For more than half a century the European Council of Ministers and the European Commission have refused to tell the truth about their own origins. In all that period they have never -- to my knowledge -- published the complete text of the SCHUMAN DECLARATION. They have never explained what a supranational, democratic Community was all about.
On 9 May 1950 -- 60 years ago -- Robert Schuman made a declaration before the press at the Foreign Ministry. He made a broadcast on French radio that shocked the whole population, not only of France but of all of Europe, the United States and the Soviet Union too. He made clear exactly what his purposes were and what the future would hold. He explained it had GLOBAL consequences and would eventually democratise the whole of Europe based on supranational principles.
This was the real beginning of today's European Union. It made clear that Europe must be built on the basis of SUPRANATIONAL DEMOCRACY. The Commission or the Council of Ministers who have the prime responsibility have never explained the purpose of the Europe's first European Community -- the European Coal and Steel Community.
The politicians have obfuscated. If they had told the truth they would not have been able to take untold millions of taxpayers' money to use on a disinformation campaign in 2007. This 'Europe together since 1957' produces the false propaganda that quote 'the Treaty of Rome laid the foundations of the modern EU.' The Economic Treaty of Rome could not have laid the foundation of the present EU if Europe had torn itself apart in war as everyone was predicting in 1950.
Why did the politicians order this fraudulent campaign? What sort of schizophrenic public relations or twisted thinking does it require among the secretive officials of the European Council? Why did heads of government -- supposedly all 27 democracies -- agree to this disinformation? Europe celebrates 9 May as Europe day, celebrating 9 May 1950. This led to the extraordinary Treaty of Paris of 18 April 1951. It is the foundational treaty of the EU. It was really foundational because it created a step-by-step plan for supranational democracy. Real democracy serves the Community, it does not dictate, nor impose a false governance system. The Treaty of Paris was accompanied by the Declaration of Interdependence of Europeans signed by all the founding fathers of the Community. It contrasted real democracy with the false one of the Soviet 'People's democracies' by saying that the people must be 'free to choose'.
This Declaration of European democracy is extremely embarrassing to self-serving politicians and purveyors of disinformation. The Founding Fathers say that the first supranational institution created by the Treaty of Paris is the TRUE FOUNDATION of Europe. It laid down the foundational principle that Europe must be based on democratic principles. Europe cannot be changed by a dictator like Charles de Gaulle, who thought his single voice was worth more than everyone else's combined. Nor can the real Europe be changed by fraudulent so-called Reform Treaties (like the Constitutional Treaty or the Lisbon Treaty) created by a secretive cartel of political parties for their own benefit. All institutional questions must be decided by people who are FREE TO CHOOSE.
What on earth has Europe Day on 9 May have to do with the Treaty of Rome of 1957? It merely shows that the leaders of the European Council are willing to distort and try to change the truth for dubious, self-serving political purposes. As such they have lost the most important attribute of leadership, TRUST.
The first single market -- the FIRST common market -- in the Community was created on 10 February 1953. Goods of the community were allowed to circulate without tariffs or quotas across all Six founder States. Does the Council think they can use the Goebbels technique and repeat fibs until people think it must be true?
Today the European Union is the largest economic power in the world. It far outstrips the USA. Politicians try to base their Foreign Policy on old-fashioned internationalism, not supranational democracy. It has disastrous results. No one takes shifty, undemocratic politicians seriously.
A Reuters correspondent recently wrote that the 27-member European Union produces an economy almost as large as the United States and China combined but have, so far, largely failed to make much of a dent in American perceptions that theirs is a collection of cradle-to-grave nanny states doomed to be left behind in a 21st century that will belong to China.
Up to 1950 the European States were a mixed bag of impoverished, ruined and competing States. Instead of learning the lesson of cooperation they were entering on a new period of cut-throat competition between each other, raising tariff barriers and locking out trade between each other. War seemed inevitable to many observers. Isn't the REAL ORIGIN of the world's super-power important to know?
More importantly than giving Europeans the greatest period of prosperity it had ever known in its long, long history, the Schuman Declaration did something else. It brought peace. In 1950 Europe was divided. Everyone was expecting a new war.
In fact two types of wars loomed. Firstly there was the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which had occupied northern, central and eastern Europe. Secondly there was a potential war again with Germany which was rapidly rising in economic power and challenging France. Charles de Gaulle wanted the Allies to change the borders of Germany and give France all the land to the Rhine, the Saarland and also give it control of the industrialized Ruhr area. This would have made another European war inevitable when Germany became strong enough to challenge this power grab.
Schuman opposed this nationalistic stupidity that constantly led to war. He said it would lead to world suicide. As Prime Minister (1947-8) and long-serving Foreign Minister of France (1948-53) he created the Council of Europe with its Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. He was a founder of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He laid the democratic foundation for the German democracy, often with major opposition in France and also the Allies, USA and Great Britain.
It was the 9 May 1950 Schuman Declaration that began the process to 'make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible'. For two thousand years nearly every generation in Europe experienced WAR. They were suffering consequences of war or preparing a new one, or fighting it.
On 9 May 1950 all that changed. Europe has not had an internal war since 1945 -- 65 years. You should be eternally grateful you are living in this generation that has not known Europe tearing itself apart.
