www.oneworld.net Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 9 (IPS) - Authors of a secret 1966 Pentagon study on the use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) in Vietnam say their conclusions that TNWs could be ''catastrophic'' to U.S. global interests are at least as compelling today as they were almost 40 years ago.

The study by four top defence consultants within the so-called JASON group, obtained and released Sunday by the California-based Nautilus Institute, found that the ''political effects of U.S. first use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam would be uniformly bad and could be catastrophic'', given the concentration of U.S. forces in Vietnam at the time and the ease with which Vietnamese guerrillas could deliver nuclear weapons obtained from the Soviet Union or China.

''The use of TNW in Southeast Asia is likely to result in greatly increased long-term risk of nuclear operations in other parts of the world,'' the scientists argued, citing possible attacks on the Panama Canal, oil pipelines and storage facilities in Venezuela and even Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv.

''The main conclusion (of the report) is that the United States offers to any likely adversary much better targets for nuclear weapons than these adversaries offer to the United States,'' said Freeman Dyson, a Princeton University professor who was one of four authors of the 1966 report, 'Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia'.

''This is even more true in the fight against terrorism than it was in Vietnam,'' he added in an interview with Nautilus director, Peter Hayes.

The release of the report, for which Nautilus fought a 20-year battle with Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) officials at the Pentagon and the Energy Department, comes at a critical moment in U.S. nuclear-weapons policy and the twin crises in Iraq and North Korea.

Last week, 10 Democratic senators, led by Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, complained in a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush that recent changes in his administration's nuclear policy ''threatens the very foundation'' of international arms control.

''Recent public revelations ... suggest that your administration considers nuclear weapons as a mere extension of the continuum of conventional weapons open to the United States, and that your administration may use nuclear weapons in the looming military conflict against Iraq,'' the senators said, citing a news reports that Bush has signed a classified document permitting the use of nuclear weapons in response to biological and chemical attacks by Iraq.

In addition to that contingency, the Pentagon has also been considering the use of nuclear arms to destroy targets, such as enemy leaders or stocks of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that are buried deep underground - so-called ''bunker-busters''.

And, a classified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) signed by Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld in December added officially non-nuclear states, including Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, and Syria, to a list of nuclear-armed countries that could be targets for U.S. nuclear weapons, a major departure from past U.S. policy.

Last month, reports were leaked to the press that Rumsfeld has scheduled a secret meeting in August to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including ''mini-nukes'', ''bunker-busters'' and neutron bombs, and to end a long-standing moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons.

These reports have spurred rising concern in the arms-control community. ''It is impossible to overstate the challenge these plans pose to the comprehensive test ban moratorium, and U.S. compliance with ... the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,'' said Greg Mello, head of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog group that obtained some of the latest documents, in a recent interview.

The discussion about breaching the firewall that has existed since 1945 between nuclear and conventional weapons has also contributed to alarm among the scientists who took part in the 1966 study on TNWs.

''Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there has grown up a taboo against the use of nuclear weapons for anything but deterrence,'' said Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979 and was one of the JASON authors.

''But there have been some signs recently of a weakening of this taboo in talk of the development of low-yield weapons for attacking underground facilities, and even in suggestions of a revival of interest in nuclear-armed, anti-missile interceptors. Let's hope that this will go no further than did the idea of using nuclear weapons in the war in Southeast Asia.''

The JASON group, founded in 1959, has included many of the nation's top scientists, who serve on a rotating base. It carries out 20 to 30 annual studies, most of which are classified. Last year, Rumsfeld's Pentagon tried to end the JASON contract, which fuelled concerns about the politicisation by the Bush administration of scientific advisory panels throughout the government.

The 1966 study, when the Vietnam War was close to its height, resulted from rumours that senior military officers, including some close to the White House, were considering the use of TNWs to interdict the ''Ho Chi Minh Trail'', the network of roads and paths that permitted North Vietnam to supply Viet Cong and its own forces in South Vietnam.

Distribution of the highly classified report apparently quashed all talk about using TNW in the Indochina War. From the perspective of the U.S. military, the most chilling sections of the report laid out the vulnerability of U.S. forces to nuclear attack with portable weapons that could be carried in small boats or trucks and could even be deployed in a mortar or recoilless rifle.

