Noam Chomsky: US Might Face Ultimate Nightmare/DemocracyNOW!

[tlcandie]

Noam Chomsky: U.S. Might Face "Ultimate Nightmare" in Middle East Where Shiites Control Most of World's Oil

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/1458256

<snip>
Well, these threats are leading to much more dire warnings than those that I quoted, again, from the heart of the establishment. So, last summer, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is very sober and respectable and not given to hyperbole, ran an article by two prominent strategic analysts, John Steinbrenner and Nancy Gallagher, in which they pointed out, these are mostly quotes, that the military programs and aggressive stance of the administration, carry in their words, “appreciable risk of ultimate doom,” and they go on to say that you have to look very hard -- in fact, I can't think of a case where such words have ever been pronounced in establishment -- respectable establishment circles. They go on to say that, "If the United States is to remain a democracy worthy of the name, the political system will have to acknowledge that the United States is now the dominant threat to everyone else." Their words. The “super outlaw state.” They go on to explain that the terrifying technology that is being developed in Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the military will “assuredly defuse to the rest of the world. There will be a competition in intimidation and action/reaction cycle creating rising dangers, potentially unmanageable ones, for Americans as well,” and, in fact, that's already been happening. Russia, a year ago had its first military -- serious military exercises in 20 years. They deployed new offensive weapons, more sophisticated missiles, nuclear arms aimed at the United States. U.S. military analysts estimate that Russia may have tripled its military expenditures since the Bush administration came in with its militaristic stance. They have officially adopted the Bush administration's so-called preemptive war strategy, meaning asserting the right of a first strike, even the first nuclear strike, without pretext of defense. Washington's aggressive stance is compelling the Russians, who are much weaker, of course, to transfer missiles thousands of miles from one part of their territory to another repeatedly. This is over very lightly defended areas.
<snip>

On January 26th, he spoke at a forum sponsored by the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The forum was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the International Relations Center, of which Chomsky is a board member. Today we spend the hour hearing his address. He spoke about imperialism, the elections in Iraq and much more. This is Noam Chomsky.

[rooboy]

1. Better move this... not LBN. n/t

[tlcandie]

2. Ahhh it is dated today on DemocracyNOW! ?

Today is the first day I've heard about it. So alert mods then? :shrug:

[dave123williams]

3. Gee, and they're right next to Iran, geographically.

[CHIMO]

4. Good Presentation

As usual. A bit frightening when he points out that the World is now turning to China to get things straight.ie. remove the world threat from guess who.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

5. People need to understand

and understand fast that at the heart of the PNAC philosophy is the idea of a winnable nuclear war. Time may be a lot shorter than we think.

[Eloriel]

6. More proof of their literal and absolute madness n/t

[Donailin]

7. you're exactly right

and about two and a half years ago now, there was forum for vets against the war on c-span which i was listening to, one of the vets went thoroughly into the PNAC, he was completely informed and what he said was the most frightening thing about their agenda, 'rebuilding americas defenses,' was their desire to build new compact tactical nukes and use them as CONVENTIONAL warfare. Now I had know about PNAC already at the time, but the way he emphasized this most important point froze me. I mean, I remember exactly what I was doing when i heard this vet on c-span that saturday. i remember the weather, the mood, the activity and the realization that made that otherwise unremarkable day in my life a turning point to be very very concerned

[Freedom_from_Chains]

8. And there are some people out there who are speaking the truth

unfortunatly they are too few and far between. When you combine that we the fact that so many are unable to hear the message, you have every reason to be concerned, very concerned.

On edit: Interesting article on this point.

http://www.thehandstand.org/archive/december2002/index.htm