Today's Stories

December 10, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Whose Interests Will Shape Obama's Change?

December 9, 2008

Mike Whitney
Card Check

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Us vs. Them

Ghada Karmi
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Dave Lindorff
A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

Steve Breyman
Notes on a Green Economy: Managing Stuff in the 21st Century

Lee Sustar /
Nicole Colson
Raising the Stakes at Republic

Rev. William E. Alberts
God of Our Fathers

Martha Rosenberg
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Bloodsports

Sam Husseini
How Holbrooke Lied His Way Into a War

David Macaray
The UAW in Peril

Website of the Day
This Toxic Life

December 8, 2008

Steve Early
Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor?

Michael Hudson
Obama's Favoritism: Wall Street, Not the Auto Industry

Patrick Cockburn
Talking to a Lashkar Militant

Diane Farsetta
An Officer and a Conflicted Man: McCaffery, the Pentagon and Fleishman-Hillard

Paul Craig Roberts
Chapters in Imperial Hypocrisy

Daniel Gross
The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

Saul Landau
To Bail or Not to Bail?

Harvey Wasserman
Why John Bryson is Unfit for Energy Secretary

Mike Ferner
The New Generation of "Non-Lethal" Weapons

Norman Solomon
The Silent Winter of Escalation

David Michael Green
The Other Foot

Website of the Day
The Remains of Detroit

December 5 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Honeymoans From the Left

Brian Cloughley
Shambles in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Muslim Revolution: How Washington Arrogance Helped Drive the Mumbai Attacks

Liaquat Ali Khan
Mumbai and the Kashmir Tinderbox

Farzana Versey
Mumbai's Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

Peter Lee
Pakistan Nears the Breaking Point

Peter Morici
Slouching Toward a Depression?

Ralph Nader /
Toby Heaps
Junk Cap-and-Trade

Yinon Cohen /
Neve Gordon
Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Will He Meet the Challenge?

Wajahat Ali
Perverse Justice: the Holy Land Foundation Convictions

Johnny Barber
Aswad's Story: Illegal Detention and the Declaration of Human Rights

Alan Farago
Fallout from the Pass-Through Economy

Jeremy Scahill
Obama Doesn't Plan to End Occupation of Iraq

Mike Whitney
Powergrab in Ottawa

Ranjit Hoskote
Jahiliyya Versus Jihad

Carl Finamore
Thank God I'm an Atheist! (Or Boy is Bill O'Reilly in for a Big Surprise)

Marjorie Cohn
Obama and Women's Rights

Norm Kent
Tommy Chong, the Unanticipated Warrior

Missy Beattie
What Lies Ahead

Binoy Kampmark
Committing Suicide On-Line: the Briggs Case

David Macaray
The Best and the Brightest Redux: Too Many Brains, Not Enough Humility

Nancy Stohlman
Relational Activism

Ron Jacobs
Irreverent Politics Then and Now

David Yearsley
Thematics From the Golden Past

Lorenzo Wolff
Troubled Songs of Home and War

Poets' Basement
Orloski: The Door Opener

Website of the Weekend
In Prison My Whole Life

December 4, 2008

Ece Temelkuran
Inside the Ergenekon Case

Ralph Nader
Turning Crisis into Opportunity: Who Will Seize the Moment?

Harry Browne
The Bush-Obama National Security Strategy

Eamonn Fingleton
The American Car Industry: a Riposte to the Knockers

Conn Hallinan
The Syria Attack

Mike Whitney
Fiasco in Somalia: Another CIA Cock-Up

Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama and Latinos: Richardson, Alone, is Not Enough

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Message to Obama: Stop Killing Afghanis

Karyn Strickler
Show Us the Green, Before We Show You the Money

Jennifer Matsui
Obama-Cola: the Great National Temperance Beverage

Website of the Day
"He Ain't Got Laid in a Month of Sundays..."

