Blizing 88 it is time for America to go the way of Rome. Americans have become a menace to the universe as much as the muslim fanatics in the ME. Time for all of them to go into oblivion.

Re;Blizing 88 and his ‘wisdom’.

What else should one expect from a nineteen year old ‘thinks-he-knows-it-all’?

With luck, he’ll perhaps have long enough left to grow up should the madmen finish themselves off befor they do the rest of us.

is this photo a fake???  the man whose red stripe we see is looking into the silo.  his head appears to be in front of the lid to the silo, where his head is positioned relative to the viewer at 4 o’clock on the silo lid.  however, his feet are positioned at roughly 1:30 on the silo edge, thus creating a geometric improbability.  fake photo or optical illusion?

What a psychotic nut-farm of a world we live in today. Imagine what kind of moon base etc. we might have today if a lot of these countries decided to cool it with the whole nuclear business. Power? Need power? Ok, look up at the bright blue sky long about 2PM and you’ll notice this really really bright orangish-yellow thing just hanging up there, shedding all that heat and light etc. It does that for several hours per day, and if we spent a couple stealth bombers’-worth on REALLY utilizing that power, well that’d cut down on the old greenhouse gases, I think.
Every time you don’t have to flip a switch, or turn a car key, you’re helping the environment etc. Now, the economists don’t like that answer, because if you’re not burning juice, you’re not using their techno-toys, and if you’re not burning gas, you’re not enhancing their stock portfolios. So, do you appease these people, or do you cut back on your usage? Decisions, decisions. Myself, I think conservation/next-generation technology is far, far wiser than to having ANOTHER energy war. Even dear old mother Russia could get all stupid with the green-tech if they wanted, and it’d sure as hell be a great thing to see when a whole bunch of countries, including ours, turned green-tech into a global business, that’d be some great stuff, there. I’d ten times rather see that than a arms race. Maybe I’m just too idealistic or ignorant, but I don’t think you should use a hammer when a screwdriver is called for etc. There’s way better things to buy than nuclear missiles…

Thorium should be included in any discussion of arms control because of its ability to “burn” plutonium in a nuclear reactor.  Thorium cannot be used to make any additional atomic weapons.

re Blizing88:
If you’re looking for an academic forum, go to an academy. These are the comments of everyday people - they be extreme, some may even be bizarre, but if you cannot see some small measure of truth here, then perhaps you are the hard-headed dimwit you think everyone else here is.

To Blizing88 from the United States: Control of american foreign policy by pro israel fanatics is not myth, it is a reality.  These people are loyal only to israel, and if they think it will benefit israel, they will happily set off a nuclear exchange between the usa and the russians.  Always keep that in mind.  America itself is living in a fools paradise, reaping the wealth of the world in exchange for freshly created green paper, in electronic form no less!  The dollar is doomed, and with its death, the raging torrent of goods, oil, and other forms of wealth flowing to america will stop, forever.  Ivan does not need to nuke us, we have destroyed ourselves, bled to death by the military industrial complex and the fanatical pro israel lobby.

The simple truth is that the United States now has nuclear primacy throughout the world. No other nation, or combination of nations could contemplate undertaking a first strike nuclear attack on the US without suffering complete destruction.  More importantly, no other nuclear power has the means to survive a first strike nuclear attack by the US with enough second strike capacity to retaliate.  What does this mean?  It means that the US has the power to destroy any nation or combine that seeks to challenge us.  This is the only reason that we are able to hold together the tenuous sinew of our post-WWII control mechanisms over the West’s economic and political structures. Why is this possibly bad for Americans?  Simply this, if another nuclear power believed that the US was about to initiate a first strike against its strategic nuclear forces, it may be forced to undertake the seeming absurd task of committing national (or international) suicide to prevent the US from destroying it without fear of retaliation. In essence, nuclear primacy makes us weaker, not stronger.

“We have invented the automobile, the airplane, the modern rocket (ask Goddard and Von Braun), the microwave oven, the television, the COMPUTER and INTERNET, and nuclear fisson AND nuclear fusion processes, just to name a few. All should have a stake in our nation and idea as a whole. If you turn your backs on us at this critcal point, you turn your backs on humanity. Go ahead and wish for our destruction. It will come back to haunt you forever.”
==========
That America has NOTHING to do with Bush’s and neocon’s america.

That happened in “ancient” America which used to be a beacon of FREEDOM and LIBERTY.

Bin Laden and his minions destroyed WTC and killed about 3000 innocent people, Bush and his minions DESTROYED America.

New america is beacon of gulags, kidnapings, internal passports and other trappings of police states.

Comment #56566 by Blizing88 from the United States right on brother ???
--------------------
here is the real nightmare scenario:

the nuclear Genie will never be put back in the bottle !! Pandora’s box has been opened, and Eve bit the apple !!! so we cannot and will not be able to stop every and any backwater nation from developing Nukes one way or another one day when you factor in the endless amount of time we have ahead of us !!!

only a world full of responsible democratic nations with responsible governments can prevent the world from going up in a nuclear mushroom cloud 10,20,30,50, years from now !!!  and the only way we can get those responsible governments in power in the Middle-East and Sub-Sahara Africa and parts of Asia is by pro-active hands on foreign policy!! and by that i mean cold and hot wars to prevent those government now in power like Iran and N.Korea or Syria, Sudan, from getting WMD’s and to make sure when they finally do get them, they have different governments in place because we have changed there old tyrannical ones!! so for that reason after the wake up call of 9/11 we went into Iraq and for that reason Iran is next and after that there will be more to come !!!  and then maybe just maybe we can prevent the nightmare scenario ??? but it mighty be too late ???

Illgramaticus Knee o’Kaun

Ok. The jist I get from this article is that America will be so stupid as to provoke a nuclear attack from Russia. The additional rhetoric I understand is that America deserves to die from being an agressive power in the world.

From the comments I see, America is a stooge of Israel and is oil hungry to the point of suicide. Also, Bush is a thug who is a diabolical genius and a blundering idiot at the same time.