Ask the Commissioners HOW that happened. That is your right as a citizen! Ask your elected politician in the European Parliament. Ask the ministers who attend the Council of Ministers and believe they are the leaders of all Europeans. If he or she is worth his salt, he should be able to explain.
To compare what the Commission say is the text of the Schuman Declaration and to see what is the really FULL text of the Schuman Declaration, go to the Commission site at http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/9-may/decl_en.htm or see the full text on www.schuman.info/9May1950.htm . To test yourself on why Europeans are benefiting from the Community system click on www.schuman.info/proppurp.htm . To find out why the politicians and eurocrats cut out the most important parts of the Schuman Declaration, check the first article in this series.
30 April, 2010
20 April, 2010
Proliferation3: Why Schuman created the world's most powerful anti-proliferation treaty
The Euratom treaty is essential for the survival of Europe and for peace in the world. That is what the founding fathers said. Why do European leaders not consider it so? There were two treaties signed at Rome on 25 March 1957. The Euratom Treaty was considered by many to be the most important of the the two because in dealt with the security of all European citizens.
Today the Economic Community Treaty has been embedded in the Lisbon Treaty as if it was the foundational centre of the integration process. It isn't. Only people who think the market is the centre of the world dream that it is. They are wrong. That is one of the major weaknesses of the Lisbon Treaty.
Before anyone can trade or think about a market, the person has to survive. Life is more important. Survival and living in peace must be Europe's priority. We must never forget it. The founding Fathers gave us a system that 'makes war not only unthinkable but materially impossible' as the Schuman Declaration says. If it were not for Europe's first Community would would have already been involved in bloody fatricidal war again and again since 1945.
How did Euratom come about? What is it for?
In August 1949 , the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, much to the surprise of western politicians who did not suspect that its research was so far advanced. America had thus lost its monopoly of atomic weapons. The chief of the Manhattan Project, General Groves, had thought in 1945 that it would take USSR 20 years to develop an A-bomb. However a number of spies were at work in passing on atomic secrets to the Communists. By 1949, the CIA anticipated that it would take another three years. Britain became the third nuclear bomb power in 1952.
On 30 September 1949, just a month after the Soviet explosion, Robert Schuman, Foreign Minister of France, gave a major speech in Canada. He spoke of the atomic bomb and of the Communist war in China as raising questions about the forces of nature and of the ‘genius’ of politicians to deal not only with coarse diplomacy but the brutal problems themselves.
‘Man will have to master nature and dam up the unchained energies. Moreover we have the means to do it. We need to regulate and control the new inventions as we did fifty years ago in the era of dynamite.'
A few months later Schuman showed the way. On 9 May 1950 he announced the creation of the European Community and the first phase to place coal and steel under common supranational democratic control. Up to the First World War, much of the explosives used in war were derived gunpowder mixtures of saltpeter. During WWI, that changed dramatically. Most of the new explosives were derived from coal tar products or from synthetic chemical products. They included picric acid and various phenol based chemicals. By the Second World War the range of new chemical explosives and the range of new products from coal and coal tars was enormous and included plastics, artificial rubbers, synthetic petrol, and oils vital for the pursuit of war. TNT, trinitrotoluene, for example, is created from products of coal tar or petroleum.
The supranational High Authority of the first European Community opened a new political pathway with a new European structure. The five democratic institutions assured that war would become ‘not only unthinkable but materially impossible.’ The institutional goal for this was completed in 1953 and Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in more than two thousand years. This has also enabled its peoples to live in unprecedented prosperity.
A European Community for atomic energy was a high priority for next phase of European unification. However, the Korean War intervened in late 1950. It diverted preoccupations into a European Defence Community, which Schuman considered should fall rather towards the end of the process. When the French National Assembly voted not to debate the ratification of the EDC (which had already been ratified by the parliaments of the other five States} the move for unification that would deal with non proliferation lost momentum until 1955.
In that year Schuman again entered the French government of Edgar Faure as Minister of Justice. On 13 April 1955 the French Government renounced the construction of French atomic armaments. A few weeks later, ministers of the six founder countries of the European Community met at the Italian town of Messina to discuss further development of the democratic organisation of Europe. The Messina conference in June decided to study the launching of four Communities with priority given to Euratom. This European Community for Atomic Energy provided the means for the most complete non-proliferation of armaments ever conceived, while guarding atomic secrets from misappropriation and assuring the peaceful development of new energy systems. It was the means, as Schuman had said in his 1949 speech, ‘to create a climate so that when sections of humanity are provoked into action by passions or poverty, they can calm themselves and accept to live in concord within a system of governance adapted to their own specific aspirations.’
The Euratom Treaty was signed in Rome on 25 March 1957, together with that of the third Community, the Economic Community, that the Germans insisted on. The purpose of the Euratom Treaty is clearly set out in its Preamble, first article: the peaceful development of atomic energy and ‘works of peace’. The Euratom treaty also provided for a European University.
Some of the clauses of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, which was being negotiated at the same time, are identical in their definitions. This is to facilitate the proper control of nuclear fuel, ‘fissile material’.
Where the Euratom Treaty differs radically from the IAEA is in its system of control. It declares in Article 86 ‘special fissile material is the property of the Community.’ Thus all nuclear material can be submitted to full democratic control, according to the joint wish of democratic governments. This is something that no other treaty in the world has the power to do!