December 3, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
What's Wrong with the U.S. Military

Sheldon Rampton
Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

Robert Weissman
Nationalize GM

Yifat Susskind
From Mumbai to Washington

William Blum
The Obama Bummer: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

Alan Singer
The Ghost of the Defunct Economist

David Macaray
Trampled Under Foot at Wal-Mart

Martha Rosenberg
Born With a Statin Deficiency? Line Forms to the Left!

Mats Svensson
The Crimes Have No Period of Limitations

Website of the Day
Why Bill Richardson's Nomination Should be Opposed

December 2, 2008

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Kettle of Hawks

Paul Craig Roberts
The New Arms Race

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?

Sarah Anderson /
John Cavanagh
Skewed Priorities: How the Bailout Dwarfs Spending on Other Global Crises

William Blum
The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

John Ross
Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

Dave Lindorff
A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

Nicola Nasser
A Peace Process That Makes Peace Impossible

Steve Conn
Operation Redskin Removal

Robert Bryce
Coal Hard Facts

Website of the Day
Country, Funk, Soul

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
Obama's Economic Team: Records of Failure

Vijay Prashad
The Fires in South Asia

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Foreign Crises

Joshua Frank
Madam Secretary Clinton and the Middle East

P. Sainath
The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

Alan Farago
The Right's War on Regulators

Binoy Kampmark
Sydney's Ball and Chain

Chris Genovali
Silent Fall

David Michael Green
Hope You Die Before You Get Old

Stephen Martin
The Chinese are Coming, the Chinese are Coming!

Website of the Day
Robert Rubin: Coward, Liar or Both?

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

November 27, 2008

Tariq Ali
The Assault on Mumbai

Steve Hendricks
Thanksgiving We Can Believe In: Justice in Indian Country

Ralph Nader
Open Up Those Corporate Tax Returns

John Walsh
The Root Cause of the Crisis of 2008

Dave Lindorff
The Department of Homeland Lunacy

Christopher Brauchli
Thanks A Lot, Mr. Meese: How Alberto Gonzales Learned to Get You to Pay for His Legal Bills

Matthew Koehler
Giving Thanks for Burned Forests

Website of the Day
John Trudell: "Crazy Horse We Hear What You Say"

November 26, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Obama Letdown

Alan Farago
Bailouts and the New Math

Stanley Heller
Don't Bail Them Out, Take Them Over

Kevin Zeese
The Real Cost of the Bailout

Steve Conn
Now It Can Be Told (Except in North Carolina)

Ray McGovern
Kafka and Uighurs at Guantánamo

Ron Jacobs
King George is Gone: Now It's Time to Organize

Eric Walberg
Obama's Odious Entourage

Martha Rosenberg
Pay No Attention to That Turkey Being Slaughtered (Or How Sarah Palin Created a Whole New Generation of Vegetarians)

Matt Siegfried
Back to the Future With Barack

Website of the Day
"Every Time I've Compromised, I've Lost"

November 25, 2008

James Abourezk
Of Arrogance, Bailouts and the Big Three

Ralph Nader
Don't Suppress Carter

Patrick Irelan
PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela

John Ross
Obama in Bedlam

Fred Gardner
Dr. Goodwin and the Infinite Con

Dan LaBotz
The Auto Crisis: a Big Caravan to Washington?

Tom Barry
Napolitano and Immigration Policy

Norman Solomon
The Ideology of No Ideology

Richard Morse
Memo From Haiti: Where the Culture of Corruption Meets the Corruption of Culture

Chris Strohm
The Missing Rules of Engagement in Cyberwar

Website of the Day
Green vs. Green?

November 24, 2008

Mike Whitney
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Pam Martens
The Rise and Fall of Citigroup

Laray Polk
Bush's Library: the Kurds, Oil and Missing Records

David Ker Thomson
American Friends: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Canadians?

