Well, that was a “close one”…huh?
Over the past two weeks, the world held its breath as we witnessed what could ostensibly be compared to a modern-day Cuban Missile Crisis.
In case you were wondering, as many military and political analysts are telling us, this provocation by Israel and the US is not about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons programme. It’s about the R-word: regime change. Again.
US STRIKES ON IRAN MERELY ‘WAR THEATRE’?
However, some of those same analysts have dismissed the recent strikes by the US on Iran’s (empty and evacuated) “nuclear facilities” as largely ceremonial “war theatre”. Others are saying this was just a way for Trump to get Bedlam Bibi and AIPAC off his back – at least for a while.
In response to the US/Israel strikes, Iran reciprocated with drones and hypersonic missiles that turned parts of Tel Aviv into Gaza. (How about that for a big fat dose of righteous karmic retribution?)
If Iran were not planning to build a nuke before (and according to multiple credible sources they weren’t), but are considering it now…can you blame them? After the antagonism and attacks Iran has faced from Israel in the past few weeks alone, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear Iran is now putting their nuclear armament programme into maximum overdrive.
Besides…have you seen what happens to countries that capitulate to US/Israel pressure and abandon their nukes and other WMDs?
WHAT HAPPENS TO COUNTRIES THAT GIVE UP THEIR NUKES & WMD?
After Gulf War 1 in 1991, Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs. Look what happened to them – and Saddam Hussein.
Libya’s Gaddafi gave up his nukes…look how that worked out for him, and Libya.
Syria also ended their chemical weapons stockpile and nuclear ambitions, guess what became of Assad?
North Korea, however, refused to give up their nukes, and…guess what? No one f**ks with North Korea.
What’s the moral of the story? Well, with genocidal, terrorist, rogue states – like Israel and the US – in the world, DO NOT give up your nukes or WMDs.
Oh, you know who else gave up their nukes? Us. S’Africa. (Watch this space..?)
ALL WEAPONS SHOULD BE BANNED
Look, don’t get me wrong. If it were up to me, in my perfect world, there’d be NO fkn nukes on this planet. No nukes, WMDs, MOABs, RPGs, LMGs, Daisy BBs, or any weapons of any kind. Not even hunting rifles or pistols. Not even a pellet gun. (You can have paintball guns, that’s it.)
But I’m not in charge. They are. And it’s not a perfect, peaceful world.
And since just about EVERYONE else on the planetary playground gets to have nukes…why not Iran? Isn’t that a bit like a high school where every white kid in the class gets to carry tasers, switchblades and catapults…but the sole, lonesome, Arab kid sitting in the corner at the back of the class is not allowed to possess so much as a pea shooter?
(Btw, why do we keep calling them WMDs – Weapons of Mass Destruction? To gloss it over? To tone it down? Let’s just call them what they are – WMMs: Weapons of Mass Murder. And I say f***ing ban them all.)
IT TAKES LESS THAN 100 NUKES TO END THE WORLD
Did you know…there are currently more than 12 000 nuclear warheads on this planet?
And, did you know it only takes less than 100 to destroy the whole world?
Back in late 2018, in an interview with RT’s Crosstalk, nuclear analyst, Ted Seay, senior policy consultant from BASIC (British American Security Information Council) said, “We’re looking at a world where arms control may not be enough. We’re looking at a need for declaring, first, that nuclear weapons are unlawful – and having all of the powers sign on to that. And then…do something about reducing the thousands of active nuclear weapons that are still out there.”
“We’re down to under 20 000 now,” he said. “That’s not good enough. We have to bring it down to the low hundreds, and then we have to get rid of them entirely. And that’s not going to be an easy process and it’s not going to be a quick one.”
He added, “We know it only takes about 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons – and that’s nothing (compared to today’s nukes). If we pop that off…we end civilisation as we know it.”
THAT TIME TRUMP AND PUTIN ALMOST REDUCED THE NUKES
Do you remember when, back in July 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term, there was a concerted effort by Trump and Putin to reduce the nukes? It was at a meeting called…the Helsinki summit.
Two months earlier, on 8 May, Trump had torn up the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear deal with Iran. Top of the Helsinki agenda for Trump and Putin was the subject of reducing the nukes around the planet from 14 000 warheads to around 1500.
Did you know that? Most of the world’s population probably does NOT know that. Do you know why they don’t know that?
Because the corporate-owned, government-controlled stenographers known as the Western mainstream media didn’t really cover it. No, they were too busy screaming themselves hoarse and purple at the unbearable thought of Trump making peace with Putin.
So, you’d think, scaling back on those numbers of nukes would be a GOOD thing. Right?
But it never happened. Can you guess why..?
Because the usual hawkish, neocon, psychopathic, mass-murdering war pigs in the US, Israel and Western political establishment fought very hard against it – and won. Maybe that’s why Trump wanted to meet Putin alone in Helsinki, without his deep state handlers in the room because they would only torpedo any chance of detente between the leaders.
