Mass Demonstrations across India and Pakistan Condemn War Criminal Bush

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Mass Demonstrations across India and Pakistan Condemn War Criminal Bush

What Kind of Human Rights Council Is the US Trying to Impose? A New Blow to Multilateralism

United States:
Bush's War Plan Includes the Use of Nuclear Weapons

Venezuela:
Workers Confront Latest US Scheme of Aggression

Hundreds of thousands of people across India and Pakistan are participating in demonstrations against the visit of US President George W Bush to South Asia from March 1-4.

Demonstration in New Delhi

Streets of New Delhi were a sea of white and black flags and banners demanding "Bush Go Home" in three days of protests. Demonstrations were also held in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata amongst many other cities.

A nation-wide strike was held in Pakistan March 3, closing down businesses and schools. Actions are also being held in cities across the country. The main rally is planned for March 4 in Islamabad.

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, Havana, February 28, 2006

We are bearing witness to a new blow to multilateralism and to the United Nations. The United States is threatening to call for a vote and to vote against the draft resolution presented on February 23 by the President of the UN General Assembly, with the aim of establishing the form of the Human Rights Council, a body that is to replace the current Human Rights Commission. As is known, the said Commission ended up completely discredited due to the political manipulation imposed on its labours by the Bush administration and its allies and accomplices in the European Union.

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations – imposed by the White House hawks against the will of the US Congress – announced yesterday Monday, February 27, that he had received instructions to reopen negotiations in regard to the draft, adding that if there were attempts to adopt a decision on it in its current content, he would call for a vote and vote against it.

What is paradoxical in all of this is that the draft resolution, officially circulated today February 28, was meticulously conceived and negotiated behind the scenes with Washington’s representatives precisely to accommodate the superpower’s central demands, knowing that these would not have the majority support of the members of the United Nations.

In the months that have gone by during the current process, the United States and its allies have exerted strong pressures on many Third World governments aimed at breaking their resistance to this new confabulation. The Cuba Mission to the United Nations exposed the danger of the consummation of this manoeuvre in a press release distributed last February 20.

The only "argument" of the Bush Administration is threat. Its thesis cannot withstand debate. What kind of a Human Rights Council is the United States trying to impose?

• One in which its members would be subjected to requirements and conditions of such a nature that joining it would be impossible for the countries placed on the front line of resistance against the aggressive and hegemonic actions of the empire at global level. The United States is trying to have it believed that the discredit of the HRC is the consequence of the presence on the Commission of countries like Cuba, when it is well known that, on the contrary, it was the politically motivated manoeuvres promoted by Washington and the European Union, such as the unjust anti-Cuban exercise, which put paid to the Commission’s credibility. Let us recall that, additionally, the United States was not elected to the Human Rights Commission in 2001, voted out by the majority of the world for its impositions and manipulations.

• One which would suffer a reduction of the current 53 countries represented in the Human Rights Commission. They are talking about a "more manageable" body, that is, a smaller one that will allow them to concentrate their pressure on fewer members, to increase its impact and make it more effective. In other words, they want a Council which they can "manage" better, without the presence of those who, like Cuba, call things by their name and defend, above all, the principles and dignity of the peoples.

• One in which the requirement of the support of two-thirds of the members of the General Assembly would be imposed on candidate countries. In this way, they are trying to guarantee for themselves – with the conspiratorial support of a clear minority of their close allies and those who are subordinated to their dictates – the power to veto candidates who would obstruct the control that they intend to gain on the labours of this body. The imposition of this requirement, which is only applied to election to the principal UN agencies, which is not the case of the Human Rights Council, would allow a minority of 64 states to block the candidature of any aspirant.

• One with ample punitive powers and sanctioning capacity against the countries of the South, as opposed to international cooperation on human rights issues, a function that the UN Charter assigns to the institutions concerned with this issue. In the new council both the United States and the European Union will go ahead with their traditional exercises of political manipulation against the developing countries. No wonder they refuse to even consider the establishment of clear criteria equally binding on all at the point of presenting resolutions on countries.