Uri Avnery
Likud Rising

Joe Mowrey
Deprivation and Desperation in Gaza

Ramzi Kysia
An Administration in Search of a Progressive: the Team Obama Should Have Picked

Kevin Zeese
The Causes of the Auto Crisis

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing the Blob: Idiots and Bailouts

David Macaray
Seven Reasons You Should Join a Union

Howard Lisnoff
Inaugurations Past and Present

Website of the Day
I Hate the Beatles

November 21 / 23, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Honeymoon is Looking a Bit Wan

Michael Hudson
Paulson's Cascade of Lies

Mike Whitney
Time to Move to Plan B ... If There is One

Barbara Rose Johnston /
Holly M. Barker
Cautionary Tales From a Nuclear War Zone

Serge Halimi
The Gloom of Empire: Downhill All the Way

Alan Farago
The Suburbs March On

Ralph Nader
Changing With Retreads: the Third Clinton Administration

Saul Landau
When Old Axioms Don't Apply

Robert Bryce
From LBJ to Obama: the End of Texas Dominance

Shannon May
Ecological Crisis and Eco-Villages in China

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Yugo

Jack Ely
The Fate of the West's Wild Horses

Ramzy Baroud
The Rights of Women in War Zones

Missy Beattie
Why Vote, Anyway?

Larry Portis
Women Soldiers Serving in (and Barely Surviving) the Israeli Army

James McEnteer
Colombia's Laboratory of Failure

Christopher Brauchli
A Tale of Two Whales

David Yearsley
Real Swords, Fire and Don Giovanni

Adam Engel
Power Down

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Saga of the White Album

Lorenzo Wolff
Honky Tonk Heroes: When Country Got Real

Poets' Basement
Raza Ali Hasan

Website of the Weekend
Lips and Fingers

November 20, 2008

P. Sainath
The Jurassic Auto and Idea Park

Brian McKenna
How Dow Chemical Defies Homeland Security and Risks Another 9/11

Paul Craig Roberts
What Uncle Sam Has to Say to His Creditors

Andy Worthington
How Guanántamo Can be Closed

Peter Lee
India Doubles Down in Afghanistan ... Maybe

Dr. Eyad al-Serraj
At the Erez Crossing

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Bush Pardons

Lance Selfa
Who Made the New Deal?

Ray McGovern
Keeping Gates

Benjamin G. Davis
Ending Torture; Prosecuting the Torturers

Tracy McLellan
Obama's Crony Democracy: the Return of Tom Daschle

Website of the Day
Finally, a Victory for Palestinians

November 19, 2008

M. Shahid Alam
Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

Mario A. Murillo
Holder, Chiquita and Colombian Death Squads

Martine Boulard
Escaping the Dollar's Shadow

Robin D. G. Kelley
Will Obama be the First "Freedom" Democrat?

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Obama and the Iron Cage

Jonathan Cook
Who Will Stop the Settlers?

Steve Conn
Spare Change or No Change at All

George Wuerthner
The NYT and the Beetles of Mass Destruction

Michael Winship
This Just in From Middle Earth

Stephen Martin
The Other Side of the Pleasure-Dome

Website of the Day
An Important Holiday Message From Kristen Johnston

November 18, 2008

Chellis Glendinning
Cheering for Morgan Stanley

George C. Wilson
Perils of Pakistan: Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?

Franklin Lamb
Who Will Evict Israel from Lebanon: Hezbollah or the UN?

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Irresponsibility of Appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State

Roger Burbach
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia: How Bush Tried to Bring Down Morales

John Ross
Drilling vs. Direct Democracy in Mexico

Wajahat Ali
Is Obama the Muslim World's Superman?

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
What Really Happened in Washington? The G20 and the Inconsistent Script

Marc Gardner
When Mooning is a Sex Crime

Eric Walberg
Courting the Bear: a New Era for Russian/Western Relations?

Wendy Williams
The Bottled Water Con

Website of the Day
Where's Zappa When We Need Him?

November 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Bankers Shake Down Congress and the G-20

Paul Craig Roberts
When It's a Clear Day and You Can't See GM

Mike Whitney
Busted in Washington

Steve Conn
Where is Nader Country 2008? Mapping the Nader Votes

Andy Worthington
Closing Guantánamo: Advice for Obama

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade of Gaza: "They Are All Hamas"

Rannie Amiri
Dual Loyalties Will Doom Obama

David Macaray
Bailing Out the Automakers

David Michael Green
Twelve Victories

Charles Modiano
Sports Illustrated and Sexism: Tokenism or a New Day?

