have been deported to eastern Europe and Russia as slaves. It seems that the elimination of the German population of eastern Europe - at least 15,000,000 people (15 million) - was planned in accordance with decisions made at Yalta. Churchill had said ... "Don't mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them. You will have no trouble with them: they will cease to exist." Quoted by Sen. Homer Capehart in speech before U.S. Senate, Feb. 5, 1946. German children released from detention camps in 1950; five years after the end of the war Of course, that was illegal under International law, so he issued an order on March 10, 1945 and verified by his initials on a cable of that date, that German Prisoners of War be predesignated as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" called in these reports as DEF. He ordered that these Germans did not fall under the Geneva Rules, and were not to be fed or given any water or medical attention. The Swiss Red Cross was not to inspect the camps, for under the DEF classification, they had no such authority or jurisdiction. Months after the war was officially over, Eisenhower's special German DEF camps were still in operation forcing the men into confinement, but denying that they were prisoners. As soon as the war was over, General George Patton simply turned his prisoners loose to fend for themselves and find their way home as best they could. Eisenhower was furious, and issued a specific order to Patton, to turn these men over to the DEF camps. Knowing Patton as we do from history, we know that these orders were largely ignored, and it may well be that Patton's untimely and curious death may have been a result of what he knew about these wretched Eisenhower DEF camps. The book, OTHER LOSSES, found its way into the hands of a Canadian news reporter, Peter Worthington, of the OTTAWA SUN. He did his own research through contacts he had in Canada, and reported in his column on September 12,1989 the following, in part: "...it is hard to escape the conclusion that Dwight Eisenhower was a war criminal of epic proportions. His (DEF) policy killed more Germans in peace than were killed in the European Theater during war." "For years we have blamed the 1.7 million missing German POW's on the Russians. Until now, no one dug too deeply ... Witnesses and survivors have been interviewed by the author; one Allied officer compared the American camps to Buchenwald." It is known, that the Allies had sufficient stockpiles of food and medicine to care for these German soldiers. This was deliberately and intentionally denied them. Many men died of gangrene from frostbite due to deliberate exposure. Local German people who offered these men food, were denied. General Patton's Third Army was the only command in the European Theater to release significant numbers of Germans. Others, such as Omar Bradley and General J.C.H. Lee, Commander of Com Z, tried, and ordered the release of prisoners within a week of the war's end. However, a SHAEF Order, signed by Eisenhower, countermanded them on May 15th. The Air War No war in U.S. history claimed more civilian lives than the war against Germany. The death toll from both atomic bombs used against Japan does not equal the death toll from the fire and phosphorous bombs used against Germany. (These bombs created a firestorm that was so intense, German civilians were baked alive in their basement bomb shelters.) ... The German civilians who were burned alive in our bombing raids were no more likely to be Nazis than the Afghani civilians who've been hit by U.S. missiles are likely to be Taliban sympathizers. In our bombing of Germany, heavily populated civilian districts were intentionally targeted. The idea was that by targeting the civilian population, we would disrupt Germany's economy, destroy the morale of its citizens and create chaos by rendering millions of people homeless. Low-income areas were especially targeted for destruction because the population was denser and the buildings closer together. In February 1942, Allied bombers were specifically instructed to concentrate on built-up residential areas instead of targets such as dockyards and factories. Hamburg on July 27, 1943--when 739 Allied bombers killed 50,000 people mostly women, children and elderly people. High Capacity bombs were used and accuracy was not important - these bombs were designed for blowing the tiles off the roofs of buildings so that the smaller 4 lb (1.8 kg) incendiary bombs could reach the building interiors. According to historian Sven Lindquist, author of A History of Bombing, “The British air attacks on Hamburg killed more people than all German air attacks against English cities put together.” It was a brutal way to win a war - and it worked like a charm. By the war's end, more than 2.3 million German civilians were dead, about one-third of them killed in air raids (60,000 of these air raid victims were not even Germans; they were foreign laborers, including Jews). American Attitude Towards Rescuing Jews The attitude of the U.S. government toward rescuing European Jews was best summed up by R. Borden Reams of the State Department’s Division of European Affairs in May 1943. “While in theory, any approach to the German government would have met with blank refusal, there is always the danger that the German government might turn over to the United States and to Great Britain a large number of Jewish refugees,” Reams said. “In the event of our admission of inability to take care of these people, the onus for