All legal measures, directives, have to be founded on consultation with the European Parliament. Furthermore a legal opinion and assent is required from European NGOs in the industrial, labour and consumer sectors on all use of the fissile material in the Community. On the basis of this legal assent, the Commission can make its proposals for European legislation.
However, when Charles de Gaulle took power in 1958, his personalized policy of ‘gloire et grandeur’ opposed all collaboration. He refused to attend disarmament conferences, withdrew French forces from NATO and prepared the explosion of its own atomic bomb. De Gaulle said that his atomic bombs would be sufficient to kill 20 million people within two hours of a declaration of war.
His intentions on taking power were published later by his spokesman, Alain Peyrefitte. His aim was ‘to suffocate supranationality.’ He wanted to boycott all Community collaboration as far as possible and to ‘deactivate the treaties of Rome’ and specifically to ‘chloroform Euratom’. (Peyrefitte: C’était de Gaulle, vol 1 pp66ff). For his nationalistic plans in the form of an A-bomb, de Gaulle said the Euratom treaty was ‘more than ineffective, it was harmful [Plus qu’ inutile, il est nuisible] ’ and ‘dangerous’. He was right. It was dangerous for autocrats with bombs. They are too dangerous as toys for senile old warriors to cause massive destruction on one population with the retaliatory destruction of the host country, all without their say so, knowledge or democratic permission.
De Gaulle therefore refused to permit direct elections to the European Parliament and the other democratic institutions. He preferred to send his nominees to the European institutions to echo his own opinions and block debate. His nationalistic policy led to the mass resignation of ministers in 1962 and the empty chair boycott of European institutions in 1965.
Today the treaty is still chloroformed. It would have allowed other scientists and technicians to exercise the possibility to work on French nuclear projects thus ensuring that all the research was both safe for the European public and subjecting to European democratic control the export of fissile material to dubious customers abroad. For example the export of French high technology nuclear plant to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was later the target of an Israeli air attack as it menaced peace in the Middle East. The clauses of the treaty would, if applied, have encouraged safe exports to such countries only with an extension of an effective and proven European safeguards inspectorate. The external nuclear relations in the Euratom treaty are extremely adaptable to ensure the best democratic and pacific control.
The Euratom Treaty has now been signed and passed by 27 Member States and their parliaments. As ever, it is ready for business. All that remains is for those democratic States to begin to apply it democratically. There are fewer problems inside the EU but great threats to world peace. France has long declared that it will no longer test its atomic bombs. But Iran, where ideological hardliners foment revolution worldwide and aspire to have nuclear bombs, receives 40 per cent of its imports from the EU. Two thirds of Iranian industry relies on German engineering, including technology transfer for nuclear plants. Such EU exports are guaranteed by national credit guarantee systems. They lack the democratic supervision of the NGOs (European non-governmental organisations) in Euratom’s Economic and Social Committee or a democratic Scientific and Technical Committee. No adequate analysis is made in the European Parliament. Elsewhere the European Investment Bank decided to put a billion euros into the Iranian gas pipeline project, all with little or no democratic debate or control.
The way is clear to apply the most powerful non-proliferation treaty in the world. All it needs is the political will to do it.
.
How Schuman designed European Democracy to work
The Treaty follows the same pattern as a supranational Community as the two other Communities. The Commission, a small group of wise, impartial and experienced, honest brokers (of any nationality), take soundings on current European problems and strategic challenges. This would include the advisability of selling sensitive equipment and giving know-how to aggressive nations or states or their front companies. Open trade is encouraged were peaceful aims are assured. The Commission would then submit what they consider the most impartial solution to deal with these opportunities in the form of a proposal. In this they are assisted by an independent Scientific and Technical Committee. This is sent to the Council of Ministers (representing States who should open up a real national debate, not keep it quiet), the European Parliament (representing the people’s interest) and Consultative Committees (like the Economic and Social Committee) representing organized civil democracy in three sections: industry and commerce; trades unions and employment organisations; and thirdly, consumer and intermediaries dealing with raising standards and lowering prices. These three institutional bodies debate and vote Critical Opinions about how the Proposal can be improved by taking into account interests the Commission has overlooked. After interactions between these three democratic organisations, the Commission publishes in the Official Journal the fairest version it sees as possible. If any individual, organisation or nation State or European institution considers that their interests are being ignored or being unfairly treated, they have the right to take to matter to Court, either the European Court in Luxembourg, or by making a reference to it via a local court or tribunal. Thus any citizen has multiple democratic pathways (individual, local, regional, national, associative, political and European) to defend his/her interests once the system of five institutions is working properly.
Today the Economic Community Treaty has been embedded in the Lisbon Treaty as if it was the foundational centre of the integration process. It isn't. Only people who think the market is the centre of the world dream that it is. They are wrong. That is one of the major weaknesses of the Lisbon Treaty.
Before anyone can trade or think about a market, the person has to survive. Life is more important. Survival and living in peace must be Europe's priority. We must never forget it. The founding Fathers gave us a system that 'makes war not only unthinkable but materially impossible' as the Schuman Declaration says. If it were not for Europe's first Community would would have already been involved in bloody fatricidal war again and again since 1945.
How did Euratom come about? What is it for?
In August 1949 , the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, much to the surprise of western politicians who did not suspect that its research was so far advanced. America had thus lost its monopoly of atomic weapons. The chief of the Manhattan Project, General Groves, had thought in 1945 that it would take USSR 20 years to develop an A-bomb. However a number of spies were at work in passing on atomic secrets to the Communists. By 1949, the CIA anticipated that it would take another three years. Britain became the third nuclear bomb power in 1952.