Website of the Day
The South Sea Bubble

November 14 / 16, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Heading for the First Hundred Days

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Bill Clinton Doomed the Spotted Owl: a Cautionary Tale for Greens in the Age of Obama

Mike Whitney
Paulson the Bungler

Sasan Fayazmanesh
RIP: the Experts, 1929-2008

Moshe Adler
Keynes: China's Greatest Export?

Anthony DiMaggio
Transcending Race?

Jean Bricmont
Cats, Dogs and Creationism

Sheldon Rampton
The Eisenstadt Hoax: a Real Life Example of a "Fake Fake"

Douglas Valentine
Let the Trials Begin!

Joseph Nevins /
Timothy Dunn
Barricading the Border

Tom Barry
Rahm Emanuel's Political Pragmatism on Immigration

Ron Jacobs
Che Guevara Meets Trashman: the Genius of Spain Rodriguez

Larry Portis
The State of the Israeli State

Mary Lynn Cramer Obama's Brain Trust: Seems Like Old Times

Sherry Wolf
The Myth of the Black/Gay Divide

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street by Impoverishing the Mexican People

Jacob Hornberger
The Conservative Malaise: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare Some Habeas Corpus?

Lance Selfa
The Center-Right Nation Con

Benjamin Dangl
Vermont Against General Dynamics

Seth Sandronsky
Lifelines in Hard Times

Russell Mokhiber
Time to Give the Friends of Big Coal the Boot

Allan Stellar
Nuke a Gay Whale for the Navy

Kelly Overton
Get Thee to a Shelter: the Obamas and the Million-Mutt March

Martha Rosenberg
Why Mink are Cheering the Economic Crisis

Richard Rhames
Palling Around with Ray the Plumber

David Yearsley
How I Played Hooky from "High School Musical 3"

Lorenzo Wolff
Zach is Back: Songs of Hurt, Rage and Resistance

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ford and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Eyes Have It

November 13, 2008

Pam Martens
The Two Trillion DollarBlack Hole

Vijay Prashad
Guilt by Participation: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired

Patrick Cockburn
Who is Paying for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service?

Jonathan Cook
The Withering Palestinian Economy

Ralph Nader
Obama and the Rogue Regime

Bill Quigley
McCain Owes America an Apology

Lee Sustar
Bailing Out the Big Three

Omar Barghouti
Boycotting Israeli Settlement Products

Steve Conn
More Alaska Fun

Howard Lisnoff
The Last Bastion of Hate

Jeff Cohen
What Indy Media Heroes Can Teach Us

Website of the Day
Who are the Obamagelicals?

November 12, 2008

Johanna Berrigan
Scattered Families: the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Steve Conn
The Big Mystery Election in Alaska

Patrick Bond
Against Volcker

Bokar Ture /
Dedrick Muhammad
Remembering a Black Radical in a Barack Obama America

Alan Farago
The Hispanic Vote in South Florida: Not Dyed Blue Yet

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing Joe Lieberman

Karl Grossman
Break Up Big Oil: Tyranny in the Tank

David Macaray
An Obama Litmus Test: Will Labor Have a Seat at the Table?

George Wuerthner
Act Now to Save America's Public Forests

Susie Day
Heavy Weather

Website of the Day
Does the Planet Have a Future? an Interview with Derrick Jensen

December 10, 2008

The Hoover Institute's Pragmatic Evanelsim

Nuclear Weapons Obsolescence

By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.

For the purposes of foreign policy, the nuclear weapons of the United States of America are obsolete. This may seem like a truism to peace activists, which has been voiced for decades by unknown millions and by well-known personalities alike:

Mohandas K. Gandhi (1946): "I have no doubt, that unless big nations shed their desire of exploitation and the spirit of violence of which war is the natural expression and the atom bomb the inevitable consequence, there is no hope for peace in the world",

Bertrand Russell (1955): "In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them", (from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto),

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967): "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations."