The study concluded that maintaining the taboo against nuclear weapons was key in reducing the chances of their use. ''(T)he danger of nuclear guerrilla activity is likely to arise in some degree during the next 20 years,'' it warned. ''But the dangers will certainly become more acute if the U.S. leads the way by initiating tactical nuclear war in Southeast Asia.''

''It is a stark warning that using nuclear weapons against Iraq, North Korea or trans-national terrorists - or threatening to do so - makes more likely the use of the only weapons that can really threaten the United States on the battlefield with untold consequences for innocent civilians here and abroad,'' said Natuilus' Hayes. (END/2003)

www.riyadhdaily.com.sa Monday - 10 March 2003 The Philippines could be the arena of a bloody international conflict after Iraq, according to foreign security experts who have tagged the country as a major security hot spot in the world today. In an article in the United States-based "Forbes" international business magazine, the Philippines is near the top of a list of 15 countries and regions around the world - along with Indonesia and Malaysia - "that could pose problems in the future." The article titled "The Next Iraq," appearing in Forbes’ March 17 issue, draws up an "Atlas of Evil and Discord" in a global security assessment that sums up the threat in the Philippines and its two Southeast Asian neighbors. "Al-Qaeda has bases here, as do Islamic fundamentalist and separatist groups. (There has also been) ethnic and religious bloodshed," it said of the three countries. The magazine’s list of "smoldering" security volcanoes came on the heels of last Tuesday’s bomb explosion at the Davao City international airport in which was found among the 21 fatalities a religious fundamentalist with a bomb still strapped to his body. Deteriorating peace and order conditions in the country’s south are said to have been scaring off investors and tourists. Topping the list of the world’s security hot spots are Belarus and Ukraine, which Forbes described as "two unstable states" on the verge of civil strife. Next came four regions of the world where the Al-Qaeda terrorist network is allegedly strong or gaining influence. These are the Balkans, Chechnya and the Caucasus in the former Soviet bloc; Pakistan in South Asia, and the three Southeast Asian countries-the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, collectively ranked 5th-where Al-Qaeda has reportedly already established a foothold. Surpassed by the Philippines in the degree of "threat risk" are three Asian countries with nuclear potential, listed as 6th to 8th in the Atlas: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. All three are at odds with North Korea and China and may resort to nuclear arms "if Iraq goes badly and the US loses influence," the article said. Next ranked are two other countries slated to join the small, elite group of nuclear-equipped nations this year, Iran and Libya. Rounding up the list is Venezuela, where civil war looms, and four more places wherein Al-Qaeda followers have supposedly started setting up bases: the whole of Central Asia "where religious fundamentalism is exacerbating political instability" and Brazil, Colombia and Mexico in the Americas.

www.vheadline.com 7:45:24 PM (Caracas time) Posted: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 By: John Kaminski

How stupid are we to believe all of it?  Or any of it?

Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 19:57:56 +1100 From: John Kaminski skylax@comcast.net To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Have You  Noticed?

Dear Editor: Have you noticed?  America is on the wrong side of every conflict in the world.  America encourages slavery and economic exploitation, and opposes individual rights and people's self determination --  everywhere in the world. And now, with its new hardcore police-state laws, even in America itself.

No more the land of the free and home of the brave. That's long gone. Now it's the land of the financially pulverized and the home of grotesquely overpaid executroids who will say anything for the right price. Lie to anyone, friend or foe. Betray anyone for those thirty pieces of silver. Bribe other countries in order to get them to do things that everybody realizes are wrong. Poison its own soldiers because somebody makes billions getting rid of nuclear waste. Even kill a lot of its own citizens with medicines that are never tested, and protect the vicious felons who distribute these poisons from shattered parents mourning their dead children. Judasland, that's the America we have now.

Americans don't tell the truth to anyone, least of all themselves. And I direct this at not just the government, but also at the American people.

