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Immediate release: The first CANA review was sent out by 14th May 2002.
The sting is in the tail - note the threat of the USA - ( I say threat because I don't believe the BBC broadcast reflected merely the view of the Washington Post correspondent) - to bomb its ally Pakistan.
(CANA = Christians Against Nato Aggression UK, & should not be confused with Clergy Against Nuclear Arms.)
Contributions are welcome to this e mail CANA UK review, (to a restricted list - published minus a print version, unlike the CANA UK Newsletter, the sixth issue of which appeared as a print version on April 20th 2002.)
This review will publish
feed back relating to items of interest or articles/reports
featured either in the CANA UK Newsletter or the CANA UK review.
Contents of this review include:
1. Report of MacNamara LSE speech
2. Report of Alice Mahon speech
3. Report of Afif Safieh speech
4. Review of Dan Plesch booklet
Report by WJS (Cana
Director) on Robert MacNamara speech @ LSE.
Years ago a delightful lady with silver hair gave me a copy of a
book she had written (with Ruth Adam) about her Aunt Beatrice,
who, with husband Sydney, helped establish the New Statesman
magazine, the Labour Party, & the London School of Economics.
I wonder how Beatrice Webb would react today to the LSE.
Would she be horrified @ this globalist construction?
The LSE long ago
repudiated any debt to socialism & the Fabians. Its student
body of "good Germans" sit in respectful silence to
listen to their professors, including Mary Kaldor, LSE's
Professor of Globalisation, (whose utility to the LSE is to bring
in assorted stooges/quislings/deadbeats & unindicted war
criminals such as Jamie O'Shea as occasional lecturers ... +
loads of money from ex LSE alumni George Soros, now funding for
the LSE a series of Balkan lectures & research initiatives.
But not I suppose researching anything which actually does need
researching relating to the contemporary history of SE Europe -
e.g. the role of William Walker in the Kosovo conflict, the truth
about the Racack Massacre, or the Rambouillet diktat, or the
scandalous SAS training operations of Islamic Balkan terrorists.)
Distinctly not in the above category, & not a deadbeat, on
May 7th 2002 Robert MacNamara spoke to a packed audience in the
Peacock Theatre.
For soixante huitards like myself @ one time he would have been
& was a red rag to a bull.
My recollections involve pushing through resolutions against him, 'the US administration' in my students union in UK, trudging through snow in a real Canadian winter, endlessly in a circle, beating my arms to keep warm, all to get the Dow Chemical Company off campus.
In those days MacNamara
ruled conjointly in a dim tragic pantheon of US warlords. Last
week though he spoke a lot of sense.
(Speeches reported below are paraphrases, although put in the
first person, but because they are paraphrases they are without
quotation marks. In the case of Robert MacNamara I had not
intended to report the speech, yet found its content
electrifying, & made notes. I don't know if the UK media took
any notice. I am sure the LSE or US Embassy can provide a more
accurate version than this for those interested. Aeons later, if
inheritors come, searching through a world's burned crust,
perhaps this speech, preserved on a floppy somewhere, might
suggest a defection to sanity by an individual from the power
elite.)
My first recollections were of Armistice Day November 11th 1918, when I was two years of age. This was the end of the war to end wars, but instead the twentieth century turned out to be the bloodiest in human history - a monumental carnage totalling around 160 million deaths. And in the last 50 years, since the end of World War Two, there have been at least 125 wars & about 40 million deaths, & the end of the cold war has not meant the end of conflict.
We need to make a realistic assessment of this epoch & establish certain imperatives.
The first imperative is that the goal of US foreign policy should be the avoidance of conflict.
The second
that the US, as the most powerful nation on earth, shall resolve
never to use its power, save in a multi-lateral decision making
process.
Robert MacNamara then criticised the 'realist school' in
international relations.
Realists
believe in a post cold war reversion to traditional relationships
based on regionalism, &/or spheres of influence, the absence
of ideological threat freeing nations to pursue policies based on
a perception of national interest.
I argue this view is inconsistent with an interdependent world.
No nation can stand alone when nations are inextricably linked.
