by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
August 14, 2016
from
GlobalResearch Website
The following text
is a point by point thematic
summary
of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's
presentation
at the Science for Peace
Conference,
Academy of Sciences, Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur
15-16 August 2016
Introduction
Historically, science has supported the development of the weapons
industry and the war economy.
"Science for Peace" indelibly requires
reversing the logic whereby commissioned scientific endeavors are
directed towards supporting what President Eisenhower
called "The
Military Industrial Complex".
What is consequently required is a massive redirection of science
and technology towards the pursuit of broad societal objectives.
In
turn, this requires a major shift in what is euphemistically called
"U.S. Foreign Policy", namely America's global military agenda.
Military
Affairs - The Current Global Context
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its
allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future
of humanity.
Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the
Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in,
-
Afghanistan
-
Libya
-
Yemen
-
Pakistan
-
Palestine
-
Ukraine
-
Syria
-
Iraq,
...are coordinated
at the highest levels of the military hierarchy.
We are not dealing
with piecemeal military and intelligence operations.
Major military
and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken
simultaneously in the,
-
Middle East
-
Eastern Europe
-
sub-Saharan
Africa
-
Central Asia
-
the Asia Pacific region
The current situation is all the more critical inasmuch as a
U.S.-NATO
war on Russia, China and Iran is part of the U.S. presidential
election debate. It is presented as a political and military option
to Western public opinion.
The U.S.-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations
as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign
states.
America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy
countries through,
U.S. and NATO forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe including
Poland and Ukraine.
In turn, military maneuvers are being conducted
at Russia's doorstep which could potentially lead to confrontation
with the Russian Federation.
The U.S. and its allies are also threatening China under President
Obama's "Pivot to Asia".
The U.S. led airstrikes initiated in August 2014 directed against
Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State
are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North
Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.
THE HISTORY OF NUCLEAR WAR AND "COLLATERAL
DAMAGE"
"We have discovered the most
terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the
fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era,
after Noah and his fabulous Ark…
This weapon is to be used
against Japan… [We] will use it so that military objectives
and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and
children.
Even if the Japs are savages,
ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the
world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb
on the old capital or the new.
The target will be a purely
military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever
discovered, but it can be made the most useful."
(President Harry S. Truman,
Diary, July 25, 1945)
"The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in
this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing
of civilians."
(President Harry S. Truman in
a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945).
[Note: the first atomic bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; the Second on
Nagasaki, on August 9, on the same day as Truman's radio speech
to the Nation]
for Video click above image
Is Truman's notion of "collateral damage" in the case of nuclear
war still relevant?
Publicly available military documents
confirm that nuclear war is still on the drawing board of the
Pentagon.
Compared to the 1950s, however, today's nuclear weapons are far
more advanced. The delivery system is more precise. In addition
to China and Russia, Iran and North Korea are targets for a
first strike pre-emptive nuclear attack.
U.S. military documents claim that the new generation of tactical
nuclear weapons are harmless to civilians.
Let us be under no illusions, the Pentagon's plan to blow up the
planet using advanced nuclear weapons is still on the books.
Hiroshima after the bomb
War is Good for Business
Spearheaded by the "defense contractors",
-
Lockheed Martin
-
Northrop
Grumman
-
Boeing
-
British Aerospace et al,
...the
Obama administration
has proposed a one trillion dollar plan over a 30 year period to
develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, bombers, submarines,
and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) largely directed at
Russia and China.
War with Russia - From the Cold War to the New Cold War
Blowing up Russia, targeting Russian cities is still on the
Pentagon's drawing board. In the words of
Hillary Clinton, the
nuclear option is on the table.
Preemptive nuclear war is part of
her election campaign.
Source: National Security Archive
According to 1956 Plan, H-Bombs were to be Used Against Priority
"Air Power" Targets in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe.
Major cities in Soviet Bloc, including East Berlin,
were High
Priorities in "Systematic Destruction" for Atomic Bombings.
William
Burr
U.S. Cold War Nuclear Attack Target List of 1200 Soviet Bloc
Cities
"From East Germany to China"
National Security Archive
Electronic Briefing Book No. 538
December 2015.
Excerpt of list of 1200 cities
targeted for nuclear attack in
alphabetical order.
National Security Archive
Global Warfare
The U.S. has formulated a global war scenario, which is defined in
military documents.
There are three major regional deployments of U.S.-NATO which threaten
Global Security:
-
Eastern Europe on Russia's Western Frontier, with the deployment of
U.S.-NATO military hardware on Russia's doorstep
-
"The Pivot to Asia" largely directed against China
-
The Middle East and North Africa, extending to Central Asia
In the above regions, the use of nuclear weapons on a preemptive
basis is contemplated against both nuclear and non-nuclear states.
In other regions of the World including Latin America and
sub-Saharan Africa, non-conventional forms of warfare are envisaged
including,
1. THREATENING RUSSIA ON ITS WESTERN FRONTIER
Russia is threatened on its Western frontier with the
U.S.-NATO
deployment of the so called missile defense system.