People, whoever you are, get a clue. This surely isn’t an academic forum due to the retarded comments I see displayed here. I hope this isn’t a representation of the world, for your sake.

The United States of America produces half of the entire world’s food supply. We have invented the automobile, the airplane, the modern rocket (ask Goddard and Von Braun), the microwave oven, the television, the COMPUTER and INTERNET, and nuclear fisson AND nuclear fusion processes, just to name a few. All should have a stake in our nation and idea as a whole. If you turn your backs on us at this critcal point, you turn your backs on humanity. Go ahead and wish for our destruction. It will come back to haunt you forever.

The Sov’s could have a million warheads.  No big deal, they are not going to use them.  N. Korea same.  A radical Islamic regime?  They get one, they are going to use it.  You read it here first.  And peak oil?  Come on.  We will grow gas out of plants (bio-fuel).  Invest today and be a bio-fuel billionaire in the future.  Take off your tinfoil hats people.  Get your heads in the game.

“The stuff you own end up owning you.” Tyler Durden

Yes indeed Dina. I think the “old Soviet Union” should rear its “ugly” head again… Good. Especially when I remember how the supreme global Anglo leaders, Ronald Reagan and “Lady” Thatcher, took the world for a ride when they fought the “evil empire” from a very righteous “moralistic” standpoint. Now it turns out America is doing MOST of the things it held against the USSR, the excuses they used to justify their cold war fight: going towards totalitarianism by curtailing their citizens’ rights, spying on their populations, trying to dominate the world and its resources, waging war against poor nations, the sordid Guantanamo Bay business… Moreover, they are doing things the USSR didn’t do - such as their support corrupt third world ruling proxy elites and regimes, which help them in their plunder.
The Soviets shot down Korean Air flight No.007 in 1983 as it deliberately violated their airspace and secret facilities; I recall the torrent of “righteous outrage” on that occasion by Reagan & Co. orchestrated to a most ridiculous and petty extent. Nowadays George Bush without batting an eyelid talks of shooting down hijacked airliners. Nobody squeaks. American officialdom now cooly admits that Korean Air Flight 007 was on “covert” a spy mission. Who will bring the US to task for telling white lies, and for criminally compromising the lives of innocent passengers by secretly making use of their plane for criminal spying activities? I feel more enraged when I recall all the “moral” us-good-guys, you-bad-guys charade that went with all such incidents. So what use was all this cold war for, cloaked as it was in moral righteousness? It wasn’t to “liberate” mankind from the “clutches” of “drab communism”; in fact, it was making a bid for control the world itself. They were in fact themselves doing what they accused the Soviets of - and using “moralist” deception to further their case in the eyes of a gullible public. The US - West wanted to “liberate” the world for “free enterprise”? Sure, their OWN free enterprise, rather their FREE REIGN over the world: the stranglehold of Western multinational corporations is now sucking the world’ blood and resources, fighting and instigating wars for this purpose, and is rapidly killing off the planetary ecosphere.
We don’t have short memories, Dina; we can see through all your frauds - you can’t deceive us any longer. The US and its Western world should keep treading the same path. They will inevitably arrive at where they deserve - and soon, too.

dieboldcracy, said, “Peak Oil is a fraud.  It was hypothesized by an employee of Shell and was supposed to have already happened 4 years ago.  The war isn’t with Russia, it’s with China.”

************************************************

Peak-oil production most likely occurred in August of 2005 as production has not risen above this all-time high (demand-destroying price hikes have caused a correlating drop in demand from poorer countries that are helping to retain supply, for the moment).
The original proponent of peak-oil was by geologist M.K. Hubbert, who correctly predicted the US lower-48 peak of production to be in 1970, and did this in 1956 - hence the now famous Hubbert’s-curve of field-depletion which all fields are subject to. He died in 1986.
Some simple and easily verified facts are: Mexico’s giant Cantarell field is now declining at between 8% and 14% annually and is in terminal collapse. Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay peaked in 1990 at a little over 2 mbpd (million barrels per day) and is currently producing 800,000 bpd (barrels per day). The super-giant Saudi Ghawar field is now being pumped with a massive 7 million barrels of seawater a day to keep the oil flowing with a 55% water cut and must be in decline after 70 years of production (though the actual daily production figures are a state secret), the decline rate is 8% according to Saudi Aramco who admitted this in April 2006. Kuwait recently revised its reserve figures downwards by 50% and is experiencing trouble due to earlier efforts to increase production by using inefficient drilling methods that are likely to cause catastrophic field collapse soon. Iraq is only produces a post-war 1.5 mbpd down from a pre-war peak of 2.5 mbpd. Last year Britain’s North Sea field peaked in production in 1999 - Britain is now a net-importer of oil.
Since 2000, Russian oil production has met close to half the increase in global demand of 5.88 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by the International Energy Agency.
Russian oil production has kept world oil prices from climbing higher.
But Russian output peaked September 2005 at about 9.4 million barrels a day and has been in the doldrums since.
Australia peaked in 2000 and is declining a 11% per annum, faster than any other country.
Venezuela peaked in 1970 and the oil is heavy non-conventional oil which is harder and more expensive to refine. Trinidad peaked in 1978, Peru peaked in 1983, Argentina peaked in 1998, Colombia peaked in 1999 and Ecuador peaked in 2006. Chile peaked a long time ago, has little reserves and is importing most it’s oil. Suriname produces extremely little oil. Regular land-based oil peaked in Brazil in 1997, but their deep-water oil will last to around 2012. This makes them the most important oil producer in South-America, together with Venezuela. The most important countries in Africa are Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Angola. Libya peaked in 1970, but still produces about 1.5 Mb/d. Nigeria’s regular oil probably peaked in 1977, but with their deep-water production, which is set to peak around 2009, they might reach a total production of about 3 Mb/d. Angola’s land based oil is peaking now. Many smaller producers have already peaked; Tunisia in 1980, Cameroon in 1984, Benin in 1986, Ivory Coast in 1986, Egypt in 1995, Gabon in 1998. A country like Sudan might become an above average oil producer, but their total reserves are just a week’s worth of oil for the world if produced all at once. Most other countries in Africa have even less reserves. Norway peaked in 2001. Indonesia peaked in 1977 and became a net-importer in 2003 though it remains a member of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).
So, dieboldcracy, if oil isn’t peaking globally just where exactly is all the take-up production going to come from???