On 30 September 1949, just a month after the Soviet explosion, Robert Schuman, Foreign Minister of France, gave a major speech in Canada. He spoke of the atomic bomb and of the Communist war in China as raising questions about the forces of nature and of the ‘genius’ of politicians to deal not only with coarse diplomacy but the brutal problems themselves.
‘Man will have to master nature and dam up the unchained energies. Moreover we have the means to do it. We need to regulate and control the new inventions as we did fifty years ago in the era of dynamite.'
A few months later Schuman showed the way. On 9 May 1950 he announced the creation of the European Community and the first phase to place coal and steel under common supranational democratic control. Up to the First World War, much of the explosives used in war were derived gunpowder mixtures of saltpeter. During WWI, that changed dramatically. Most of the new explosives were derived from coal tar products or from synthetic chemical products. They included picric acid and various phenol based chemicals. By the Second World War the range of new chemical explosives and the range of new products from coal and coal tars was enormous and included plastics, artificial rubbers, synthetic petrol, and oils vital for the pursuit of war. TNT, trinitrotoluene, for example, is created from products of coal tar or petroleum.
The supranational High Authority of the first European Community opened a new political pathway with a new European structure. The five democratic institutions assured that war would become ‘not only unthinkable but materially impossible.’ The institutional goal for this was completed in 1953 and Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in more than two thousand years. This has also enabled its peoples to live in unprecedented prosperity.
A European Community for atomic energy was a high priority for next phase of European unification. However, the Korean War intervened in late 1950. It diverted preoccupations into a European Defence Community, which Schuman considered should fall rather towards the end of the process. When the French National Assembly voted not to debate the ratification of the EDC (which had already been ratified by the parliaments of the other five States} the move for unification that would deal with non proliferation lost momentum until 1955.
In that year Schuman again entered the French government of Edgar Faure as Minister of Justice. On 13 April 1955 the French Government renounced the construction of French atomic armaments. A few weeks later, ministers of the six founder countries of the European Community met at the Italian town of Messina to discuss further development of the democratic organisation of Europe. The Messina conference in June decided to study the launching of four Communities with priority given to Euratom. This European Community for Atomic Energy provided the means for the most complete non-proliferation of armaments ever conceived, while guarding atomic secrets from misappropriation and assuring the peaceful development of new energy systems. It was the means, as Schuman had said in his 1949 speech, ‘to create a climate so that when sections of humanity are provoked into action by passions or poverty, they can calm themselves and accept to live in concord within a system of governance adapted to their own specific aspirations.’
The Euratom Treaty was signed in Rome on 25 March 1957, together with that of the third Community, the Economic Community, that the Germans insisted on. The purpose of the Euratom Treaty is clearly set out in its Preamble, first article: the peaceful development of atomic energy and ‘works of peace’. The Euratom treaty also provided for a European University.
Some of the clauses of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, which was being negotiated at the same time, are identical in their definitions. This is to facilitate the proper control of nuclear fuel, ‘fissile material’.
Where the Euratom Treaty differs radically from the IAEA is in its system of control. It declares in Article 86 ‘special fissile material is the property of the Community.’ Thus all nuclear material can be submitted to full democratic control, according to the joint wish of democratic governments. This is something that no other treaty in the world has the power to do!
All legal measures, directives, have to be founded on consultation with the European Parliament. Furthermore a legal opinion and assent is required from European NGOs in the industrial, labour and consumer sectors on all use of the fissile material in the Community. On the basis of this legal assent, the Commission can make its proposals for European legislation.
However, when Charles de Gaulle took power in 1958, his personalized policy of ‘gloire et grandeur’ opposed all collaboration. He refused to attend disarmament conferences, withdrew French forces from NATO and prepared the explosion of its own atomic bomb. De Gaulle said that his atomic bombs would be sufficient to kill 20 million people within two hours of a declaration of war.
His intentions on taking power were published later by his spokesman, Alain Peyrefitte. His aim was ‘to suffocate supranationality.’ He wanted to boycott all Community collaboration as far as possible and to ‘deactivate the treaties of Rome’ and specifically to ‘chloroform Euratom’. (Peyrefitte: C’était de Gaulle, vol 1 pp66ff). For his nationalistic plans in the form of an A-bomb, de Gaulle said the Euratom treaty was ‘more than ineffective, it was harmful [Plus qu’ inutile, il est nuisible] ’ and ‘dangerous’. He was right. It was dangerous for autocrats with bombs. They are too dangerous as toys for senile old warriors to cause massive destruction on one population with the retaliatory destruction of the host country, all without their say so, knowledge or democratic permission.
De Gaulle therefore refused to permit direct elections to the European Parliament and the other democratic institutions. He preferred to send his nominees to the European institutions to echo his own opinions and block debate. His nationalistic policy led to the mass resignation of ministers in 1962 and the empty chair boycott of European institutions in 1965.
Today the treaty is still chloroformed. It would have allowed other scientists and technicians to exercise the possibility to work on French nuclear projects thus ensuring that all the research was both safe for the European public and subjecting to European democratic control the export of fissile material to dubious customers abroad. For example the export of French high technology nuclear plant to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was later the target of an Israeli air attack as it menaced peace in the Middle East. The clauses of the treaty would, if applied, have encouraged safe exports to such countries only with an extension of an effective and proven European safeguards inspectorate. The external nuclear relations in the Euratom treaty are extremely adaptable to ensure the best democratic and pacific control.