The policy-makers of the major atomic powers (the permanent members of the UN Security Council) viewed any "ban the bomb" unilateral nuclear disarmament sentimentality as foolishly naïve. However, after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, they recognized the value of regulating their nuclear-armed Cold War and improving emergency communications between heads-of-state, to help prevent an accidental nuclear war. These "rules of the game" have been elaborated in three significant treaties.

The Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 banned above-ground nuclear explosions -- atmospheric weapons tests -- by the signatories. Most countries have signed and ratified this treaty; notable exceptions are the People's Republic of China, France and North Korea.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 binds its nuclear-armed parties to refrain from transferring nuclear weapons technology to non-nuclear states; its non-nuclear parties agree not to acquire nuclear weapons; the right to develop civilian nuclear power is affirmed; and a vague commitment to eventual nuclear disarmament is also promised. All nations except four are parties to this treaty (189 parties), the exceptions being India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996 bans all nuclear explosions, whether undersea, underground, above-ground, atmospheric or in space. There are 180 signatories to the CTBT (nuclear and non-nuclear states). This treaty will go into effect after nine more of 44 specifically named nuclear-capable states sign and ratify; the nine hold-outs include the United States, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

Within the last two years a new chorus has added their voices to the call for "a world free of nuclear weapons":

"Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world... We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal..." [1]

"Progress must be facilitated by a clear statement of our ultimate goal. Indeed, this is the only way to build the kind of international trust and broad cooperation that will be required to effectively address today's threats. Without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral... The U.S. and Russia, which possess close to 95% of the world's nuclear warheads, have a special responsibility, obligation and experience to demonstrate leadership, but other nations must join." [2]

These new converts to "nuclear weapons-zero" may surprise you: George P. Shultz (Reagan Administration secretary of state from 1982 to 1989), William J. Perry (Clinton Administration secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997), Henry A. Kissinger (Nixon Administration national security advisor and secretary of state from 1969 to 1973, then Ford Administration secretary of state from 1973 to 1977) and Sam Nunn (chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1987 to 1995). Their two Op Eds have many endorsements from former officials of the military-industrial-congressional complex, and even foreign ex-government officials.

Why are these elite former Cold Warriors now ready to ban the bomb? We can discount the possibility they've all experienced a "satori" for peace, or a sudden anti-imperial moral transformation like Saint Paul (more on this later). The new enthusiasm for nuclear weapons-zero must spring from two sources: the nature of reality and the nature of ego. First, consider reality.

The major nuclear powers could never use nuclear weapons in disputes among themselves. However you imagine such a scenario playing out, the "winner" would emerge with devastating damage, and very likely a permanent loss of political power and economic capability. The nuclear war would be an abrupt transition from a former level of "greatness" to a subsequent lesser state; an advantage to non-combatant rivals. Similarly, a war between major economic powers, one armed with nuclear weapons and the other conventionally, would still diminish the economic viability of the nuclear-armed victor because today's advanced economies are highly interdependent. Any nuclear war between advanced capitalist nations would damage capitalism generally -- that is, reduce wealth -- regardless of how it altered the relative balance of advantage between the combatants. In all these cases, non-combatant nations might shun nuclear armed combatants after the war, adding to the political and economic costs of causing a nuclear war.

No advanced nuclear power has any need to use its nuclear arms against a weak non-nuclear state that opposes its authority. The conventional military forces of the advanced nations are more than sufficient to overpower small, weak and poor states -- and such wars of the strong against the weak occur often enough without significant opprobrium. Using nuclear weapons in such wars would cause unnecessary fright to the "world community", and this global disapproval would unquestionably lead to a collective punitive response by economic and political measures.

In short, nuclear weapons are entirely obsolete as instruments of foreign policy by the advanced nations. The integration of world economies makes the use of nuclear weapons anywhere a net loss of power and wealth for world capitalism generally. Also, the combination of electronics, computer and space technologies has so improved the target detection and shooting accuracy of conventional military systems that large-area blasts are no longer needed; and modern conventional forces are more than adequate to exert authority over weak opponents, without the inconvenience of radioactive fallout. This is the significant news in the enthusiasm for nuclear weapons-zero by the Hoover Institute elders noted earlier.