• One in which members assuming a dissident position in the face of the empire’s ploys and impositions would be subjected to the permanent risk of having their rights suspended due to the pride, rancour and arrogance of the superpower.

• One that would have close ties to the Security Council, an anti-democratic body on which the United States imposes its conditions as the only superpower.

• One that would not have an express mandate to undertake in a prioritised manner the realisation of the right to development, a key demand of the great majority of humankind. One that cannot adopt effective decisions against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related forms of intolerance. One that focus its work on civil and political rights as understood by Washington and which serves, among other things, to legitimate torture, which the theoreticians and hawks of Washington have devoted so much time to justifying.

Is it maybe that the draft resolution might be contrary to Washington’s interests?

On the contrary. The resolution endorses the reduction of the number of members of the main body of human rights of the United Nations, from 53 to 47 members; increases the minimum required votes to elect a candidate to 96; maintains the possibility to impose resolutions against countries of the South, without respecting any criteria. It also enables the suspension of the members of the Council with the support of two thirds of the members present and voting in an official meeting of the General Assembly, without establishing a minimum required limit; it opens the possibility for countries of the South in the future, to face the permanent danger of being condemned through a resolution, and also to be deprived from their rights in the Council. It makes it possible for the Council to respond in an expeditious way to so-called human rights emergencies which, according to the self-appointed masters of the world, only take place in the South. However, these provisions will not apply to the serious, mass and sustained violations of human rights at the detention centre on the Guantánamo base, the brutal torture at Abu Ghraib or the transfer of detainees on secret CIA flights through the civilised and democratic Europe to be tortured; and it makes possible extraordinary meetings of the Council based on the minority will of one third of its members.

Is there any way of describing the draft resolution submitted by the President of the General Assembly as a text benefiting the interests of the developing countries to the detriment of the interests of Washington? Absolutely not. Of the draft’s 28 paragraphs, not one is directed at promoting concrete actions to overcome the obstacles created by the current international order to the realisation of the objective of human rights for all, as established in Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not one paragraph is completely devoted to the promotion of the right to development. The right to solidarity is not even mentioned. The right of peoples to peace did not receive the universal recognition that it merits in the draft resolution.

The main problem is not that the draft resolution is contrary, incompatible or that it simply does not guarantee the interests of stability, credibility and legitimacy required by the plan of global domination designed by the imperialist circles holding power in the United States. The real motivation for the final onslaught of the current US administration in negotiations over the Human Rights Council is to show its will and capability to impose – even through the use of blatant threats – its conditions on the ongoing reform and reshaping of the international system represented by the United Nations. The neo-conservatives of the Bush administration have already initiated, at top speed, the process of implementing its plans for global domination expressed in the so-called Project for the New American Century.

Once again, Washington does not care about putting its allies and accomplices in the European Union in the ridiculous position of subordination to and imitative alignment with the superpower. After the latter publicly stated that they would lend themselves to a forced adoption of the draft resolution designed to accommodate Washington’s unpopular demands and their own interests, as spurious as those of their harsh tutor, as soon as Bolton’s threatening statements came to the fore, they have rushed to affirm that if Washington insists on its position, the creation of the Council should be postponed.

Thus, various European Union authorities have already stated that "it is not desirable to create a Council without the support of all the world’s democracies; therefore we have to try and draw the United States into our camp."

The empire’s European allies must already be hard at work try to obtain new concessions from the rest of the world to quench the Bush administration’s thirst for domination and plunder.

At the end of the day, their political and ideological interests are the same as those of Washington, which has thus given them to understand that their goals in Geneva cannot be met without the support of the United States.

By manipulating the universal interest in strengthening multilateralism, Washington, its allies and other governments vulnerable to pressure from the United States, are trying to continue imposing their conditions by compelling the rest of the nations to abandon their indispensable defence of the central principles of the international system.