Russia doesn’t need a war to defeat America it just has to wait around until America can no longer afford to wage war!

The old Soviet Union is rearing her ugly head.
New ICBM’s are on the way to Russia, as well as a state of the art aircraft carrier. The cold war never ended, it just went underground for awhile.

That silo cap doesn’t even look rusted.

I think Putin should meet with Bush, sans trousers, to prove to each other once and for all, who’s got the bigger weapons.

I have a great idea, use all that stuff to help build a bigger, better space station.

HL - what’s you definition of and which countries belong to “civilized world”?

Financial Times’s polling result shows the US is the greatest threat to the world, or civilized world if you will.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4d0ad7dc-feeb-11da-84f3-000077 9e2340.html

Peace to all.

To “christians”, do remember god’s commandment
“thou shalt not kill”, “love thy neighbor”. Btw, when it comes to killing, “christian’s” silence is deafening. Oh well, what the heck do I know about their christianity and value!

Amazing- and telling- of the mindset of many here that they wish to take the US to task over all of this, rather than the 9/11 terrorists, Saddam violating a decade+ of UN sacntions and mandates, and Iran proceeeding w/ nuclear ambitions in violation of intl. protocols. But to some, their partisan hatred of our President, and trumpeting that hatred at any convenience, trumps looking for faul where it truly belongs, w/ the Islamist extremists who foment so much of the violence in our world, and by their actions sadly necessitate response by the civilized world.

Yes, the possibility of nuclear war is incredibly scary....so are some of these comments.

Russia sharply increases its military spending. Is it in response to US’s half trillion defense budget and an increasing number of military bases around Russia?
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2007/02/07/moremissiles.shtml

As FDR once said! “The only thing we have to fear are George “The Chimp” Bush and Dickie “F-You” Cheney” BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID!
Lwayno, disabled vet

I hear dire predictions about ‘the world coming to an end’ as a result of all out nuclear war. The earth is not going to end, but humans might meet an end that they bring upon themselves.

The earth will go right on cycling through ice ages, hot ages, super volcanoes, strikes by objects from space and probably many other disasters that we have failed to find to this point in time.

An all out nuclear war may cause the wipe out of humans and most other species on the earth but the microbes will begin to surface from miles below the earth’s surface eventually, when conditions are right. Then evolution will begin anew and the species that emerge will be those that are adapted to the conditions that prevail at the time.

As humans, we have had an opportunity to do and be something really special. We flubbed the opportunity and have no one to blame but ourselves. We are not an ‘exceptional’ species no more than America is an ‘exceptional’ country. When we began believing our own press and thinking we were exceptional, our future as a species was unavoidable. Hubris, mixed with nuclear weapons, is a killer.

No the comment stating Israel is most immediate nuclear threat is wrong. The conspiring by Israel agents and our intellegence organizations and this administration, together are very un-nerving. Pakistan, India & North Korea are un-nerving, all less for what they can do, than what may be a self-fullfiling threat made by any or a group of these.

For myself I feel that nuclear power plants are much more immediate danger. Why? They creat huge radioactive waste. Humanity has never shown itself able to be responsible in handling toxic material and any of this getting into the environment is too much. It has already happened several times, maybe more if we knew. Thirty thousand years for radiation to degrade is too long for even one accident.

Nuclear accident thru mal-manipulation of military response and politics could happen. I would have more respect for Ike, if instead of giving us the parting gift of warning against Military/Industrial Complex, had used some of his 8 years in office to do something about it.

Global warming is “frozen out”
as a threat to life on earth by the sun-core temperature of nuclear explosions!

If a bona fide opinion survey were taken, and people all around the world were asked, “Which country most threathens its enemies with its nuclear arsenal?” The answer would undoubtedly be Israel. Anyone concerned about the doomsday clock can hardly afford to ignore facts.

I don’t think there is much America (and its NATO cohorts) can do against Russia’s nuclear weapons, especially in the present global situation where the US is on the rampage and its devilish intentions are crystal clear to all. No doubt since its 1991 Cold War “unipolar” triumph, America has tried to throttle Russia by saddling it with governments comprising of subservient robber cartels and oligarchic mafias, but thankfully - for the sake of the future welfare of the world and of all humanity -Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB colonel that he is, has successfully overcome many of those hirelings in key sectors - like nationalising Russia’s crucial petrochemical assets; and he has taken advantage of the high oil prices of the last two years and now Russia is staging a comeback, much to American and NATO dismay. Russia has also openly and successfully demonstrated its “gas supply weapon” policy to its European clients, thus conveying its intentions that it is prepred to go to great lengths to fend off the so-called Western manouvers to control the world. After all, we do know that America and its underlings’ prime motive for dominating the world is to secure its main oil reserve areas, so as to fuel their decadent “high living standards” and unsustainable, environmentally damaging lifestyles which they have been living at the cost of the progress of others. Those in Russia are not fools, and they certainly know what is coming… they are just watching patiently, awaiting the outcome. THANK GOD FOR RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MISSILES! MAY THEY “LIVE LONG”!

with all the shit that’s going down, this nuclear arms crapola is just a major distraction. Isn’t this kind if thing the reason we went to war in Iraq in the first place?

“Wars and rumors of wars” .That is what JESUS said would be one of the signs of his soon return.Jesus said,"Let not your hearts be troubled believe in God believe also in me.behold I go to prepare a place for you.In my fathers house are many mansions.Trust that he is coming soon, believe that he died for your sins and you nees not fear at all!Any questions? Go to notreligion.com

Can’t explain why I’m not trembling with fear.
Could it be because I live near the southern border of the U.S. and our present administration prefers to shelter drug runners while they send border patrols to the pen for injuring a drug runner by shooting at him.
Nuclear bombs no longer raise my fear level.
The scariest thing is knowing we have a “Mad man/boy” presider/decider holding the controls
which man the biggest nuclear cache on the globe.

a war with Iran would be economic suicide for this country. But that wouldn’t matter, as long as certain people were still getting rich off it.

it is probably a good thing to remind ourselves of the other nuclear superpower out there. Maybe the war-mongers here will pull their head in.