People who are marginalized and exploited by world capitalism, and who despair over improving the lot of their communities, can see acquiring nuclear weapons as a useful means to revolution, for the exact same reasons the Hoover Institute elders see them as such a threat to the American Empire: sub-state insurgents -- "terrorists" -- with nuclear weapons could poke painful, bloody holes through the fabric of world capitalism, and exponentially enhance their own political power. Because this threat is so serious, and nuclear weapons are now obsolete for imperial control, the Hoover Institute elders urge a rapid convergence to nuclear weapons-zero.

To underscore the credibility of the threat (or, opportunity, depending on viewpoint), let me cite one observation. A recent study I read on the probability of smuggling nuclear material and components for a crude radioactive explosive device (or, anything) across the coastline into the United States concluded that there was only a 4 percent chance the Coast Guard would intercept any single shipment when carried by small craft (a boat). To minimize the loss from any single "pinch", the smugglers might plan to convey the consignment over several shipments. The odds of success for radioactive rum running are high. What has prevented the introduction of a terrorist nuclear device into the U.S. is the control over the radioactive source material here and abroad, not the security of the coastlines and land borders.

Taking nuclear weapons systems out of active deployment; removing nuclear warheads from missile bodies and munitions depots; disassembling warheads to store the nuclear material (e.g., uranium, plutonium) at remote high-security sites, destroying the warhead shell; and breaking fissile bomb parts into granular material for mixing into lower grade nuclear fuel, which would be "burned" in civilian nuclear power reactors to recover some of the costs sunk into the original weapons, is how nuclear weapons would physically be taken toward zero. Yes, there will still be the usual problem of reactor waste, but this has to be seen as a reasonable alternative to having finished warheads and even machined bomb parts of highly refined plutonium in circulation around the world. Reactor waste may be radioactive, thermally hot and toxic, but it cannot be compressed to criticality to produce nuclear yield -- no bomb.

So much for the realities, now for the psychology of nuclear weapons-zero's elite evangelists. Scanning the names of people endorsing the Hoover Institute elders' nuclear weapons-zero stance, I was struck by the many former government (or, military-industrial-congressional complex) officials I recall being on active duty before and during my career in one of the US nuclear weapons labs. Two of these individuals are former high-ranking nuclear weapons lab managers (Ray Juzaitis, whose career climb to a lab directorship was rumored to have collapsed before whispers of "is he safe?" by rival upper level back-stabbers, because Juzaitis had been the manager over Wen Ho Lee in 1999, [3]; and Siegfried Hecker, director of the Los Alamos lab from 1986 to 1997, who was replaced after a series of safety and security lapses, [4] and [5]).

While these former movers and shakers now enjoy lucrative sinecures, they can hardly find these activities sufficient, because they all have big egos and aggressive career drives. How else would they have risen as far as they did? Can they really be satisfied teaching BS courses on "policy" to spoiled, young patricians being trained for the imperial bureaucracy? Can they really retain their enthusiasm attending another droning symposium on knotty and speculative analyses of imperial fortunes? Can they really look forward to displaying themselves at another reception for the rich dull "donors", who want same face-time and flesh-press value for their impressive tax-deductable foundation donation, along with a trophy snapshot alongside the honored has-been? What these elite retirees really want is to be players again, authoring (usually plagiarizing) the compelling policy ideas of the day, directing the key actions that set the karmic wheels of nations a-spinning, focusing the attention of their peers and the wider public onto their renewed glory. It chafes to "sit on the bench", to be "passed over"; and it stings to watch the next generation -- the Obama generation -- briskly undo or recycle, as suits them, the elders' political legacies without acknowledgment. It is hard to accept that one is "finished". So, one finds a cause, something big, something that has the potential of erasing the often distasteful memory of an elder's past exploits, by bathing them in a new and holy aura they hope will elevate their pedestals in the necropolis of the nation's history. Other well-known examples of this psychology are: Jimmy Carter and Palestine, and Al Gore and climate change.