Y'know, it's easy to say we've been victimized by bad schools and coma-inducing TV, disgustingly manipulative movies, and a climate of elitist intolerance reflected in one-sided media versions of history. It's one thing to be deceived, but it's quite another not to have seen all these crimes that have happened right in front our eyes since the Kennedy assassination. I mean: How stupid are we?

How stupid are we to believe that on one day in 2001, we had no air defenses for the entire Northeast region of the country? And that just happened to be the day when "terrorists" decided to fly four big jetliners into national landmarks. As Gerard Holmgren so eloquently said recently, how stupid are we to believe a conspiracy theory as far-fetched as that, one that was engineered by disaffected Arabs in a cave?

So, yes, we can keep blaming our bad luck and lack of attention to political reality, but let's not forget to blame ourselves in all this. And blame ourselves right now for not already having stopped an entire Congress intent on covering up the most important event of our lives, and then timidly approving the wars of our new dictator who seeks to keep the population deceived with one murderous escapade after another.

How stupid are we to believe all of it?  Or any of it?

How stupid are we not to know that nothing the Bush administration says remotely resembles an honest assessment of conditions in the world. All those satanic shills say is designed to ease their task of stealing money from people everywhere.

Recently many high profile Americans have been caught in embarrassing lies. Although the media tries to cover them as best they can, more and more people are noticing that everything the Bush administration says is a spin, and none of it is an honest recounting of actual events.

If Powell and Bush are telling lies now about reasons to invade Iraq -- and getting caught at those lies regularly -- how are we to know that they weren't telling lies about the demolition of the World Trade Center, when it was considered unpatriotic to question the official version of events?

If they're lying now, what kind of stupid do you have to be to believe they were telling the truth then? Pretty stupid, is what I'd say.

I bet it's just hysterical when Poppy Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld get together and laugh about how efficiently they've ripped off the American people. Cheney can brag that Halliburton, through its Brown & Root subsidiary, had made trillions off all these frequent U.S. military deployments in which his company provides the crappy chow and the tossed-up buildings. With plenty more of those lucrative military support contracts to follow in quick succession. North Korea. Philippines. Colombia. You pick the target.

For at least a century, the whole world has emulated America, presidents instead of dictators, legislatures instead of secret police. Now America has reverted to the secret police method. Woe to everyone if the world continues to follow America's lead. With its cooked-book capitalism, where nothing is the truth and all but richest suffer, America is leading the world over a cliff, and pushing the world toward that precipice too with weapons that couldn't be surpassed by the devil himself in their high-tech evil.

America stands for total corporate control with no discussion and no dissension, and against meaningful self-expression and common sense ways to ease the burdens of the less fortunate. Virtually no members of Congress oppose open U.S. aggression in dozens of foreign countries. And neither, for that matter, do many foreign leaders, our erstwhile allies, most of whom are on the U.S. bribery payroll.

Most of the rest of the world is beginning to realize that America is against what is morally right and sociologically sound, and in favor of what benefits the its rich controllers at the expense of the poor, no matter how many people these policies kill. In fact, since it happens in so many countries, America seems to prefer policies that kill a lot of people.

Roll that over in your mind. America prefers killing large numbers of people, the more different ways the better.

Afghanistan: 10,000 dead and more dying every day from incredibly high levels of radioactivity that almost certainly came from the U.S. use of nuclear weapons, which of course nobody will admit using. All of those people were, of course, innocent of anything except trying to eke out a hardscrabble living in a spot where a bunkerbuster bomb happened to be dropped.

Iraq: 1.5 million dead in 10 years from illegal bombing by the U.S. and Britain, but the truly heartrending part is all the children that have needlessly died because sadistic sanctions kept basic medicines from doctors treating kids with very ordinary illnesses. It is for this most Americans deserve to go straight to hell.

Colombia: Now they drop the poison rain to get the peasants to move off land that American corporations want to develop, a fine climax to 30 years of war America has waged through its proxy goons while nobody in the U.S. noticed.

Remember: America has armed troops in 40 different countries, and all this horrific stuff is going on there, too. How many Guatemalan peasants are buried in the mud of unmarked graves because American corporations wanted to prevent a "Communist" threat?