The Euratom Treaty has now been signed and passed by 27 Member States and their parliaments. As ever, it is ready for business. All that remains is for those democratic States to begin to apply it democratically. There are fewer problems inside the EU but great threats to world peace. France has long declared that it will no longer test its atomic bombs. But Iran, where ideological hardliners foment revolution worldwide and aspire to have nuclear bombs, receives 40 per cent of its imports from the EU. Two thirds of Iranian industry relies on German engineering, including technology transfer for nuclear plants. Such EU exports are guaranteed by national credit guarantee systems. They lack the democratic supervision of the NGOs (European non-governmental organisations) in Euratom’s Economic and Social Committee or a democratic Scientific and Technical Committee. No adequate analysis is made in the European Parliament. Elsewhere the European Investment Bank decided to put a billion euros into the Iranian gas pipeline project, all with little or no democratic debate or control.
The way is clear to apply the most powerful non-proliferation treaty in the world. All it needs is the political will to do it.
.
How Schuman designed European Democracy to work
The Treaty follows the same pattern as a supranational Community as the two other Communities. The Commission, a small group of wise, impartial and experienced, honest brokers (of any nationality), take soundings on current European problems and strategic challenges. This would include the advisability of selling sensitive equipment and giving know-how to aggressive nations or states or their front companies. Open trade is encouraged were peaceful aims are assured. The Commission would then submit what they consider the most impartial solution to deal with these opportunities in the form of a proposal. In this they are assisted by an independent Scientific and Technical Committee. This is sent to the Council of Ministers (representing States who should open up a real national debate, not keep it quiet), the European Parliament (representing the people’s interest) and Consultative Committees (like the Economic and Social Committee) representing organized civil democracy in three sections: industry and commerce; trades unions and employment organisations; and thirdly, consumer and intermediaries dealing with raising standards and lowering prices. These three institutional bodies debate and vote Critical Opinions about how the Proposal can be improved by taking into account interests the Commission has overlooked. After interactions between these three democratic organisations, the Commission publishes in the Official Journal the fairest version it sees as possible. If any individual, organisation or nation State or European institution considers that their interests are being ignored or being unfairly treated, they have the right to take to matter to Court, either the European Court in Luxembourg, or by making a reference to it via a local court or tribunal. Thus any citizen has multiple democratic pathways (individual, local, regional, national, associative, political and European) to defend his/her interests once the system of five institutions is working properly.
19 April, 2010
Proliferation2: Why Europe should be tackling the ideological core of terrorism
As much as the EU, terrorists are likely to have set their own objectives for 2020. Are we prepared? How do you stop terrorists getting nuclear materials? At the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, the best that the presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers and other representatives from 47 states could agree on was a non-binding agreement. Europe's founding fathers said that a supranational solution was the most effective, but our leaders are not listening.
Is Washington's vague hope of internationalism sufficient to block a disaster? Will it guarantee Europeans their safety? Would you put your trust in the hope that some "businessman" somewhere was not willing to make a fortune selling whatever technology and materials terrorists needed? Would you trust governments with your life?
Some like Pakistan and its bomb-maker, Abdul Qadeer (A Q) Khan, loaded with the nation's highest honours, actively sought nuclear proliferation for ideological reasons. Khan admitted on national television that he had actively proliferated nuclear bomb technology and designs. But he did not act alone. Nothing could be done without governments and the military to build the bomb.
A Q Khan was trained in Germany, Belgium and above all Holland. He stole the secrets of uranium centrifuge techniques while working in the Netherlands. That careless nuclear security by Europeans has had disastrous results for us all.
Pakistani Government deals were made with China to get bomb plans. Pakistani officials then proliferated uranium technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and who knows who else. Libya was a big surprise to many when it confessed it had nuclear weapons. A ship had been inspected and was found to be loaded with Pakistani uranium centrifuges.
What of non-State terrorists with a fanatically destructive religio-political motive? Crude bomb plans were also found in an Al Qaida camp in Afghanistan.
"Terrorist networks such as al-Qaida have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded, they would surely use it," President Barak Hussein Obama told the Washington Nuclear Security Summit. "Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world, causing extraordinary loss of life and striking a major blow to global peace and stability."
Look what terrorist groups did without atomic weapons. Eleven Saudi young men (and one from the Emirates) died in the four planes aimed at Washington and New York on 9/11. For this suicide mission they did not have to spend millions for their weapons. They did not import complicated technology. For the cost of a few dollars they caused damage estimated at equivalent to knocking out major countries of the EU.
How? cheap knives for opening cardboard boxes. The world market economy itself can be rapidly cut to ribbons by the hands of suicide bombers wielding cheap box knives. The events of 11 September 2001, make it clear that the profitable functioning of a global market is itself the TARGET of suicide fanatics. The opposition for them is the market of the world devourers and US power.
The well-organized destruction of the market and self-destruction of a "consumer" defy the very premises of economic logic usually employed in internationalism. (Economics and trade sanctions is based on the materialist premise of personal economic benefit).