continued persecution would have been largely transferred from the German government to [the Allies.]” This reflected the anti-Semitism widespread within the U.S. and British governments. Reference *Allied War Crimes American Refusal To Sign "Laws of War" Treaties The United States has been particularly reluctant to sign treaties addressing the "laws of war". It has refused to sign The Declaration on the Prohibition of the Use of Thermo-Nuclear Weapons (1961); The Resolution on the Non-Use of Force in International Relations and Permanent Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons (1972); The Resolution on the Definition of Aggression (1974); Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Convention (1977); and the Declaration on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(1989) Equally disturbing was the U.S. refusal to sign the Convention on Rights of the Child, introduced into the United Nations General assembly on November 20, 1989 and subsequently ratified by 191 countries. Since World War II the US has bombed twenty-three nations. Author William Blum notes: "It is sobering to reflect that in our era of instant world wide communications, the United States has, on many occasions, been able to mount a large or small scale military operation or undertake other equally blatant forms of intervention without the American public being aware of it until years later if ever." Early Years When I was born, Germany had been divided into four occupation zones; the Soviets held the eastern part, the British the northwestern, the Americans the southeast, and the French held the southwest corridor. The occupation would continue this way for about 50 years. I started life in the French occupied (blue) zone in the Southwest across from Switzerland. At that time many of the French occupation troops were blacks from French Africa. Most of my area was either heavily forested or had deep valleys and rolling farm land. Going Cuckoo Father and grandfather had a cuckoo clock shop in the basement, and in those early years after the war, making cuckoo clocks was the mainstay of the family, that allowed us to survive and build up a business. The entire family was involved. Even today, original Black Forest German cuckoo clocks are not manufactured as a mass produced clock, but as hand-assembled masterpieces. To achieve the highest quality is the goal. Wood-carvings and clock cases are produced only in the Black Forest and thus are known around the world for their quality workmanship First step – where everything starts – is the wood which is used for the clocks. Most of the cuckoo clocks are made of Linden Tree. Those trees with their heart-shaped leaves are quite common in Europe and their wood can be used very well for carvings. After the trees are cut down the wood is pilled up and needs years to rest. Then the chances that the wood will move are low. The wood will be cut into appropriate pieces corresponding to the size of the clock. The basic pieces which are coming out of the sharper are checked carefully to avoid cracks or irregularities within the wood. Before the clock is assembled all pieces are finished in different working steps. In the meantime the inner life of the cuckoo clocks will be assembled. The different movements and the fine mechanics which will give live to the cuckoo and the dancing figurines on the front side of the clock will be put together. This requires a lot of subtle intuition due to the small and fragile parts used. The metal parts used within the clock are also done mostly by hand – for sure there is some support by machines but the work needs really a lot of experience. The following link *Cuckoo Clock Manufacturing process shows how it was done. Propaganda At the Top American Foreign Aid Myths I like most Americans, have always been a sucker for government propaganda. My research brought me to another example of one that the American people have swallowed for over 50 years. This strategy was and is still being used in the current Iraq adventure. The Myth of the Marshall Plan that Saved Western Europe Here is the standard American Government propaganda ... Summer 1947 Europe, still devastated by the war, had just survived one of the worst winters on record. Something had to be done, both for humanitarian reasons and also to stop the potential spread of communism westward. The United States offered up to $20 billion for relief, but only if the European nations could get together and draw up a rational plan on how they would use the aid. The Marshall Plan benefited the American economy as well. The money would be used to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels. But it worked. By 1953 the United States had pumped in $13 billion, and Europe was standing on its feet again. Moreover, the Plan included West Germany, which was thus reintegrated into the European community. Here Are the Standard Marshall Plan Propaganda sites ... *For European Recovery:The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Marshall Plan *Marshall Plan Home Page *The Marshall Plan 1947-1952 The Reality As economist Tyler Cowen has noted, the countries that received the most Marshall Plan money (allies Britain, Sweden, and Greece) grew the slowest between 1947 and 1955, while those that received the least money (axis powers Germany, Austria, and Italy) grew the most. In terms of post-war prosperity, then, it eventually paid to be a political enemy of the U.S. instead of a "beneficiary" of international charity. But the real upshot of