Adherence to the UN Charter offers a better foundation for
policy....Realists argue morality is a dangerous guide for policy
considerations & point to the dangers of over-zealousness
expressed in concepts such as "humanitarian war".
Despite this Mr MacNamara insisted there must be a relationship between morals & foreign policy & he then looked at the first imperative, the need to place an emphasis on avoiding conflict among the Great Powers.
The two great events of the twentieth century following the conclusion of the world wars were
1. the reconciliation between France & Germany
2. the re-establishment of a working relationship between the USA & Japan.
People in the United States even now are to a large extent unaware of the massive casualties inflicted upon Japanese civilians in the last years & even prior to the use of the A weapon.
I recall my experience in 1945 when I was interviewing/debriefing B29 bomber crews returned from raids on Tokyo. In the one I was concerned with the USAF had inflicted 100,000 Japanese casualties in one night, & this was only one of 66 such raids. Many in the US do not understand the magnitude of that conflict. And yet we have normalised relationships between the US & Japan. Consequently can we not move to integrate Russia & China into the family of nations - in ways to reduce the risk of war between the Great Powers?
As it is the Chinese are greatly expanding their military budgets. This is not to ascribe aggressive tendencies to them. But we have to be concerned about this, particularly as Taiwan remains a flash point for possible confrontation
Immediate action is needed to avoid the proliferation of nuclear weapons & their accidental use.
It is 12 years since the end of the Cold War, yet we retain 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads directed at Russia, with a destructive power 300,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. There are also about 6,000 nuclear warheads still directed at the US by Russia. Such a policy is insane - US & NATO war plans provide for the contingent use of nuclear weapons as the plans did 40 years ago.
Can we not go further than existing arms control agreements?
Public debate is needed, but beginning with moral issues & this is a fundamental moral issue. Realists oppose the introduction of such concepts into the discussion of international relations & they provide at best ambiguous guidance.
But my suggestion is that the Five Nuclear Powers agree on the proposition that it is immoral & unacceptable for any of their leaders acting alone to take steps to destroy another nation , &/or to take action contaminating other countries who are not even belligerent.
While we possess nuclear weapons there is the risk of the destruction of nations.
Robert MacNamara recalled his experience of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
It is not realised how close we were to nuclear disaster. But tapes released six years ago by the Carnegie Library make this clear. Sunday October 27th 1962 was the day Kruschev & Kennedy came to terms in an outline agreement to resolve the issue.
Had this not happened that day we as security advisers to the President would have recommended the next day that an attack be launched by 240,000 US troops.
Yet we found out later how our draft recommendation was based on faulty intelligence reports.
The CIA had told us there were no nuclear warheads on Cuba as of that Sunday. (Although missiles were on the island it was thought that they were not armed, but the nuclear warheads were in transit to Cuba.)
The CIA advised us that there were @ most 7,000 Soviet troops on the island. But it turned out both Kennedy & myself underestimated the dangers.
From 1987 until 1992 there were discussions between the Soviets & ourselves concentrating on these issues & in January 1992 we discovered that there were in fact on the day for which a US invasion was scheduled 162 nuclear warheads already on Cuba, 90 of which were tactical, to be used on an invasion force, the rest were targeted on US cities. There were also 40,000 Soviet troops already in place. Soviet commanders had already decided to move the missiles closer to the launch pads.
In the event of a US invasion there was a significant risk of the use of nuclear weapons by the Soviets.
Our US invasion force was not equipped with field nuclear weapons. But no one should believe that there would have been a lack of response, in the event of the invasion being countered with nuclear weapons. Indeed, in that event there would have been uncontrolled nuclear escalation.
I want to make this point.
Human beings are fallible. Military operations are more fallible, encountering more misjudgements and more likelihood of mistakes than virtually any other field of human activity.
But mistakes with nuclear weapons - and mistakes are built into human nature, & into the character of the activity - destroy nations.
For the human race this indefinite combination of human fallibility with nuclear weapons signifies a high risk of catastrophe.
Therefore we have to work to eliminate nuclear weapons.
What is extraordinary to me is that NATO will still not adopt a policy ruling out the first use of such weapons.