The ‘truth’ in Truthdig represents something to aim for, it’s not a given.

Not to worry. Israel is in control here and all is going according to plans: Securing the Realm, and Project for the New American Century, both prepared by the same neocons who are acting in Israel’s best interests, and manage Bush, Congress, and the media, with support from 12 million religious fanatics anxious for Armageddon .

but somehow more sane than the people who allowed this situation to occur. Science is not altruistic, because not all scientists are altruistic, most of them are driven by the need or desire for money, some of them by a desire for fame, others have a God complex. Other people who have money and power will use them as tools. And this is what happens. After so many years of passionate work, Oppenheimer famously lamented the nuclear bomb’s killing capacity. What a frickin’ idiot.

boy are you lenient!

The US is the only nation to use a nuclear weapon on another nation (that didn’t have one to send back) and we currently have a loose cannon running this country at the beck and call of an army of greedy arms manufacturers… and you think we should worry about Russia? Where the hell is our moral credibility, what do we bring to the negotiating table? We would be seen as liars, and they’d be right, and they would lie to us in return. Fix THIS country! Then worry about foreign enemies.

Diplomacy? Negotiations? Newsflash, people: Putin is not Gorbachev.

and please tell me US is not going invade Iran. I live in Tehran. I do not like my goverment, but look what happened in Irak. Young girls like me are raped and killed by US soldiers and fathers are killed just for being men and Iraki. We need help to make things better, but not in war.

Lessening the stockpiles to allow a more efficient inventory is probably a good idea, but there can never be a world without nuclear weapons. If there was, one or two would pop up in the wrong hands somewhere and it’s all over, rover.

The world owes its survival to the old men in Moscow who saw the horrors of war up close and personal in wwii, and chose to back down to the overly aggressive americans rather than plunge the world into those horrors again.  Today those old men are gone, america is lead by zionist scum interested only in what is good for israel, and russia is lead by kgb thugs.  I would bet on the mushroom clouds blooming real soon.  One W88 warhead has more explosive power than all bombs used in all wars past combined, including the atomic bombs used on Japan.

Unless you are counting on Russia to impose sanctions against itself through the UN, or you really really want to invade either Iran or Russia, maybe the US should look after home politics first, because there’s some crooked warhawks pulling the strings at home, nevermind over there.

The US doesn’t have the military strength to take on Russia.  Like any bully, it prefers weaker victims.  Check this site to see what I mean.

Bush will bomb Iran and he is already setting up Congress to give their approval. Here’s how he will do it:  There will be an Iranian fishing boat that sails near one of our task force ships in the Persian Gulf. Our navy was hoping for this “provocation” and will destroy the boat. Bush will go to congress and say this is an attack by Iran against US forces.  It will be a Gulf of Tonkin look-alike resolution that escalated our war in Vietnam. Congress will then give Bush the go-ahead to attack Iran. Cheney and the Chimp will pat each other on the back - mission accomplished.

i had a Russian Blue cat once. It was very untrustworthy.

The race is on between peak-oil and peak-debt as to how the US is really brought down, of course there’s always the nuclear option version of demand-destruction to add some interest to the casual observer. Not that any nuclear war could ever be won by anyone - a fact that escapes most people. The following drop in commodity needs might extend a crude version of modern civilisation for a decade or two, but probably not.
The trouble with America at this time is that the belief in military superiority has been blown out of all proportion. It takes more than a technological or firepower advantage to win a war, Iraq is a very good example of how a determined resistance, even a fractured one, can stop a superpower in its tracks; imagine how much more problematic a war would be against even a small nuclear armed enemy (the reason Pakistan was not included in the “axis of evil").
Consider this, one nuclear bomb hits a US city. That’s it. What a mess. Now imagine 1% of Russian missiles successfully detonating in mainland USA - a much much bigger mess. With Russian ICBM’s carrying multiple warheads (ducedly hard to hit with a patriot missile) it only takes a few successful strikes to send America into the stone-age. Add to this the nearly total ineffectiveness of the so-called missile defense shield and you begin to realise that mutually assured destruction (MAD)is as relevant today as it ever was. Would China wait to see if it was next, or, would the US attack include China as well? Either way the US can expect to add China’s nuclear and other capabilities to the conflagration; the Chinese would be as aware as the Russians of any US attack and would be unlikely to ignore US missiles soaring across their air-space. 
Now, considering the mishandling of Katrina (this phrase will never be misunderstood to mean that some virtuous girl had be roughly treated), imagine a hundred or so major nuclear strikes. Who would even consider sending in the National Guard to look for survivors? Where would these units come from; from distant theatres of war, or, domestic remnants under the control of the (now recently enabled through Congress) federal government? Nope, there’d be no-one to even take charge of a drama of that magnitude let alone anything resembling a reasonable effort. Communications and power would be out for nearly everyone, indefinitely. Electro-Magnetic-Pulses, along with a host of other radioactive bursts, will fry the US national grid and confusion and fear would reign. M.A.D. is alive and well and will remain so until the real and unavoidable threat of energy depletion runs it course.
(Any war against Iran that entails nuclear weapons might allow and enable the world to see how foolish a “limited” nuclear attack is and will be extrapolated into obvious consequences on a global scale by even the most uninformed.)

And speaking of Russia - I got this from Moscow today.

The only nuclear missiles we need to fear are those in the hands of lunatics, or otherwise rational people who believe in the second coming of a prophet, in the apocalypse, in glorious martyrdom for themselves and their children and hellfire and oblivion for the unbelievers. i.e. some of those devoutly dogmatic literal interpreters of the Abrahamic faiths.