A pro-U.S. regime has been installed in Kiev which integrates two
prominent Neo-Nazi Parties.
Neo-Nazis are heavily integrated in Ukraine's National Guard and
military.
The U.S. government is channeling financial support, weapons
and training to a Neo-Nazi entity - which is part of The Ukraine
National Guard - The Azov Battalion (Батальйон Азов) is under the
jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the equivalent of
America's Homeland Security.
Kill the Russians - The New Cold War is no longer Cold
A former CIA Official is calling for the "Killing of Russians". The
U.S. media and the the State Department applaud:
CBS News,
Charlie Rose
2. "PIVOT TO ASIA" - SOUTH CHINA SEA
China is threatened by the U.S. military in the South China Sea
WAR WITH CHINA
IS CURRENTLY ON THE DRAWING BOARD
OF THE PENTAGON AS
OUTLINED
IN A RAND REPORT COMMISSIONED
BY THE U.S. ARMY
War with China - Thinking Through the
Unthinkable
Washington is actively involved in creating divisions between China
and its neighbors.
The objective is to draw South East Asia and the Far East into a
protracted military conflict by creating divisions between China and
ASEAN countries, most of which are the victims of Western
colonialism and military aggression:
Extensive crimes against
humanity have been committed against Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, the
Philippines, Indonesia.
In a bitter irony, these countries are now
military allies of the United States.
Bilateral economic relations with China are destabilized.
The
Trans
Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a U.S. hegemonic project which seeks to
control trade, investment, intellectual property, etc in the Asia
Pacific region.
THAAD MISSILE DEPLOYMENT IN SOUTH KOREA DIRECTED AGAINST CHINA
THAAD missiles are deployed in South Korea, against,
Washington states that THAAD is solely intended as
a Missile Shield against North Korea.
THAAD System
The
Jeju island military base is also directed against China.
Less than 500km from Shanghai:
U.S.-NATO WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA (MENA)
Meanwhile, under the pretext of waging a "war on terrorism",
U.S.-NATO
are intervening militarily in the broader Middle East Central Asian
region extending from the Mediterranean to Central Asia:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, resulting in several
million civilian deaths.
The objective is to destabilize and destroy sovereign countries and
to displace secular governments under regime change.
The next stage of the Middle East war
is Iran.
The Global War on Terrorism is a Big Lie
- Al Qaeda is a Creation of
U.S. Intelligence
From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in 1979 to the present,
various Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary organizations became de
facto instruments of U.S. intelligence and more generally of the
U.S.-NATO-Israel military alliance.
The U.S. has actively supported Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist
organizations since the onslaught of the Soviet Afghan War.
Washington has engineered the installation of Islamist regimes in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has destroyed the fabric of secular
societies.
Confirmed by Israeli intelligence media, the Al Qaeda opposition
fighters in Syria are recruited by U.S.-NATO and the Turkish high
command.
They are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, with
special forces in their midst.
The Al Qaeda affiliated "moderate"
terrorist organizations
in Syria are supported by Saudi Arabia and
Turkey.
The counter-terrorism agenda is bogus. It's a criminal undertaking.
What is being bombed is the civilian infrastructure of a sovereign
country.
The Historical Origins of al Qaeda
In this above video-footage President Carter's National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (1979) arrives in a helicopter and speaks to a
translator in front of a seated crowd of Mujahedeen:
'We know of their deep belief in god - that they're confident that
their struggle will succeed.
That land over-there is yours - and
you'll go back to it some day, because your fight will prevail, and
you'll have your homes, your mosques, back again, because your cause
is right, and god is on your side.'
The video-footage can be found in the documentary series "Cold War"
(Episode #24, Soldiers of God, 1975-1988), Turner Original
Productions (Time Warner), 1998.
Speaker Kenneth Branagh.
ISI and CIA directors in mujahideen camp
1987
Sleeping With the
Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11
Front row, from left:
-
Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) Director
of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Willian Webster
-
Deputy
Director for Operations Clair George
-
an ISI colonel
-
senior CIA
official, Milt Bearden,
...at a Mujahideen training camp in North-West
Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987.
(source RAWA)
Referred to as "Freedom Fighters",
president Reagan meets Afghan Al
Qaeda Mujahideen leaders
at the White House
The Central Intelligence Agency using Pakistan's ISI as a go-between
played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the
CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings
of Islam.
The madrasahs were set up by
Wahabi fundamentalists
financed out of Saudi Arabia:
"[I]t was the government of the United States who supported
Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of
religious schools, from which the germs of the Taliban
emerged."
Revolutionary Association of
the Women of Afghanistan - RAWA
"RAWA
Statement on the Terrorist Attacks in the U.S."
Centre for Research
on Globalization (CRG)
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAW109A.html
September 16, 2001
Destroying National Sovereignty and Secular Societies, Installing an
Islamic State (Made in America)
What has been the fate of Afghanistan.