Nonetheless, suicide for religio-political motives affects the market and will continue to threaten the market into the foreseeable future. A score of 'consumers' having bought a few dollars worth of box knives caused an immediate $100 billion worth of damage to New York.
Reuters reported the loss of value in one week on the New York Stock Exchange as $1.2 Trillion. Then as the truth sank in, US stock values plunged with a loss of $6.6 Trillion over the previous 18 months, in parallel with the sudden oil price hike. This sum, said Reuters, was equivalent to the combined economies of Japan, Germany and France.
This was foreseeable. In 1998 Osama bin Laden together with Jihadist groups in Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh, announced their intentions in a 'Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders' (that is the West). Terrorists are interested in far more than the market. Anyone who calls the West 'Crusaders' has a complicated and erroneous agenda.
The most important factor is not the weapon, the box knives. It was the ideology. What motivates the decision of young people to die in what they considered martyrdom? In reality it was nothing other than the manipulation of their minds and their inability to understand truth. Why were they fired up with a corresponding ideological hatred of the West?
Europe must decide. Is it going to continue to be a victim of threats of violence? Will its foreign policy be dictated by violence and blackmail? Or will it reassert its values on open discussion, debate and in-depth analysis of the flaws of such religio-political ideologies aimed at domination.
The religio-political ideology at the core of Europe's present danger is much more insidious than the Soviet ideology of dialectical materialism. That saw Europe threatened by both internally fomented violence, atomic warfare and the lies about a unreal, workers' paradise. It fell apart because of communism's internal contradictions, lack of logic and moral bankruptcy. It took some brave people to stand up against it, both inside and outside the Iron Curtain. The same could be said about Hitler's violence and Nazi propaganda, his ersatz for truth.
Truth will out. Today we need to expose the lies about suicide bombers' false paradise in an open discussion with all the institutions of Europe's democracy. Terrorists are sometimes ignorant and ill-educated on what they profess to be their main motivation: Islam and the Koran. This ignorance represents a major danger to the rest of us. Bad Islamic theology, unreason and prejudice has to be tackled and dismantled as Communism was -- by exposing its fallacies and untruth. Europeans must make clear that threats and violence are not an acceptable alternative to debate. For that challenge Europe must strengthen its own physical, mental and spiritual resources.
Euratom with its huge potential for democratic involvement and a supranational Community must be a fundamental part of this debate. It deals more than controlling nuclear proliferation but democracy, the rule of law, human values, serving one another, the basis of any sane society.
Is Washington's vague hope of internationalism sufficient to block a disaster? Will it guarantee Europeans their safety? Would you put your trust in the hope that some "businessman" somewhere was not willing to make a fortune selling whatever technology and materials terrorists needed? Would you trust governments with your life?
Some like Pakistan and its bomb-maker, Abdul Qadeer (A Q) Khan, loaded with the nation's highest honours, actively sought nuclear proliferation for ideological reasons. Khan admitted on national television that he had actively proliferated nuclear bomb technology and designs. But he did not act alone. Nothing could be done without governments and the military to build the bomb.
A Q Khan was trained in Germany, Belgium and above all Holland. He stole the secrets of uranium centrifuge techniques while working in the Netherlands. That careless nuclear security by Europeans has had disastrous results for us all.
Pakistani Government deals were made with China to get bomb plans. Pakistani officials then proliferated uranium technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and who knows who else. Libya was a big surprise to many when it confessed it had nuclear weapons. A ship had been inspected and was found to be loaded with Pakistani uranium centrifuges.
What of non-State terrorists with a fanatically destructive religio-political motive? Crude bomb plans were also found in an Al Qaida camp in Afghanistan.
"Terrorist networks such as al-Qaida have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded, they would surely use it," President Barak Hussein Obama told the Washington Nuclear Security Summit. "Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world, causing extraordinary loss of life and striking a major blow to global peace and stability."
Look what terrorist groups did without atomic weapons. Eleven Saudi young men (and one from the Emirates) died in the four planes aimed at Washington and New York on 9/11. For this suicide mission they did not have to spend millions for their weapons. They did not import complicated technology. For the cost of a few dollars they caused damage estimated at equivalent to knocking out major countries of the EU.
How? cheap knives for opening cardboard boxes. The world market economy itself can be rapidly cut to ribbons by the hands of suicide bombers wielding cheap box knives. The events of 11 September 2001, make it clear that the profitable functioning of a global market is itself the TARGET of suicide fanatics. The opposition for them is the market of the world devourers and US power.
The well-organized destruction of the market and self-destruction of a "consumer" defy the very premises of economic logic usually employed in internationalism. (Economics and trade sanctions is based on the materialist premise of personal economic benefit).
Nonetheless, suicide for religio-political motives affects the market and will continue to threaten the market into the foreseeable future. A score of 'consumers' having bought a few dollars worth of box knives caused an immediate $100 billion worth of damage to New York.
Reuters reported the loss of value in one week on the New York Stock Exchange as $1.2 Trillion. Then as the truth sank in, US stock values plunged with a loss of $6.6 Trillion over the previous 18 months, in parallel with the sudden oil price hike. This sum, said Reuters, was equivalent to the combined economies of Japan, Germany and France.
This was foreseeable. In 1998 Osama bin Laden together with Jihadist groups in Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh, announced their intentions in a 'Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders' (that is the West). Terrorists are interested in far more than the market. Anyone who calls the West 'Crusaders' has a complicated and erroneous agenda.