Military attack on iran is a fantasy, nothing more. That’s why it hasn’t happened.
Immediately after any attacks, Iran will target all american bases in the region, especially all based in Iraq. This will coincide with cruise missile attacks on American ships and carriers which have no defence for Silkworm and C-802 cruise missiles.
After flow of ships in the strait of hormooz is distrupted, American soliders in Iraq will face serious resupply shortages. Not to mention facing an shia uprising or possibly even Iranian forces pouring across the border into Iraq attacking them.
Iras has hundereds of surface to surface missiles and cruise missiles waiting to be fired. Iran is not Iraq and the US army will suffer very high losses in terms of material and body count.
Iran has been preparing in the last 15 years only to face one and only one enemy, thats the US. Iran may not be able to stop the American air force, but once American carriers and bases sustain serious damage, that’ll be irrelevant.
Iranian military planners fully believe they can repel any US attack. And you better believe them.

From an outsider’s POV: The US is it’s own worst enemy. Your government is bringing your country down from the inside. Bushco is Bin Laden’s biggest weapon. You have lost most of your allies in the Middle-East through your own actions. You have performed a service for your enemies, you have united them against you. Forget about Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea. The only way they can bring you down is by goading you on to bring yourselves down, and then getting together because you gave them a common goal. By warring you are making yourselves weaker and weaker, and they only need to wait if you continue on your current path. And the friendless oil-dependent US superpower will soon be a distant memory.
Let Al Qaida continue to prove itself to be the egregious imperialist monster most right-thinking people, muslim or not, know it to be. You cannot continue to act and react on their dirty level.
The only way to a secure, respected US is through soft power. The strongest power there is, slow and soft. And i don’t mean buying friends. Soft power works because it is sincere.
Pull out of Iraq, throw that $300 billion a year into energy research, and stop buying oil and strengthening your foes, because in ten years we’ll be too busy adjusting our cultures to live in a drastically different enviroment. Energy research is something the US can do for every nation and living creature on earth. The least it can do.
Draw love to yourselves instead of enmity. When you stand amongst your friends, you will be unassailable.
That last sentence would apply to Israel as well.

fricken insanity!!!

Little Grasshopper asks:

“Why does ‘an Admiral in command = Iran’ ?”

Um, OK. We have two gigantic ground wars going, one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. Bush appoints a navy guy to run them. Odd.

But Bush and his neocon pals, along with Israel (if there is indeed any difference) have been pushing for a new war, against Iran, in a campaign that is ridiculously similar to the way they hyped the “need” for war against Iraq.

We simply don’t have the ground troops to pursue a ground war against Iran.

Any US attack would have to be a massive bombing, largely from naval vessels such as carriers and submarines. Not only that, but all the experts say that assaulting Iran would likely cause a catastrophic disruption of oil shipment from the gulf. Kind of looks like a job for the navy, now doesn’t it?

A U.S. carrier battle group has been sent to the Persian Gulf and a second U.S. carrier battle group is heading for the Gulf. In fact, the gulf is becoming so congested that a US nuclear submarine collided a few days ago with a Japanese ship.

This is only a fraction of the mountain of evidence. Please go catch up on recent events - and make sure to go well beyond what’s being chatted about on corporate cable news.

Why does an Admiral in command = Iran.”

Someone wrote:

“Speaking of Nukes, did anyone else notice that the new big cheese at Centcom is an Admiral of the Navy? We are no longer talking merely surges or even escalations; we are talking EXPANSION.

Admiral in command = Iran.”
---------------

Exactly. And there is ZERO United States national interest in undertaking such a thing. This is 100% for Israel.

We are committing national suicide for Israel’s expansionist agenda. We are an insane country.

Considering that so many powerful governments, institutions, groups, world-wide seem to be spoiling for World War three it is beyond important at this time for the independent news to be as factual, unbiased, and as far from any kind of war propaganda as possible. Giving frustrated people who are aching for an enemy a reason to fear or hate anyone is not good reporting at this time. The power of the media is paramount. Better understanding needs to be employed by the media or the world is toast.

It’s not ‘Russia’ per se. It is world-wide criminal gangs ascending in power, like those in Russia, and the Bush family come to think of it, that we need to worry about. Specifically we need to worry about the malign influence they can have on elected representatives. In the Bushes’ case, and probably Putin’s, they ARE ‘elected’ representatives.

We need Pat Robertson to ask God what to do about this one.

i humbly hand my giant spoon to the man who wrote this fear-mongering article.

Speaking of Nukes, did anyone else notice that the new big cheese at Centcom is an Admiral of the Navy? We are no longer talking merely surges or even escalations; we are talking EXPANSION.

Admiral in command = Iran.

The fact that we’ve thought of ourselves the United States as the only superpower left is obviously completetly ridiculous! Of course Russia has the capability to wipe us off the planet if necessary! The question is would they? We’ve got this so called war on terrorism, which should be called taking over the world going. The countries we’ve invaded are strategic in the sense that they sit us up in a position to not only protect Israel, but also attack Russia! Another issue is Russia’s oil. With the price of oil where it is it’s allowed Russia the resources to rebound from it’s economic collapse. Not only that, Russia according to a report I read has figured out that the so called idea of peak oil is a lie perpetrated by the west! The game is world domination if possible by us the United States. Unfortunately, I suppose Russia isn’t going to give up that easy. Yes, nuclear war could be an option if forced to do so. It’s possible it’s the plan. The United States doesn’t want to give up it’s idea of being the dominant player in world politics, nor does Russia. So, are you ready to survive? Would you even want to? What kind of world will we have left, if any? The christians and muslims agree on an apocalyptic end of times. Sooner or later it will happen!

William, I agree with you about Central and South America. Actually, as I am sure you know, this administration headed in that direction while they were lying us into the big international crime in Iraq, with their shenanigans in Venezuela, supporting the attempted over-throw of Chavez.

I would imagine it would be almost impossible to throw a cat south of the border without hitting a CIA agent or some mercenary,like a Blackwater sociopath, for example. That is one of the realities that has kept me from moving down there, as many Americans have.

I believe we must do everything possible to keep this criminally insane administration from bombing Iran, or anyone else for that matter.

Congress needs to take away Junior’s credit cards and his war-making powers, STAT. Elsewise, we may wake up one morning with oil at 400 euros/barrel and not enough horses and buggies to go around.