This means NATO policy has essentially not changed since I became Defence Secretary over 40 years ago.
Instead we say we are prepared to initiate nuclear war, both against nuclear armed states & non-nuclear armed states.
But no paper has ever been shown to me which depicts the benefits to us of the adoption of the first strike policy. A first strike employed against belligerents which are not nuclear armed states is unnecessary.
A first strike option against nuclear armed states is suicide.
Say for example today that in the event of a first strike against Russia there was a reprisal by the Russians & 5 or 10 or 50 Russian nuclear missiles survived to impact US cities, what sort of President would seriously contemplate a first strike, knowing such odds, & knowing that only one such missile hitting the American continent could wipe out a city?
The Chinese have faced US weapons for the last 40 years, but have retained a small ICBM force of 20 or so missiles capable of reaching the US, which force has been sufficient to give us pause for thought, as there can be no guarantee that every missile launched, even from such a small arsenal, can be intercepted.
There has been a revolution in military thinking in recent years. Increasingly military thinkers in all advanced countries question the military utility of such weapons, (including in UK before his death, Lord Louis Mountbatten, & also Lord Carver, & many other authorities.)
Our long term objective must be to return to a non nuclear world.
The Bush administration does not support this view.
The US administration recently conducted a nuclear policy review, the end result of which was to increase an emphasis on offensive nuclear weapons, while assuming a reduction in US stocks from 7,000 to 1750, but with the balance placed in reserve stocks.
After these reductions the ratio would be in the region of 2,000 US warheads versus 1500 for Russia. This is a step forward numerically but still leaves us with the same risk.
There is in reality an increased emphasis on nuclear weapons, as US policy envisages new missiles, new warheads & new launch vehicles well into the 21st century.
I wish now to comment on the effect on the non proliferation regime on current policy. Today there are only 8 nuclear powers. That there are not 30 is largely due to the Non Proliferation Treaty.
What will happen to that Treaty if we say "we are different from you. We need several thousand of these things"?
If the nuclear powers do not move to eliminate nuclear weapons the burden of the Treaty is lifted, as signatories to the Non Proliferation Treaty place their reliance on the good faith of the Powers to take steps to eliminate such weapons.
If there is unrestricted proliferation of nuclear weapons there is an increasing risk such weapons will find their way into the hands of terrorist groups.
We should remind ourselves how easy it is to build nuclear weapons. You can build a nuclear bomb in a fairly small space, if you have the materials.
My views may appear quixotic, but it is my serious opinion that we can put the nuclear genie back in its bottle.
Failure to do this will involve the destruction of nations.
To the task of eliminating nuclear weapons all must contribute.
We cannot eliminate conflict in the 21st century but if we pursue such protocols we can @ least hope that there will be no repetition of the violent conflicts of the 20th century, with its 160 million avoidable deaths.
Questions:
On Israel: I am a friend of Israel yet believe in the 2 state solution. But there cannot be such while 200,000 Israeli troops are on the West Bank. Resolution 242 established boundaries for Israel & Israel is not in those boundaries.
On the Security Council: There is a need to expand the SC & to eliminate the veto. Had the veto been eliminated we cd have acted promptly when e.g in Rwanda in 100 days a million people were killed with machetes. I also believe in the need to develop Chapter 8 which provides for UN regional associations, & the need to impose an international mediation system for the UN
On the ICC: This is the first time a President has 'unsigned' a treaty. We are in a new situation. The urge for the USA to go it alone goes back to John Winthrop & (later) to the talk of ' manifest destiny'. But for all our power there is no hard power solution to many of the problems now afflicting this planet, such as aids/ global warming or internal conflicts within states. Most of these problems need the exercise of soft power, but the US administration is deprioritising such, e.g. the foreign aid program is a disaster.
Alice Mahon MP:
Alice Mahon spoke in London @ the CND Labour Group May 11th.
The threat of war on Iraq is very much on the cards, even though a wide range of Labour MPs are opposed to such. Further when I was in Washington at an emergency interparliamentary NATO meeting no one was in favour of war with Iraq - except one right winger from the Czech Republic.