America insists upon one set of permissive rules for itself, and another set of restrictive rules for everybody else, which is why it refuses to allow itself to be ruled by the auspices of any world court. This is clearly a racist elitism, a plantation mentality, a never-ending extension of the continuing colonialist rape of the world.

America looks down its nose at the rest of the world. Any legitimately unbiased world court would find America guilty of innumerable counts of tyranny in a heartbeat. In fact, the list of indictable offenses, acts of aggression, extortion, espionage, violations of the Geneva Accords and crimes against humanity would probably occupy such a world court indefinitely into the foreseeable future.

That day will come. When the playing field of the world gets leveled, as it inevitably will, America faces and endless succession of war crimes charges in just about every country on earth, from rapes in Okinawa to mass murder by smallpox injection in the Congo.

Which is just what Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was saying the other day at the summit of Non-Aligned Nations in Kuala Lumpur. The "uncertainties of today's world are due not to 'a clash of civilizations' between the West and Islam, but to a revival of the old European trait of wanting to dominate the world. The expression of this trait invariably involves injustices and oppression of people of other ethnic origins and colors. It is no longer just a war against terrorism. It is, in fact, a war to dominate the world."

How many Americans have asked: What right does America have to say other countries may not have weapons to defend themselves equal to what America has? Did some God appoint America to rule the world? Are we to believe the black quisling Condoleezza Rice when she says America has the best interests of the world at heart?

How could it be that a country that made its reputation on democracy and individual liberties is now an inflexible totalitarian system bent on bringing every person on earth under its oppressive fist, either through irresistible bribes to corrupt leaders, outright invasions, or the imposition of devastating financial shackles through that economic shell game known as the International Monetary Fund?

It's a simple answer, really.

America has never been a legitimate democracy and is not one now. From many of the founding fathers who argued against unbridled democracy during a time where less than a quarter of its citizens were authorized to cast a vote, through two centuries of continuing consolidation of power by corporate interests, the legends that anyone can rise to be president or the U.S. is a real system of one person/one vote have been exposed as populist myths, imbedded in an entire curriculum of myths that have led the populace to believe that America is an honest and just nation.

For many years, to those in other countries under the yoke of barbaric dictators, the U.S. seemed ... from far away ... to LOOK like a democratic system, with all its ceremonial rituals of supposedly representative government, with its Constitution and Bill of Rights. But a closer look ? for most, limited to the writings of many poorly publicized and little known social critics ? has always revealed a superficial democratic sideshow masking the same inhumane system of bribery and extortion that rules all nations.

Now, once again, the world is being shown the real deal.

Once known as the world's greatest democracy, America still pretends to preach a gospel of freedom, but look at its allies: blatant tyrannies which survive on American payoffs and rob and kill their own people. These police state allies are always headed by puppet dictators who are approved and appointed by American business interests. Just look at proposed U.S. plans for a future Iraqi "democracy," to be temporarily headed by a former American general. Most Americans can't even recall the number of times the U.S. has tinkered with Iraqi "democracy" in the past.

It's easy to see all this if you just look, but the vast majority of Americans choose not to.

You simply have to observe how America must bribe its so-called allies to get them to go along with repressive policies. America thinks it can buy its friends. What a horrible price we shall all pay for this in the future. Imagine the resentment building in every corner of the globe as people realize they are not allowed to think for themselves in order to continue receiving pathetic pittances of America's trickle down largesse. Ask the once-middle-class families now living in the streets of Argentina about this.

America attempted to solve the crisis in the Middle East by giving billions of dollars to Egypt in exchange for a promise not to invade Israel. The majority of Egyptians disagree with this policy, but Egypt's leaders have instituted a police state that prevents people from expressing their own beliefs. America funnels trillions to Saudi Arabia while a majority of that country's citizens chafe under an inflexible, capricious dictatorship that spends a lot of money in Monte Carlo.

This is the kind of "democracy" the U.S. now wishes to inflict on Iraq. America wants to create another flunky regime to do its bidding, another fake democracy to advance the anti-democratic cause of American banks and oil companies. Just like the fake democracy in America.