Admittedly, it will not take Nukes to destroy this nation.It can be done much more simply, if enough of the rest of the nations in the global community feel it necessary.

The scary thing about the nuclear nightmare of today is that never before have so many nut-cases had control of them.

Does the picture looked faked to anyone but me?

Everyone commenting seems for forget that the religious right keeps egging on a fight with all the Muslims, claiming that if they (the Right) start such a fight it will be the beginning of God’s so called “Armageddon.” Wrong!  It will just make the world a dead planet. 
All the time we’re ignoring the new atomic devices our country has been building - - six a day since Bush took office.  Who can possibly inventory and guard that many bombs when the military can’t even keep books on the expenses for the war in Iraq.
Then there’s the annual repeated demand that members of the U.S. Air Force sign a pledge to bomb any site that their President tells them to in a sealed envelope, in the wee hours of the morning.  ("Iwas just following orders.") God help us all.

It is complete lunacy to think that only the “super power, USA” should have nuclear weapons, with the ability to terrorize the rest of the world. And with a “madman” in charge of leading our nation.
All other countries have reason to be afraid of such an arrogant power and of course they need to build on their defense against us the US.
After what we just did to Iraq, I would advocate that all countries build up their defense.

To winterfire6,
I liked your comment and you are quite right. This a very serious issue, with ramifications that could kill pretty much everyone on our planet.
But I think the more likely results of the current conflicts will not be nuclear. At least I hope not.
Instead, I do see this administration attacking Iran and the ensuing disaster will be the loss of U.S. access to middle eastern oil. Just look at the agreements between the Saudis and China as one example. So, if we lose access to this resource, what happens then? Do we invade South America? Send the military to defeat the rebels of Nigeria who are fighting a war against Chevron to stop being treated as slaves and having their lands polluted so Americans can drive SUV’s? The media already refers to President Chavez as a dictator and a socialist, even though he was elected by a very clear majority of the citizens of his country and is not a socialists anyway, but a social democrat.
Also, unreported in the press here, South America just completed a conference to try and establish a unity along the the lines of the EU and are actively engaged in doing more business with Asia.
In the past, the U.S. would have simply fixed a problem like this with our military, directly or by proxy, but the peoples of the south have begun to unite and while Washington is not without a plan that evolves the retraining of the Latin officers in the school of the Americas, this could prove to be unsuccessful, since the peoples of the south are now doing so much better at real democracy than we are. Central America being the exception after the devastation of the Reagan administration of the 80’s.
However, if we do lose access to middle eastern oil, the hell brought to South America and west Africa will make most wars of the last hundred years look like nothing by comparison and that is my fear, more so than a nuclear war with Russia, since we are heading far faster in that direction than the other.

I have read most of the cold war, russkies are coming with A-bombs - remember “On the Beach”?  Naw too long ago for most of you.

I also read Kahn - “Thinking the Unthinkable”.

But just recently I read a book that for the first time in many, many years told it like it was, a short, violent, brutal work, that has the power to induce depression:  “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.  If you have any nerve endings left they will be raw. 

How does it relate to this topic?  Well it pretty well describes what the likely scenario will be post nuclear, post comet or asteroid strike, or any of those world devastating events—which probabilities say will happen.  This nuclear stuff is one that could be removed from this list of potential annihilations, or at least its probabilities reduced. 

Which is the function of “On the Road”, a musing about the end of our species, or it radical change in the face of catastrophe.

Sweet dreams.

Herman Kahn wrote a circa 1960 book ,
“On Thermonuclear War” about “conducting”
such a war.

Stanley Kubrick et al. created the circa 1963
film “Dr. Strangelove” at the conclusion of which
Texan Slim Pickens rides a nuke to its target
without even losing his cowboy hat.

Forty+ f’n years later KGB-Putin and
Scull-And-Bones-Bush have not a clue.

It’s Winter now. 
Over all the rooftops is calm and quiet,
you can hardly hear a thing
except for the ticking,
the ticking,
the ticking

I am glad I have no offsprings to worry about in the future.

War game scenario.......there will be no winner among waring nations. Surviving nation will be back to stone age.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HJ19Ad01.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD20Ad03.html

IF the US bombs Iran, and (of course) oil quickly shoots up to $200-plus per barrel - savaging economies all over the world - I’ll bet you one thing for damn sure:

Our Israeli-occupied Congress will promptly pass a massive “aid” package for Israel to make sure that Israel suffers no economic inconvenience from this new US war undertaken - just like the Iraq war - solely for Israel’s benefit.

I realize that this is an extremely serious topic; one which I have really never lost sight of, and I am grateful to this expert for reminding people who bought the whole “end of the cold war” bullshit, that the Nuclear nightmare is looming, just as it has been all of my life.

Everytime I hear anyone say that Reagan won the cold war, I just have to laugh out loud.

What, exactly, did we win? Russia still has enough nuclear fire power to destroy the world several times over and so do we. So, they probably have a few duds and we do too. Hell, we could probably launch an ICBM from Kansas and wipe out Chicago.

Russia is not a democracy any more than we are. Can we please stop confusing democracy with free trade and other quaint euphemisms for Capitalism on steroids, or Corporatism, as I prefer to call it.

If there is a true revolution in this country, the real revolutionaries won’t charge up Capitol Hill with pitchforks and torches, nor will they surround the White House and call for Bush’s and Cheney’s heads on platters, though it would make great theater, needs to be done, just on principle, and I hope several hundred thousand to a million do just that.

But meanwhile the real Revolutionaries will be making the world a very scary place for Corporate headquarters and heads all over the world.

That is what a real revolution would look like.

Please allow me to hasten to add, that not all corporations are evil, sociopathic institutions run by consciousless, bottom-line feeders that would test a new drug on their grandmother, if it would increase their year-end bomus..

There is plenty of info in the public domain; all of it, that’s worth a crap, is easily confirmed by very legitimate sources, about whom, in the corporate world, is rotten to the core, has been effing with our political process for years, not to mention creating disease, death and destruction in other countries around the world. It isn’t all that difficult to find out who they are and where they are.