We have to be concerned about the interference by the Bush administration with international organisations, using influence to replace personnel whose views are @ variance with US policy. You have to remember Bush wasn't democratically elected. His brother fixed it for him by tearing up the democratic process in Florida.
On UK participation in US defence plans HMG still refuses to comment re use of UK facilities such as Menwith Hill.
September 11th has turned out as a great asset for the US military who are engaged in the support of dreadful regimes, in the sub-continent & Central Asia for example, but are clear in their task of obtaining military bases in the Former Soviet Union (FSU).
US policy is designed for complete global dominance
But the Russians are acquiescent because of Chechnya.
Since September 11th not one terrorist has been brought to justice. But thousands of innocent people have been killed & maimed. In Afghanistan the media have looked the other way while entire villages have been obliterated.
The lack of information coming out of Afghanistan is a crime. There is also massive dissent in the House of Commons over the laid back policy of the Blair Government on Palestine. The House was electrified by Kaufman's uncompromising denunciation of Sharon as a war criminal.
Everyone is disappointed that the UK acts as the US poodle. On Iraq the message is at least getting through. That is that Washington is determined on regime change, & that the business over the inspectors is really a red herring.
There is even difficulty for Blair in the Cabinet.
The Independent a couple of days ago said Mr Blair had told a group of MPs that any action against Iraq would require another UN resolution. But that is not what he told us.
I was puzzled by the Independent report & contacted Number 10, but was only put through to a civil servant, not a political adviser, who confirmed (a) no decision had yet been taken, & (b) the requirement of a new mandate is not the Govt position - although there will be "extensive consultations."
A dossier of Iraqi involvement with al Quaeda has yet to be presented as the evidence simply isn't there .
132 MPs have signed the Early Day Motion 927 expressing "deep unease among honourable Members ...@ the prospect that HMG might support United States military action against Iraq..."
Keep up tremendous pressure on MPs
Afif Safieh ( speech to Labour CND Conference May 11th)
Afif Safieh is Palestinian General Delegate to the UK & to the Holy See
I am distressed about plans for targeting Iraq after the summer. Iraq is not a threat to neighbouring countries. It is not even sovereign on its own territory. Even the Kurds are against any US strike. They already enjoy statehood but without the name & see a US strike as compromising their relations with other Iraqis.
Israel remains the strategic ally of the US. The failure of the Powell mission was dramatic. The entire international community willed him to succeed but his mission was vetoed by the US Zionist lobby, which includes Jews & the evangelicals in the US.
Opinion polls in Europe though are clearly pro Palestinian.
The situation is very dramatic. Sharon is hesitating over Gaza. Well he might.
Gaza = 1.2 million inhabitants, a huge Jenin. The people of Gaza have taken precautions. It won't be a walk over.
The Palestinians have been unreasonably reasonable. We accepted 242. We accepted the pre 67 boundaries. This offer has been on the table since 1973. What is needed now is an imposed solution - something like this was suggested once by General de Gaulle.
In 56 Eisenhower told Ben Gurion to get out of Sinai & he got out.
We look back & see a catastrophe, an ongoing process begun in 1917.
Sharon's view is simply displacement by new immigrants. Everything in the world is seen an excuse for bringing in new immigrants, including the Argentina crisis.
The Israelis keep discovering new tribes.
They have even found Judaic tendencies among the Pashtuns.
The troops at the road blocks are mostly Russian, drunk on vodka, getting a better deal in Israel than they get in Russia.
There are 2 Americas. One is the US of settler pro slavery Americans, always pushing the border west or south, into Mexico as well as California. The other US is that of Washington, Lincoln & Wilson, with the dream of Martin Luther King. That other America is not partisan. We must seek to build alliances with it.
Review of Dan Plesch booklet
Dan Plesch is senior research fellow @ the Whitehall based Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies.
His booklet called "Sheriff & Outlaws in the Global Village" (ISBN 1 874320 30 6) was published by the Menard Press March 2002 @ £5 per copy + postage. Sales enquiries 0208 446 5571
Dan Plesch is an Establishment figure. One wonders for how long.