the Marshall Plan was a political maneuver to loot American taxpayers to keep influential American corporations on the government dole. The Plan's legacy was the perpetual use of foreign aid for domestic political and economic purposes. After the war ended, Harry Truman's popularity in the polls began to plummet, as did the prestige of government generally. The American people had made huge sacrifices to fight the war and now wanted curbs in government, which had been administering a centrally planned economy. Most of all, they wanted the foreign policy recommended by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson: trade with all, entanglements with none. In the mainstream of thinking was Republican Senator Robert Taft, a hero of all free-market activists at the time. He demanded tax cuts, spending cuts, and an end to "constantly increasing interference with family life and with business by autocratic government bureaus and autocratic labor leaders." The Republican party swept midterm elections in 1946, taking back the Congress on a hard-core, anti-big government platform. Truman had to do something big and he knew it. As Charles Mee reports, he needed "some large program that would let him recapture the initiative, something big enough to enable him to gather in all the traditional factions of the Democratic Party and also some middle-of-the-road Republicans, and at the same time, something that would hamper the Republican phalanx," and establish him as a world leader. The issue was right before him: foreign aid, funneled through the corporate establishment and cloaked in the rhetoric of opposition to foreign (but not domestic) communism. Cynically, he would make good use of Russia, which only the day before had been our gallant ally in the war, and transform it into a monster that had to be destroyed. By stealing the Republican's anti-socialist rhetoric, Truman hoped to frazzle his opponents and make himself a hero on the world stage. A little-known business group, founded in 1942 and called the Committee for Economic Development, was elevated into a think tank for a new international order--the economic counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations. The Committee's founders were the heads of the top steel, automotive, and electric industries who had benefited from the New Deal's corporatist stateism. Its membership overlapped with the farther left National Planning Association, which was unabashedly national socialist in ideological orientation. These groups understood that they owed their profit margins to government subsidies provided by the New Deal and wartime production subsidies. Faced with post-war peace, they feared a future in which they would be forced to compete on a free-market basis. Their personal and institutional security was at stake, so they got busy dreaming up strategies to sustain a profitable stateism in a peacetime economy. Corporate economic interests, then, overlapped with Truman's political interests, and an unholy alliance between business and government was born. They would use Europe's miseries to line their own pockets in the name of "rebuilding" and providing "security" against trumped-up threats to American security. Most of all, the aid was used for purchases at distorted prices by American tax dollars in the hands of European governments. The mad scramble for tax dollars was a disgrace to behold, creating a low point in U.S. business history. Time and again, Congress intervened to grant corporate America what it really wanted: restrictions that forced Marshall aid to go to purchases of American oil, aluminum, wood, textiles, and machines. The aid was also used to directly subsidize particular firms in recipient countries, whether or not there were viable markets for their products. Instead, the firms received money because their continued existence would artificially support "full employment" policies. And since American labor union groups were intimately involved in choosing who got the money, the lion's share went to companies with closed union shops, paradoxically restricting the ability of labor markets to readjust to new economic realities. All told, the Marshall Plan dumped $13 billion, or nearly $100 billion in today's dollars. It was enough to firmly entrench American companies in European markets, especially in Britain, France, and Germany. American-controlled companies dominated industries such as shoes, milk, cereals, machines, cars, canned goods, petroleum refinement, locks and keys, printing, tires, soaps, clocks, farm machinery, and much more. A year after the Marshall Plan began sucking private capital out of the economy, the U.S. fell into recession, precisely the opposite of what its proponents predicted. Meanwhile, the aid did not help Europe. What reconstructed Europe was the post-Marshall freeing up of controlled prices, keeping inflation in check, and curbing union power that is, the free market The actual legacy of the Marshall Plan was a vast expansion of government at home, the beginnings of the Cold War rhetoric that would sustain the welfare-warfare state for 40 years, a permanent global troop presence, and an entire business class on the take from Washington. It also created a belief on the part of the ruling elite in D.C. that it could trick the public into backing anything, including the idea that government and its connected interest groups should run the world at taxpayer expense. References *A Look Behind The Marshall Plan Mythology *I'll Buy That Dream To be continued