Even the failed CEOs in the White House are nothing more than puppets; puppets who believe in corporatism, albeit, but puppets, nonetheless.

We simply must stop being so distracted by our inept, corrupt, career politicians and focus on the more evil of the string-pullers.

If we do that, the puppets will quickly go away and corporate empire will be brought down by the people, the world over, which is where it exists, not just in the United States.

Who knows, maybe such a revolution will do what war never will: Bring the people of the world together, in a common struggle for self- determination, in a way that fits with their own cultures, while challenging their own cultural ways to evolve with the welfare of all humankind and its planetary home in mind and heart.

I figure globalization - combined with population growth, have set massive amounts of humans adrift, and the turmoil and energy fight around the world is because we are finally fighting one another over the remaining oxygen in the fish bowl. While there’s nothing new about the idea that our culture crash is well under way, by now I can only conclude that all the combined individual egos of the world are at fault here. No global leadership, just an energy-hungry hydra with multiple heads.

Americans, Iraqis, Iranians, Russians, Chinese - every people of every country is in this mess together. If you breed, you contribute to the population, which contributes to the need for food, water, shelter, clothing, transportation, and all the other energy requirements for life.
Whether you have your own reality show because you are wealthy enough for your sex tape to matter, or on the other end of the spectrum, we are all little piglets sucking at the teat of the Mother Earth.

And that’s why the nukes are on standby.

Sure, we could actually have real dialogue, and the planet’s people could simply choose to outlaw Incandescent light bulbs and trade out religious convictions for human spirituality, and we might be able to sit down at the table and talk about our problems. But come on, who REALLY wants to solve the problems of the world? *THEY* are the ones who are wrong, aren’t they? It’s *THEM*… *THEY* are the ones to blame, don’t you and your own special reality agree?

You know, here in America, the debate about the rights of humans VS modern day security will rage on, but when the first nuke goes off, I don’t think it will take very long at all for the second one, and for the whole damn world to light up like a christmas tree. I just can’t stand everyone’s ignorance anymore. There’s just no excuse. If you can’t answer some world affair questions by now, just shut the hell up, and go back to your drugs.

I sure wish they would let youth have a seat at the table. Those of us on the cusp of between liberalism and conservativism aren’t pie in the sky dreamers, we have real ideas. We need to replace every leader of the world who isn’t willing to ask their populace to power down. Someone has to teach people the lessons of energy conservation, religious tolerance, and self-control, or we’re all gonna die in a nice crispy fashion.

The long war will be very long and very brutal even if not nuclear.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15987.htm

What is everyone worried about?  We have the brave and wise George W. Bush to protect us from all the bad people out there. Oh wait, he’s just in it for the money!  What I can’t figure out is how Cheney is going to profit from a Nuclear war over oil.  You just know he’s got a plan though.

Bert,

That was funny!

is this the same u.s. government that had information of wmd’s in iraq? now they have the same info on another country that is called the axis of evil? i’m sorry folks, i just can’t believe anything coming out of the whitehouse these days, especially since the prez calls himself the war president. is that a joke, or what? look at their record, we need a lot of help and luck to survive this administration.

worried

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/85971-1/
“.......the Russian Strategic Rocket Force already carried out several test flights of the Topol-M missile using hypersonic ramjet engines. Presently no Western ICBM system has anything similar to that type of an rocket engine.” Also, the article says that Russia’s new missiles are capable of penetrating anti-missile defense system.

The struggle against the right continues.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15971.htm

I won’t be surprised if the Israeli Air Force mounts a strike on Iran on Eid-ul-Adha, a holy Muslim day, that is to be celebrated on 30th December 2006. Reminds me of the Yom Kippur War.

I’m curious about the photograph. Did the cameraman use an MC Escher lens by any chance?

Isn’t it America who has meddled with almost every other countries internal politics using illegitimate, immoral ways & means and has caused great sufferings for millions & millions. What I fail to see is admission to this mammoth blunders of policies and attempts to bring change. This may be pretty basic & simple but its what it lacks resulting in these scenarios. Do you blame Russia or China or even small nations taking steps to protect themselves, I am sorry to say you are all wholly responsible for this & sooner you start bringing about major changes the more we will be nearing towards the end times.

sorry Jeff but isn’t that 20 to 30 years the trigger mechanisims not the bomb.  Just as they get older the bombs are more likely to go off accidentaly. And While Russia doesn’t have the finance to wage a war against the U.S. theres at least a few countries willing and able to bankroll and even supply troops CHINA, of course our biggest hedge against China doing so is that we owe them too much money, and we buy there crap.  I’ve been against nookler weapons my whole life, not 6 crappy years earlier I thought we the people of the world had had enough , too bad some people never learn.

Very informative article and congratulations with the public début on the .net!

However, I don’t share your optimism about a possibility for “effective strategic stability talks”, even after 2008. The reasoning is rather simple - the cost of maintaining thousands of nuclear warheads used to place an enormous strain on Russia’s limited military budget. Not anymore. With all those oil/gas revenues - a big new wave of spending on the country’s strategic defence is inevitable. In point of fact the financing of Russia’s state defence order will exceed 300bn rubbles in 2007, according to Sergei Ivanov, a 29% increase on the current year. Besides, Mr. Putin ver.2006 is different from Mr. Putin ver.december.2001 (when he was more than ready to “work toward legal documents creating “radical, non-reversible and verifiable reductions in offensive weapons"”). Now it’s clear that the only way for Russia to take a seat at the important tables of Western security, economic and political decision making – is to reclaim the role of superpower (energetic or nuclear, and better - both). Sorry, the integration with the West is over. Everybody out.. seriously, the gas station is closing…

AK

The fact that there are US weapons on subs not only doesn’t conflict
with the RLOAD proposal, but fits neatly into it - simply because it
makes it less likely that all retaliatory capability would be wiped
out with a theoretical full-blown launch designed to disarm the other
side. De-alerting, on the other hand, is another story and is
complicated by the existence of submarine-launched nuclear weapons,
because of verification difficulties.