America has bombed Iraq for 13 years and claimed it is not at war. Now it prepares to obliterate the entire population of that country simply to steal oil fields and provide a better supply of water for Israel. And to gain a staging area for invasions of other countries.

America enthusiastically endorses the genocide of the Palestinian people knowing full well Israel is an illegal entity forced on the indigenous inhabitants against their will, just like many other Mideast nation-states.

America is now ready to invade Colombia after supporting the destruction of the people for three decades so it can better control the importation of oil and cocaine. This aggression will likely explode over the borders into neighboring countries.

America uses business executives to bribe the people of Venezuela to overthrow their own democratically elected government, and claims it is advocating democracy.

America continues to support corporate-connected dictators is most Central American countries, and resorts to mass murder when popular movements agitate for justice for poor people.

America is sending troops to the Philippines to suppress a popular uprising that seeks democratic control over a corrupt government that is totally subservient to U.S. business interests. No wonder Muslim idealists want to get rid of it.

America even manages to make the Taliban look good. The fundamentalist Muslim fanatics had all but wiped out poppy production, but now, thanks to the new American-backed government, under the tutelage of new Republican DEA chief Asa Hutchinson, it's thriving and Afghanistan now the world's No. 1 producer of heroin that finds its way to the streets of Europe.

You can't argue that these international intrigues are necessary for America's economic survival when $4.5 trillion has gone missing from the federal coffers in Washington in just the last two years with no explanation. The basic situation in Washington is that a cabal of petronazis has managed to change all the laws in order to facilitate the greatest robbery in human history, which is now underway.

As it stands now, America has no respect for anybody or anything, human or holy. America doesn't even respect itself, because it's too busy screwing people to steal their money and their resources.

The sad fact is ... one which we will learn to our peril if not ultimate destruction ... is that you can't respect yourself if you don't respect everybody else. So it's obvious America doesn't even respect itself anymore, because it sure doesn't respect anybody else in the world.

America is at war with the entire world. And most Americans choose not to believe it, even though it's happening right in front of their eyes. And as we speak, Americans are becoming the real victims of a tyranny they have permitted to grow to truly ominous proportions.

It's time to do something about it. Although massive logistical problems and ad hoc legal procedures need to be developed, this would work, I think. And Thomas Jefferson would like it a lot.

John Kaminski skylax@comcast.net

John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the coast of Florida and believes in an America that guarantees liberty and justice for all, not just for those with the right fascist political connections and enough money to buy their way out of trouble and still get good government jobs.

www.chinapost.com.tw 2003/3/1 TAIEPI, Taiwan, The China Post staff

Although worldwide attention is presently focused on a possible U.S.-led war in Iraq, Taiwan is listed as one of the "smoldering volcanoes" on the globe that could pose problems in the future, according to the Forbes magazine.

In a special report in its March 17 issue, the American magazine comes up with a list of 15 trouble spots which could become "the next Iraq."

Taiwan was listed eighth place in terms of potential conflict. The report says Taiwan's perennial conflicts with mainland China could lead to nuclear arms and U.S. involvement.

But the article does not specify whether the possible dangers come from nuclear threats from the mainland or whether Taiwan may develop its own nuclear weapons.

Japan was sixth place on the list, followed by South Korea. Waning U.S. influence in the event of a prolonged war against Iraq could make Japan feel increasing pressure to develop its own nuclear arsenal to defend against possible attack from North Korea.

Due to reduced confidence in the U.S., South Korea could also take the nuclear option to cope with threats from Pyongyang, according to the Forbes analysis.

The "smoldering volcanoes" put ahead of these three countries are: 1) Belarus and Ukraine, the two unstable states bordering new members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; 2) the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosovo); 3) Chechnya and the Caucasus; 4) Pakistan (threats from Islamic fundamentalism, skirmishes with India, and al-Qaida organization); and Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (threats from Islamic fundamentalists, al-Qaida, ethnic and religious bloodshed).

Nations and regions listed after Taiwan include 9) Iran, 10) Libya, 11) Central Asia, 12) Brazil, 13) Colombia, 14) Mexico, and 15) Venezuela, the Forbes analysis said.