Multilateralism can only work on the basis of respect for the equal sovereignty of states. A United Nations Organisation that would allow the superpower to act as it likes in the implementation of its hegemonic appetite and selfish interests would not be feasible.

In a constructive spirit and with total transparency Cuba has been actively participating in the debates on the reform of the Human Rights Commission. It has submitted numerous proposals at the successive stages of the process, most of them based on language previously agreed upon in the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993, or in successive resolutions of the Human Rights Commission and the General Assembly.

Cuba will continue working in order to have those aspects that were unjustly disregarded against the will of the majority of the states of the South duly included in the draft resolution, on which the General Assembly should make a statement. Those omissions are a serious attempt against the possibility of ensuring the creation of a Human Rights Council whose work is based on genuine dialogue.

Cuba has worked hard to prevent the problems that put paid to the credibility of the HRC from being transferred to the new body. Our country will not be an accomplice to the silent consummation of a new conspiracy in the making between Washington and its principal Western allies against the interests of the peoples of the South.

Cuba will maintain its firm denunciation of this new attack on the international system and the interests of the countries of the South, and will act, according to the circumstances, in defence of justice, international law and that so much needed international cooperation in favour of promoting and protecting all human rights for all nations and peoples.

Jack A Smith, Hudson Valley NY Activist Newsletter, February 9, 2006

The United States government is preparing for an eventual nuclear war with a determination approximating Cold War standards, but this time with an expressed pre-emptive first-strike option against even non-nuclear countries.

During the 15 years following the implosion of the Soviet Union, Washington has been upgrading the efficiency and kill power of its 10,000 warhead nuclear arsenal, and has been modernising its delivery fleet of ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines, warships and bombers. Many aging weapons have been eliminated since the Cold War, but new and more deadly instruments of mass destruction have already been deployed, with many more on the way.

The anticipated "peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War never materialised except in the paradoxical configuration of a profitable war dividend for the military-industrial complex, a large portion of which is derived from nuclear weapons and various support systems.

"The United States continues to spend billions of dollars annually to maintain and upgrade its nuclear forces," according to an article titled "US Nuclear Forces 2006" in the January-February issue of the prestigious Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "It is deploying a larger and more accurate pre-emptive nuclear strike capability in the Asia-Pacific region, and shifting its doctrine toward targeting US strategic nuclear forces against 'weapons of mass destruction' complexes and command centres.

"The Defence Department is upgrading its nuclear strike plans to reflect new presidential guidance and a transition in war planning from the top-heavy Single Integrated Operational Plan of the Cold War to a family of smaller and more flexible strike plans designed to defeat today's adversaries. The new central strategic war plan is known as OPLAN (Operations Plan) 8044."

In a chilling and ambiguous statement before the release of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR), Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained the plan as the product of "thinking about the 21st century in a way that's different from the 20th century.... We're trying to figure out how you conduct a war against something other than a nation-state and how ... you conduct a war in countries that you are not at war with."

The Pentagon expects the so-called War on Terrorism, which it has just officially renamed the "Long War", to last at least 20 years, according to a statement to the American Forces Press Service Jan. 25 by Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, assistant to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In his statement he equated the Long War against a relative handful of opponents to the Cold War between the two superpowers.

Odierno was speaking about the use of unconventional "special operations" during the new-type conflict, referring to a "holistic concept" but evidently not mentioning nuclear weapons in his interview. Obviously, the new war plan at least in part is intended to avoid another defeat such as US forces have experienced in the Iraq War. Full-scale ground invasions do not appear to loom large in 20-Year-War planning.

The Pentagon remains prepared as usual to fight two major wars and a couple of insurgencies simultaneously. But its new type of "full scale dominance" over terrorism focuses on special operations, special military forces, an electronic battlefield, ground and air robots, communications and surveillance mastery, control of the skies and space, political and economic subversion, sanctions, assassinations, a worldwide propaganda apparatus, and, now, the pièce de résistance – precision nuclear attacks when desired.