The Russians may be contemplating the building up of offensive
capacity even further on the assumption that otherwise their
retaliatory capability is vulnerable to the other side’s first
strike. That’s an endless pursuit and one more argument in favour of
RLOAD. If, on the other hand, they believe they can never “keep up”,
they may be considering RLOAD, or have already discarded Launch on
Warning, which means we are half-way there.

If a 2008 delay is all we need to worry about, that’s good news too.

My only problems with RLOAD are: 1) the fact that most US nukes are on subs, and some first - warning system other than ELF would have to be devised to make this work, and 2) the Russians, seeing themselves falling more and more behind the US in deployable weapons, are moving to reinforce their LOW capabilities, as Bruce Blair has emphasized several times and Alexei Arbatov hinted in the last but one issue of FA (noted in Sergei’s article). Both of these things imply the US would have to take the initiative, and I’m pretty sure this will not happen until after 2008. We could speculate endlessly about the debate in Washington on an Iran attack, but I would doubt it would be nuclear. Israel is another matter. My personal worry is that Israel might play the role of Serbia that dragged the powers into WWI. But, I’m sure not everyone will agree with me on these points, so feel free to criticize my points and start a debate.

At the start of George Bushes Presidency U.S.  Russian relations were probably the best they have ever been since the Yalta Conference. The Bush cabinet has continuously pursued in your face type policies in regards to the former Soviet Republics. The leadership in Russia are by no means angels. However, I believe from their position as the lesser of the two powers they HAD (past tense) seen the controlling of arms to be in their interest. Numerous breaches in Russia’s sphere of influence, as well as aggressive pre-emptive wars have demonstrated to the leadership of Moscow that they are dealing not with a nation that wants equality and mutual respect but with a regime that is pursuing global dominance. I am an American, a proud american at that but am extremely disappointed by those elected leaders who for some reason or another refuse to seek a peaceable understanding with the other sovereign states of the world.

The potential consequences of hostilities between Russia, and the United States are too great to ignore. May sanity return.

I think they should all work together in concert like they used to between all the countries that have these damn things and seek to crush and melt them all. Some things are only built with one purpose in mind, and missiles with nuclear warheads are one such thing. Imagine what kind of a global space program we could have if they’d spent all those billions over the last decades on building a REAL space station, hell there’d probably be weekly shuttle service and bona-fide space tourism etc., and very likely we’d have ‘boots on the ground’ on Mars. Instead, we’ve got cold war leftovers that are just as lethal as the day they were built, and MORE countries trying to get them.

Scientists used to talk about the ‘midnight’ clock, a graphical illustration of how close we’re getting to wiping ourselves off the face of the earth. Atomizing half the planet sure would cut down on rush hour traffic, that’s for sure,
but what is the net benefit of continuing to prepare for such eventualities, are there those that still morally countenance such an approach to the future?

This is kind of one of those ‘power corrupts’ type things, where even the most ethical types out there have a huge problem with letting go of the magic ring of death-power. The ‘way forward’ for these things is to demolish them…

Everyone used to trash on the hippies, condemn them for their minimalist approach to life etc.,
and their anti-war, anti-nuclear stance, but there’s some solid merit behind the sentiment
to keep THIS particular genie firmly locked in the bottle, as it were. As more and more countries seek to gain these things, the day creeps closer when somebody might be tempted to
go ahead and light one off, just for the hell of it, that ‘nuclear midnight’. And, the old MAD thing was the concept that when one country uses them, likely other countries would do the same.
That would be ‘bad’, and really destructive, and you couldn’t watch football or go to the grocery store and stuff when it was over with.

Now, all of this may become a moot point when the Great Big Asteroid Of Global Death comes calling in 2029, and carves off a big chunk of the planet and hurls the leftovers to burn up in the sun or whatever, a nuclear war isn’t the only global
life-ending catastrophe out there on the ‘what if’ board, we could always choke to death on our own waste, or the religious nuts could finally succeed in finding a way to Finally Have It All Out And Prove Who’s Right, which would also be ‘bad’.  Or, Mother Nature could finally cook something up on her own that’ll be The End Of The World As We Know It. As Angela Lansbury used to say in those credit card commercials, ‘the possibilities are endless’. Let’s hope that people keep pushing for positive answers…

You can read an older version of a book which I wrote with a little help from my friend ~"God"~. If you would like the latest version, I have it as an MS Word document I can send to you an an email attachment. Send me an email to seven748 at yahoo dot com and I will send it to you. My book “DIVINE 9/11 INTERVENTION” deals with the very real possibility of this “Nightmare Scenario” coming to pass. “Ask and it shall be given you;” Love! ~ God Is! ~ Love!

In nuclear war the real enemy is war itself.
-someone else
And, the Russians love their children too.
-someone else

RE:  • Comment #42081 by chris (USA)  on  12/13  at  2:18 pm — “...I wonder if this guy is responsible...The former USSR has no real secur infrastructure anymore to act as one millitary unit, (with all the little “Stans” that fractured from the original USSR...”

>>>> look whose army operates out of the “Stans” now..."responsible" guys?

At the heart of the 9/11 coup is the security stripping of Bush: hung out 30 min. at the school then another 45 min. in the air with zero fighter cover while the nation was “under attack” and FAA tracked over a dozen suspected hijackings — an orchestrated security stripping far beyond “incompetence” (literally treasonous) yet carefully ignored by the main stream media and of course the 911 Commission. Amidst the confusion, with the nation “under attack,” the threat was phoned in, “Angel is next” (Angel = Air Force One) accompanied by enough top-secret code to convince officials — all documented, William Saffire even mentioned it. The administration initially acknowledged then denied it. Bush capitulated, and then flew to Barksdale and Offut to take physical control of the nuclear trigger — the codes were compromised. Then he spoke by phone with Putin and made clear the coup plotters’ demands: The War of Civilizations starts now. The US is invading the Middle East and taking control of the military bases around the Caspian Sea. Russia had better not interfere. Among the 15-odd military drills running that day, virtually all of STRATCOM had been moved into in an advanced DEFCON posture, and of course the Russians had to come up to