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CounterPunch
January
10, 2003
The Folly of Total War
By KURT NIMMO
Is Dubya's objective to see how many wars he can
start at one time? Let's see, there's Iraq Attack II, of course,
the family affair, and then there's North Korea, that bit of
fifty year old unresolved business, and now there's Pakistan
where the US bombed a religious school the other day. If you
really want to groom hatred, simply bomb religious schools, hospitals,
water purification plants, electrical grids, etc. Then there's
Bahrain where the people rioted against the presence of US troops
the other day. In Kuwait, policemen are taking potshots at soldiers.
According to the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, over
a hundred US soldiers are missing in Afghanistan.
Reality check for the neocon chicken
hawks -- the US is not set up to wage multiple wars in multiple
"theaters" across the world. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, of all people, should know this -- yet he tells the
world no problem, the US can wage multiple wars and win them
hands down. "The message of the holiday season is peace
on Earth," Rumsfeld told the troops over Christmas. "Yet,
despite our best hopes, history shows that this season of peace
has often been a time of war." Donald Rumsfeld, as the Grinch
who stole Christmas, ordered the carpet bombing of Who-ville.
"No one quite knows the reason. It could be his head wasn't
screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were
too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all may
have been that his heart was two sizes too small."
"I don't like the word crisis,"
said Secretary of State Colin Powell the other day, "it
suggests we're about to move forces or there's a war about to
break out, and that's not the case at all." Powell is often
at odds with the neocons who have exclusive permission to yell
strident directives in the ear of his half-wit boss. In the months
before Dubya was installed in the White House these dogmatic
neocons made their intentions known. The "core mission"
of the US military is to "fight and decisively win multiple,
simultaneous major theater wars... the process of transformation
is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing
event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." As the neocon Richard
Perle -- known in Washington by the affectionate moniker the
"Prince of Darkness" -- told the journalist John Pilger,
the US must wage a "total war" against "a variety
of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about
first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq...
this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let
our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely
and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just
wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about
us years from now. "
So, Mr. Powell, climb onboard -- or your
children will not be allowed to "sing great songs"
about mass murder and endless wars of conquest. Of course, your
children may choose not to live in the world after the neocons
are finished with it -- a world ravaged by "mini-nukes"
and poisoned by countless tons of depleted uranium, a world where
the "grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy," as
Zbigniew Brzezinski so candidly put it, "are to prevent
collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals,
to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians
from coming together." The New Feudalism envisioned by the
Bush neocons may require multiple wars fought with designer nukes
(specifically engineered for regional conflict), as the Rumsfeld-Grinch
Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) spells out. Nuclear war's not strictly
for deterrence anymore, but a "force intended primarily
for war-fighting," as Robert K. Musil, Executive Director
and CEO of Physicians for Social Responsibility explains. "Future
warfare scenarios may require low-yield nuclear options,"
says the Heritage Foundation matter-of-factly. Get used to it.
Now imagine the above mentioned "multiple,
simultaneous major theater wars" fought against "a
variety of enemies" using "low-yield nuclear options."
Hold that wretched thought in mind and then consider what David
W. Allan, esteemed atomic clock physicist, has to say about such
madness. "Detonating many nuclear explosions at once, such
as in a nuclear war scenario, would be like focusing a giant
blow torch toward the center of the earth," writes Allen.
Not only would this exacerbate the green-house effect, it would
also contribute to polar ice cap melting and the rise of ocean
levels and the inundation of the continents with water. If you
live in England, you might want to think about moving. Even without
a noxious concert of nukes going off simultaneously, according
to researchers, 85% of Alaskan glaciers have lost vast portions
of their mass in the last 40 years and some are now thinning
at double the rates of the 1950s, which may explain the 9% sea
level rise over the last century. No doubt the neocons see this
as pure poppycock -- that as if they even bother to notice such
inappreciable facts. After all, we're talking about the "axis
of evil" here and preventing "barbarians from coming
together." Richard Perle is looking forward to his kids
singing "great songs," so what's a little more water
-- or massive misery in "lesser" nations -- when "geostrategic
imperatives" are at stake?
Junior's not fooling around. The US military,
now fully cognizant of its mission, will use "every resource,
every weapon, every means to assure full victory" over intransigent
"vassals," many of whom have their own ideas about
the natural resources and the destiny of the people who live
in their countries. Let them chew on the prospect of the newest
addition to the Pentagon's armory -- the B-61, called the Mk-11
or the "burrowing bomb." This marvel of death technology
is designed to smoke 'em out in appreciable fashion, especially
if they hide in underground bunkers or the caves of Tora Bora.
"Built ram tough with a heavy metal casing for smashing
through earth and concrete, " writes George Smith of the
Village Voice, "the B-61 explodes with the force of an estimated
340,000 tons of TNT. It is lots of bang for the buck, literally
two apocalypse bombs in one -- a boosted plutonium firecracker
called the primary, and a heavy hydrogen secondary for that good
old-fashioned H-bomb fireball. The B-61 also features a detonation
option called the Dial-a-Yield for those times when 340 kilotons
is just a little too much." Lovely. "One B-61 will
bring on a calamity of biblical proportions between Tigris and
Euphrates. The sky will turn the color of sackcloth, the Arab
world will supernova, our European allies will try our leaders
in absentia as war criminals in the Hague -- but, hey, anyone
who contemplates using the thing plans on America's hair getting
a little mussed." Considering Bush's authorization for such
excessive weaponry -- and the stated willingness to use them
-- it would seem there will be more than a few bad hair days
for America in the days ahead.
But how does the empire "assure
full victory" when increasing numbers of "vassals"
are moved to resistance and violence? How does the US "mini-nuke"
a Muslim fundamentalist with a Kalashnikov and not kill the innocent
shopkeeper walking past minding his own business? Bush and his
neocons do not seem concerned with such insignificant details.
"Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoset," proclaimed the
papal killers of the Cathars ("Kill them all. God will know
His own."), an expression, slightly modified, which found
popular use during the Vietnam war and in paramilitary operations
and neocolonial brush wars ever since. Surely, the relatives
of 500,000 plus children to die of entirely preventable diseases
over the span a decade of US-imposed sanctions against Iraq must
understand this cruel maxim. "Bush can just say 'I don't
like that leader's face so he must be removed'. If he removes
Saddam he will do the same in the whole region," a Kuwaiti
lawyer told Michael Georgy of Reuters a few days ago. "The
Americans are just trying to impose their influence on Muslims.
We hate the Americans," declared another.
Rumsfeld may brag "a capability
in the United States to provide for homeland defense, to undertake
a major regional conflict and win decisively -- including occupying
a country and changing the regime if necessary -- and simultaneously
swiftly defeat another aggressor in another theater," but
this will hardly stem the tide of growing hatred in countries
where US "pre-eminence" is to be exacted for the likes
of transnational corporations and the international banking cartel.
No doubt the US military will be able to take out Saddam's Republican
Guard -- and maybe in short order while at the same time taking
out North Korea's nukes -- but the hatred for the US will remain
and painstakingly eat away at the edges of the empire like a
slow acid.
The geniuses in the Pentagon and in the
diabolical labs over at Lockheed Martin have yet to invent a
bomb able to eradicate the hatred of millions of people who yearn
to determine their own destinies.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent online
gallery. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
We highly recommend regular visits to
Nimmo's website, Another
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January
4, 2003
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Something
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
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Whiteout:
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by Alexander
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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