Which they did. Turns out, the deep-state handlers got their way.
A few months after the Helsinki Summit, Trump announced that instead of scaling back the nukes – as he and Putin intended – the US would instead be spending more than a trillion on upgrading the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Then, on 2 August 2019, Trump pulled the US out of the 1987 INF nuclear treaty…with Russia. (I wonder who got to him…and how?)
By pulling out of the INF treaty, Trump basically triggered a whole new arms race and cold war.
In early February this year, Trump made another half-hearted, half-assed “proposal” to Putin and Jinping to slash the military budgets of their three countries in half and revive nuclear arms control. By late February Trump had walked all that back, and by May approved a massive record military budget – which includes an upgrade to the US nuke arsenal.
Are we learning yet..?
WHO BENEFITS (FINANCIALLY) FROM NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION?
Have you ever asked yourself…who actually benefits from stuffing the world full of planet-killing nuclear weapons?
Well, there’s a very telling and revealing scene in the movie, Hail Caesar!, by those cinematic genius siblings, the Coen brothers.
And the scene goes something like this…
Hollywood studio executive Eddie Mannix (James Brolin) is lunching in a Chinese restaurant with a fat-cat corporate executive, Cuddahy (Ian Blackman). Cuddahy is trying to seduce and head-hunt Eddie away from the studio, and bring him into “the company”.
During their conversation, Cuddahy reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a photo.
CUDDAHY: “Ever heard of the Bikini Atoll?”
EDDIE: “What?”
CUDDAHY: “A test site, couple of rocks in the South Pacific – till a few weeks ago. Then we blew the Aitcherino. Not supposed to be telling you this.”
He hands Eddie the photo, of a mushroom cloud.
CUDDAHY: “The real world. Hydrogen bomb. Fusion device. ”
EDDIE: (mumbles) “Armageddon”.
CUDDAHY: (leaning in) “And Lockheed was there”.
Did you catch that last part? “Lockheed was there.”
That’s right. The guy works for Lockheed Martin…one of the world’s major arms dealers. And decades later, they’re still going strong. So, that’s who’s been getting obscenely wealthy manufacturing these weapons of mass and planetary destruction, for decades. And Lockheed…are not the only ones.
Of course, as usual, their stock value has just surged during this latest Israel-Iran crisis.
TIME FOR (ANOTHER) GLOBAL ANTI-NUKE MASS MOVEMENT?
Maybe we, the people, could pick up from where Trump (and Putin) left off?
Back in 2016, Noam Chomsky warned us: “The two greatest existential threats facing humanity today are global warming…and nuclear war.”
While the jury’s still out on whether Daisy the cow’s flatulence is to blame for the former, there’s no denying the imminent threat of the latter.
Here’s a good, sane, rational idea…
Instead of the US, Israel and the rest of their Western NATO lapdogs pressuring Iran to abandon any aspiration of acquiring ONE nuclear weapon? How about we, the people of the planet, rise up – again – and put massive pressure on our “leaders” and governments to roll back the nukes…until there’s not a single warhead left?
Sound good? No..? (If your answer to that is genuinely “no” then you’re either a psychopath, retarded, evil…or all of the above.)
Isn’t it about time we revived that anti-war cry that we haven’t heard in decades which practically defined the sixties?
And that anti-war cry is…
BAN THE BOMB!
Back in the mid-50s to 60s, when the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) movement was rocking, the anti-war cry, Ban the Bomb was everywhere. Protests. Flags. T-shirts. Graffiti. Everywhere.
Don’t you think it’s long overdue time for the global public to start chanting that anti-war cry again?
WHAT CAN YOU DO, TO HELP BAN THE NUKES?
What can you do…to help abolish nuclear weapons?
Well, for starters…
Check out the artwork in this article’s header. It’s by a veteran, renowned, anti (nuclear) war artist named Peter Kennard. If you want to contribute to the new anti-nuke movement we’re about to kick off, go to Kennard’s website and browse the montage or poster pages. Pick an image, or two, or several, whack ’em on your social media…and then share far and wide.
(According to the British Journal of Photography, all of Kennard’s anti-war artworks are free for non-commercial use by NGOs, charities and demonstrations).
Add a caption or comment to your image calling on governments and public to push for global multilateral nuclear disarmament.
You can also join organisations like ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).
And you can write, email, campaign, protest and generally just badger and harass your public reps and politicians into doing their jobs – for once – on this one, crucial, critical, existential issue:
An outright, universal, multilateral, worldwide ban on nuclear weapons.
And let’s get this new, global, nuclear disarmament party started.
WHAT SAY YOU, SA (AND WORLD)? IS AN OUTRIGHT GLOBAL BAN ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS LONG OVERDUE?
Let us know by leaving a comment below or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1.
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