The most important factor is not the weapon, the box knives. It was the ideology. What motivates the decision of young people to die in what they considered martyrdom? In reality it was nothing other than the manipulation of their minds and their inability to understand truth. Why were they fired up with a corresponding ideological hatred of the West?
Europe must decide. Is it going to continue to be a victim of threats of violence? Will its foreign policy be dictated by violence and blackmail? Or will it reassert its values on open discussion, debate and in-depth analysis of the flaws of such religio-political ideologies aimed at domination.
The religio-political ideology at the core of Europe's present danger is much more insidious than the Soviet ideology of dialectical materialism. That saw Europe threatened by both internally fomented violence, atomic warfare and the lies about a unreal, workers' paradise. It fell apart because of communism's internal contradictions, lack of logic and moral bankruptcy. It took some brave people to stand up against it, both inside and outside the Iron Curtain. The same could be said about Hitler's violence and Nazi propaganda, his ersatz for truth.
Truth will out. Today we need to expose the lies about suicide bombers' false paradise in an open discussion with all the institutions of Europe's democracy. Terrorists are sometimes ignorant and ill-educated on what they profess to be their main motivation: Islam and the Koran. This ignorance represents a major danger to the rest of us. Bad Islamic theology, unreason and prejudice has to be tackled and dismantled as Communism was -- by exposing its fallacies and untruth. Europeans must make clear that threats and violence are not an acceptable alternative to debate. For that challenge Europe must strengthen its own physical, mental and spiritual resources.
Euratom with its huge potential for democratic involvement and a supranational Community must be a fundamental part of this debate. It deals more than controlling nuclear proliferation but democracy, the rule of law, human values, serving one another, the basis of any sane society.
14 April, 2010
Nuclear Proliferation: "The entire free world is threatened" -- German Chancellor Merkel. When will Europe act?
“A nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian President who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and denies Israel the right to exist is not acceptable. Not only Israel but the entire free world is threatened. This is why the free world is meeting this threat head on, if necessary with tough economic sanctions.”
Those are the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was addressing both houses of the U.S. Congress on November 3, 2009. Her warning about religiously-motivated nuclear proliferation by Iran was enthusiastically applauded by Congress.
Yet Europe seems happy to supply the knife to cut its own throat. The astute international author and commentator Matthias Kuentzel says much of the high technology for producing such weapons of mass death comes from Europe.
'According to the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran, two thirds of Iranian industrial enterprises and three quarters of its small and medium-sized firms use machines and systems of German origin. As Berlin’s Federal Agency for Foreign Trade affirmed in 2007, Germany is still Iran’s No. 1 supplier of almost all types of machinery apart from power systems and construction, where Italian manufacturers dominate the market.'
When is such free trade, stupidity and suicidal? Should Europe be supplying Iran with instruments for the death of the West? Who in Brussels is listening while the regime and the crowds shout 'Death to the Great Satan' or 'the world devourers' -- USA, Britain and Europe? They have been shouting that for THIRTY years.
An aggressive Shiite State willing to acquire and use nuclear arms is not only a problem to the West but all surrounding countries. What does the leader of Egypt's 78 million people say? President Mubarak warned the Muslim neighbouring countries of the plans of the sectarian leaders of the Iranian Islamic Republic. "The Persians are trying to devour the Arab states," he said. “A nuclear armed Iran with hegemonic ambitions is the greatest threat to Arab nations today,” Mubarak told the Arab Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last year,
'We must prepare ourselves to rule the world,' President Ahmadinejad declared in the holy city of Qom. The possible Iranian use the Bomb depends on their religious and ideological framework. Arguments based on commerce or western economics alone will not be effective. What use is it to persuade someone that his goods will be cheaper or dearer if he is preparing for religious suicide? His motivation is ideological, not financial. Moreover he is paying some terrorist to kill you, or maybe he will do it himself for the fictitious physical pleasures of a doctrinaire afterlife.
The hegemonic leadership principle, velayat-e-fiqih, is a sort of dictatorship of the "enlightened leaders' -- namely the revolutionary ayatollahs who have seized power, killed and tortured opponents. (This is as hypocritical and illogical as the 'dictatorship of the workers' being defined by the top leaders of the Soviet Communist party.)
They are training and funding terror groups around the world. And the oil-rich Iranian leaders are not only on an accelerated nuclear programme but building long-range missile systems at enormous cost and sacrifice. For what purpose? Who is threatening them?
The sectarian view of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is that the most important task of the Iranian Revolution must be to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared/ died in 874. Why? Because he was the last physical descendant of Muhammad and that is important for Shiite doctrine.
To believe that one can conjure up the dead by death threats to others -- the West, 'dissident' Islamic regions, a further genocide of Jews or religious destruction of non-believers -- is bound to lead the world to a disaster of unprecedented proportions. False ideology can only be countered by an effective counter ideology. That involves reason and truth, to use an old-fashioned word.
This Twelfth Imam is called the Mahdi “divinely guided one.” Shiites believe, he will be victorious in many great battles. He will 'guide' (some opponents say 'distort') the Hebrew and Christian scriptures for his own purposes. The Shiites say his forces will defeat the 'forces of evil' and bring about a new era in which Islam ultimately becomes the dominant religion throughout the world. The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the Twelfth Imam for more than a millennium. Waiting is not an aggressive act. But Ahmadinejad and other religio-political leaders believe they can now hasten the return through a nuclear war and funding terrorism and strife.