Here he lets his hair down - his critique of US foreign policy puts flesh on otherwise veiled cryptic & extremely sensitive sound bites expressed in inimitable style on dozens of television programmes.
A few quotes will give a sense of the thrust of the argument: on missile defence: "The entire purpose of missile defence is to prevent the other side from being able to strike at all. Thus we deter them but they do not deter us. People can call this 'deterrence' if they want to. A more accurate word is domination"...
Further - "With international law under assault from both the world's major power & from international networks of guerrillas/terrorists it is necessary to reassess & affirm core values..."
And - "The self styled sheriff does not command the confidence of the global community. As a result the posse of allies mostly stays at home..."
Dan Plesch concludes with encouragement to the peace movement.
"The international demonstrations of the 1980's provided a brake on the momentum of the arms race. Without that movement I have little doubt that the world would have fallen into the nuclear abyss..."
And encouragement to us on the Internet!
"The Internet provides a powerful tool. Rather than keeping our concerns over US policy to ourselves we should use the Internet to talk to Americans directly. We will find the experience instructive. "
As we said on ham radio CQ CQ CQ! How many Americans are out there - with elementary notions of decency?
Conclusions:
1. Yesterday a much heralded Strategic Arms limitation agreement was announced between Russia & the USA. But how radical is it? Nuclear warheads are to be cut by two thirds, as indicated by Robert MacNamara. But all of the cuts are "reversible". Nothing is to be destroyed. It is not even clear if the weapons will be put "beyond use"
2. Washington Post correspondent Khamran Khan has informed BBC listeners that US bombers will start bombing Pakistan soon if the Pakistani authorities don't move a bit quicker to go after Al Quaeda. Now you know what to expect - if you are an ally of the USA!
If you want a copy
of the print version of the CANA Newsletter which includes
articles on
the attitude of the Bible Belt in the US & UK on Palestine - " ....a mistake in exegesis (which) unconscionably inflated the strength of the Zionist lobby in both countries"
+ Sharon's policies which "...endanger the existence of the State of Israel in a more fundamental way than any suicide bomber, nor a brigade of such..."
+ the Bush/Blair ideology of regime change "From October 2001 articles advocating military action against Iraq started to appear in the London Daily Telegraph ( a newspaper which is owned by a Canadian Conrad Black, married to pro-Israeli Barbara Amiel.) All these articles were signed by individuals whose names ended with '...ein', except in two cases, that of Mark Steyn, which ends in '..yn' & Richard Pearl..."
+ the MOD cover up regarding casualties to UK troops in Afghanistan
+ the 'bogus' war on terrorism. "George Bush is not really determined to destroy the Al Quaeda network...If the Americans were serious about a war on terrorism they would have targeted the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia & its abhorrent regime, instead of which they went & attacked Afghanistan, 'the wretched of the earth...' The rich Taliban & their paymasters live in Saudi Arabia ...protected by US troops..."
+ the position of Conservative Foreign Affairs spokesman Michael Ancram criticised for supporting New Labour's foreign policy - "He (Tony Blair ) will only get his war if you vote for him, & if he has to rely on your votes then you shd be his foreign secretary...a war on Iraq is a criminal enterprise, certainly not to be pressed by any one with a claim to pro-life credentials..."
&
a tribute to Vlajko Stojilkovic, who committed suicide in Belgrade, & an extract from his final letter,
+ a tribute to Walter Rockler, who died in March 2002, 'one of the few voices of sanity to be heard in the United States in recent years. ..'
+ the text of a speech by William Spring attacking The Hague Tribunal (made outside the MOD 24th March)
+ an expose of human rights deprioritisation as a casualty of the war on terrorism - "cosying up to Islamic extremists..."
contact CANA UK @ 1 Scales Rd London N17 9HB UK.
Please delete previous address - also previous phone number & e mail address.
CANA UK phone number has changed to 44 (0) 208 376 1454. E mail address has changed to canauk@blueyonder.co.uk
Web site = http://www.canauk.human-rights.org ( - with links to old web site, http://home.btclick.com/cana-kosovo & other sites of interest, inc www.crookjudges.human-rights.org Also www.human-rights.demon.co.uk the human rights community on line).