Like many former "spear carriers for empire" (to use Chalmers Johnson's phrase) I, too, might be a minor example of the psychology of post-career redemption. This prompts me keep an open mind and allow for the possibility that some of the former military-industrial-congressional complex leaders now committed to nuclear weapons-zero might really have matured to a new more humane identification with the rest of humanity. This is always something to welcome. Our lives, after all, can only be fashioned in the present; our past is set and our future is out of reach. We can express a new character or a new understanding of the world from any present moment. Reforming, becoming a "better person", "changing our ways" can be initiated at any instant, once we acquire the conception to do so. There may be some admixture of genuine feelings for peace and compassion in the participation of former government leaders who champion the elimination of nuclear weapons. Having extended this olive branch, let me confess that I do not believe this factor is significant among the retired military-industrial-congressional elite. So much for the psychology of the new nuclear weapons-zero evangelists.

The humanist "ban the bomb" sentiment is intrinsically anti-imperial and was summed up in the Russell-Einstein manifesto as: "We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest." Nuclear weapons would be eliminated by meeting human needs globally -- sharing (organized as an equitable U.N.) -- so strong and wealthy nations would refrain from using their power to exploit the weak; and poor, disadvantaged and under-developed populations would not seek nuclear weapons, nor resort to "terror" tactics, because they would have effective and non-violent avenues to advance their societies.

The new Hoover Institute-incubated nuclear weapons-zero evangelism is a pragmatic formulation aimed at preserving the American Empire by reducing one potential threat against it, which could be formed by combining the unrelieved resentments of the "service" and "waste" populations of world capitalism, and the terror potential of nuclear weapons and nuclear material.

Previously, the American situation was seen as a choice between: the absence of empire and nuclear weapons versus empire with nuclear weapons. Obviously, the first choice was forbidden. The new view states the alternatives as: empire with nuclear weapons versus empire without nuclear weapons. Note that absence of empire is not accepted as an option. The positive aspect here is that empire and capitalism without nuclear weapons, though far from our ideal, is still better than what we have today. If the Hoover Institute nuclear weapons-zero evangelism goes beyond the post-career narcissism of its clergy and actually accelerates nuclear disarmament, then it will have some value.

Notes

[1] full text of January 4, 2007 Op Ed

[2] full text of January 15, 2008 Op Ed

[3] NYT on WHL in 2001

[4] Hecker's 1997 testimony to congress:
"Although the [Los Alamos] Laboratory's long-term record for safety is impressive, in the last two years we have experienced a series of serious accidents, seemingly unrelated but suggesting weakness in the systems and structures that provide a safe working environment. On December 20, 1994, an employee of our contractor security force was killed during a training exercise when live ammunition was accidentally loaded into a weapon. On November 22, 1995, an employee lost control of a forklift and was severely injured when it rolled over. He subsequently recovered. On January 17, 1996, a contractor laborer received a severe shock when he jackhammered into a 13.5-kilovolt power line during an excavation project. He remains in a coma. On July 11, 1996, a graduate student working on energized, high-voltage equipment received a severe shock. He has recovered. As a result of these accidents, we have been subjected to intense scrutiny by DOE and the University of California."

[5] NYT on Hecker/WHL:
'Mr. Hecker was cited for failing to follow through on ''an express request by senior management to develop a plan for limiting the suspect's access, for failing to inform department's management that the plan had failed, and for failing to take alternative actions,'' according to a statement by Mr. Richardson. Though he did not name Mr. Hecker, other officials said his reference was to Mr. Hecker.'

 and

SF Chronicle on Hecker/WHL

Manuel Garcia, Jr. retired from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (much to mutual relief) in July 2007, between 1978 and 1993 he designed close-in (~meters) equipment to measure the pulses of radiation from 16 underground nuclear explosions (at Nevada), he also did other calculations and laboratory experiments often concerning electromagnetic effects and pulsed nuclear radiation. The physics part was fun. Maturity brought a wider understanding, which is never finalized. My best advice: don't be afraid, THINK. E-mail = mango@idiom.com   

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