This religious ideology in world politics distinguishes Iran from other governments with nuclear weapons. Why? because it seems to encourage even the destruction of the planet as a religious duty.
The doctrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary founder of the State, is taught in schoolbooks: “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom, which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”
Not all Shiites agree with Khomeini, Ahmedinejad or the present theology of the ruling, sectarian ayatollahs. Some consider them to be not only politically but theologically in great error. Yet the Council of Ministers was fooled by its disinformation. This was only exposed by strong action of the European Parliament. MEPs took the Council of Ministers to Court, time after time, until they saw reason. Iran still has an unholy mix of Soviet centralism and Shiite Islam striving for world hegemony. The European Court ruling does not eliminate Europe's danger as many peace-seeking believers are side-lined and out of power.
The fact is that Europe is facing great dangers and seems far from applying the solution for peace that the Founding Fathers gave to Europe more than half a century ago.
Those are the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was addressing both houses of the U.S. Congress on November 3, 2009. Her warning about religiously-motivated nuclear proliferation by Iran was enthusiastically applauded by Congress.
Yet Europe seems happy to supply the knife to cut its own throat. The astute international author and commentator Matthias Kuentzel says much of the high technology for producing such weapons of mass death comes from Europe.
'According to the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran, two thirds of Iranian industrial enterprises and three quarters of its small and medium-sized firms use machines and systems of German origin. As Berlin’s Federal Agency for Foreign Trade affirmed in 2007, Germany is still Iran’s No. 1 supplier of almost all types of machinery apart from power systems and construction, where Italian manufacturers dominate the market.'
When is such free trade, stupidity and suicidal? Should Europe be supplying Iran with instruments for the death of the West? Who in Brussels is listening while the regime and the crowds shout 'Death to the Great Satan' or 'the world devourers' -- USA, Britain and Europe? They have been shouting that for THIRTY years.
An aggressive Shiite State willing to acquire and use nuclear arms is not only a problem to the West but all surrounding countries. What does the leader of Egypt's 78 million people say? President Mubarak warned the Muslim neighbouring countries of the plans of the sectarian leaders of the Iranian Islamic Republic. "The Persians are trying to devour the Arab states," he said. “A nuclear armed Iran with hegemonic ambitions is the greatest threat to Arab nations today,” Mubarak told the Arab Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last year,
'We must prepare ourselves to rule the world,' President Ahmadinejad declared in the holy city of Qom. The possible Iranian use the Bomb depends on their religious and ideological framework. Arguments based on commerce or western economics alone will not be effective. What use is it to persuade someone that his goods will be cheaper or dearer if he is preparing for religious suicide? His motivation is ideological, not financial. Moreover he is paying some terrorist to kill you, or maybe he will do it himself for the fictitious physical pleasures of a doctrinaire afterlife.
The hegemonic leadership principle, velayat-e-fiqih, is a sort of dictatorship of the "enlightened leaders' -- namely the revolutionary ayatollahs who have seized power, killed and tortured opponents. (This is as hypocritical and illogical as the 'dictatorship of the workers' being defined by the top leaders of the Soviet Communist party.)
They are training and funding terror groups around the world. And the oil-rich Iranian leaders are not only on an accelerated nuclear programme but building long-range missile systems at enormous cost and sacrifice. For what purpose? Who is threatening them?
The sectarian view of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is that the most important task of the Iranian Revolution must be to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared/ died in 874. Why? Because he was the last physical descendant of Muhammad and that is important for Shiite doctrine.
To believe that one can conjure up the dead by death threats to others -- the West, 'dissident' Islamic regions, a further genocide of Jews or religious destruction of non-believers -- is bound to lead the world to a disaster of unprecedented proportions. False ideology can only be countered by an effective counter ideology. That involves reason and truth, to use an old-fashioned word.
This Twelfth Imam is called the Mahdi “divinely guided one.” Shiites believe, he will be victorious in many great battles. He will 'guide' (some opponents say 'distort') the Hebrew and Christian scriptures for his own purposes. The Shiites say his forces will defeat the 'forces of evil' and bring about a new era in which Islam ultimately becomes the dominant religion throughout the world. The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the Twelfth Imam for more than a millennium. Waiting is not an aggressive act. But Ahmadinejad and other religio-political leaders believe they can now hasten the return through a nuclear war and funding terrorism and strife.
This religious ideology in world politics distinguishes Iran from other governments with nuclear weapons. Why? because it seems to encourage even the destruction of the planet as a religious duty.
The doctrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary founder of the State, is taught in schoolbooks: “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom, which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”
Not all Shiites agree with Khomeini, Ahmedinejad or the present theology of the ruling, sectarian ayatollahs. Some consider them to be not only politically but theologically in great error. Yet the Council of Ministers was fooled by its disinformation. This was only exposed by strong action of the European Parliament. MEPs took the Council of Ministers to Court, time after time, until they saw reason. Iran still has an unholy mix of Soviet centralism and Shiite Islam striving for world hegemony. The European Court ruling does not eliminate Europe's danger as many peace-seeking believers are side-lined and out of power.
The fact is that Europe is facing great dangers and seems far from applying the solution for peace that the Founding Fathers gave to Europe more than half a century ago.
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