A progressive secular state in the 1970s and early 1980s has become
a U.S. failed State integrated by U.S. supported Al Qaeda terrorists.
This is the model that U.S.-NATO want to impose on Syria, Iraq, Libya:
Destroy national sovereignty and replace it with an Islamic State
which conforms to Washington's demands.
Kabul University in the 1980′s
Unknown to the American public, the U.S. spread the teachings of the
Islamic jihad in textbooks "Made in America", developed at the
University of Nebraska:
…the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan
schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and
militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur
resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured
drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since
then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum.
Even the Taliban
used the American-produced books...
The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic
principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books,
"are fully in
compliance with U.S. law and policy."
Legal experts, however,
question whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax
dollars to promote religion.
…AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic
materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject
books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought.
The agency removed
its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious
texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.
"It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction," Stratos
said.
"But we went ahead with this project because the primary
purpose... is to educate children, which is predominantly a
secular activity."
…Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun,
the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant
to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan
Studies.
The agency spent $ 51 million on the university's education
programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994."
(Washington Post, 23
March 2002)
Concluding
Remarks
War is not an inevitable process. War can be prevented through mass
action.
War criminals occupy positions of authority. The citizenry is
galvanized into supporting the rulers, who are "committed to their
safety and well-being". Through media disinformation, war is given a
humanitarian mandate.
The legitimacy of the war must be addressed. Antiwar sentiment alone
does not disarm a military agenda.
The corporate backers and sponsors of war and war crimes must also
be targeted including the oil companies, the defense contractors,
the financial institutions and the corporate media, which has become
an integral part of the war propaganda machine.
There is a sense of urgency.
Today, the antiwar movement is
virtually defunct.
What is the Truth
The real threat to global security emanates from the U.S.-NATO-Israel
alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned
upside down:
the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of
war are presented as the protagonists of war.
The homeland is threatened.
The media, intellectuals and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate
the unspoken truth, namely that the U.S.-NATO led war destroys
humanity.
When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.
When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, justice and the
entire international legal system are turned upside down:
pacifism
and the antiwar movement are criminalized.
Opposing the war becomes
a criminal act.
Meanwhile, the war criminals in high office have
ordered a witch hunt against those who challenge their authority.
The Big Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.
It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.
It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of
people towards their fellow human beings.
It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who
suffer. It upholds war and the police state as the sole avenue.
It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.
Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global
destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.
Actions
-
The
role of media disinformation in sustaining the military
agenda is crucial.
We will not succeed in our endeavors unless the propaganda
apparatus is weakened and eventually dismantled. It is essential to
inform our fellow citizens on the causes and consequences of the
U.S.-led war, not to mention the extensive war crimes and atrocities
which are routinely obfuscated by the media.
This is no easy task.
It requires an effective counter-propaganda program which refutes
mainstream media assertions.
It is essential that the relevant information and analysis reaches
the broader public. The Western media is controlled by a handful of
powerful business syndicates.
The media conglomerates which control
network TV and the printed press must be challenged through cohesive
actions which reveal the lies and falsehoods.
-
There is opposition within the political establishment in the
U.S.
as well as within the ranks of the Armed Forces.
While this opposition does not necessarily question the overall
direction of U.S. foreign policy, it is firmly opposed to military
adventurism, including the use of nuclear weapons.
These voices
within the institutions of the State, the Military and the business
establishment are important because they can be usefully channeled
to discredit and ultimately dismantle the "war on terrorism"
consensus.
The broadest possible alliance of political and social
forces is, therefore, required to prevent a military adventure which
in a very real sense threatens the future of humanity.
-
The structure of military alliances must be addressed. A timely
shift in military alliances could potentially reverse the course of
history.
Whereas France and Germany are broadly supportive of the
U.S. led war,
there are strong voices in both countries as well as within
the
European Union, which firmly oppose the U.S. led military agenda, both
at the grassroots level as well within the political system itself.
The weakening of the system of alliances which commits Western
Europe to supporting the Anglo-American military axis, could indeed
contribute to reversing the tide. Washington would hesitate to wage
a war on Iran without the support of France and Germany.
-
The holding of large antiwar rallies is important and essential.
But in will not in itself reverse the tide of war unless it is
accompanied by the development of a cohesive antiwar network.
What is required is a grass roots antiwar network, a mass movement
at national and international levels, which challenges the
legitimacy of the main military and political actors, as well as
their corporate sponsors, and which would ultimately be instrumental
in unseating those who rule in 'our name'.
The construction of this
type of network will take time to develop.
-
Initially, it should focus
on developing an antiwar stance within existing
citizens' organizations (e.g. trade unions, community
organizations, professional regroupings, student
federations, municipal councils, etc.)
-
Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.
-
Bring home the troops.
-
Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to
participate in a criminal war.
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