The militarist mind perceives two anticipated advantages to this new plan: (1) It will require far fewer "boots on the ground", and (2) the specific mini-wars within the Long War will be brief. The fewer the "boots", the fewer the grumblings by the American people about GI deaths; the briefer the engagement, the less likely it will be remembered a week later by a nation absorbed in trivia, commerce, consumerism, and a strong attachment to being Number One in the world.

Gen. Richard B. Meyers testified about the new plan in Senate hearings last April. He said that the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which directs global and space strike operations, "has revised our strategic deterrence and response plan that became effective in the fall of 2004. This revised, detailed plan provides more flexible options to assure allies, and dissuade, deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range of contingencies."

One aspect of the OPLAN's global strike scenario is CONPLAN 8022, which the Bulletin article describes as "a concept plan for the quick use of nuclear, conventional, or information warfare capabilities to destroy – pre-emptively, if necessary – 'time-urgent targets' anywhere in the world.... As a result, the Bush administration's pre-emption policy is now operational on long-range bombers, strategic submarines on deterrent patrol, and presumably intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)."

Pre-emption in concert with a nuclear first strike became implicit US policy in the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in late 2001 and has become more explicit since then. During the Cold War, the USSR pledged never to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a first strike against nuclear or non-nuclear states, but the US stubbornly refused to follow suit.

Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert and project director at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote the following of CONPLAN in last September's Arms Control Today: "Foremost among the doctrine's new features are the incorporation of pre-emption into US nuclear doctrine and the integration of conventional weapons and missile defences into strategic planning.... The new nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the United States will not necessarily wait for the attack but pre-empt with nuclear weapons if necessary."

One of the several reasons the Pentagon may use nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive attack, Kristensen said, is as a "demonstration of US intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use". Theoretically, had the plan been in full operation at the time, President George W. Bush could have let loose nuclear weapons against Iraq under the false assumption that it possessed WMD and was preparing to attack America. (Bush in October 2002: "Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction .... [and who] is exploring ways of using [aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States.")

According to military affairs expert William Arkin writing in the Washington Post May 15 last year, CONPLAN authorises "for the first time a pre-emptive and offensive strike capability against Iran and North Korea.... The global strike plan holds the nuclear option in reserve if intelligence suggests an 'imminent' launch of an enemy nuclear strike on the US or if there is a need to destroy hard-to-reach targets." Iran does not possess nuclear weapons and insists that it will never build them (D.P.R. Korea may have one or two small weapons without an effective delivery system to reach the US or an intention to use them.). CONPLAN thus entertains the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, an explicit violation of the 1970 nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) – pre-emptively, and thus illegally, at that.

Commenting on Tomdispatch.com 10 days after Arkin's revelations, long-time anti-nuclear analyst Jonathan Schell declared: "In a shocking innovation in American nuclear policy ... the administration has created and placed on continuous high alert a force whereby the president can launch a pinpoint strike, including a nuclear strike, anywhere on earth with a few hours' notice.... These actions make operational a revolution in US nuclear policy."

Washington does not publicly disclose the names of the "adversaries" against whom such nuclear weapons are aimed. Bush Administration and Pentagon documents usually refer to "rogue states", and "terrorists", but this seems to be a deception. It is absurd to suggest that the world's strongest conventional and nuclear military power will be threatened by any of the so-called "rogue states", all of which are spectacularly weaker than the US.

As far as the co-called War on Terrorism and terrorists are concerned, even if a small atomic device could be acquired and hand-delivered by al-Qaeda to a target in the US – a most unlikely event – what use is America's huge nuclear arsenal against a suicidal fanatic with a weapon of any kind and no state to retaliate against?

The only rational explanation for Washington's continual modernisation of its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems is (1) to remain the planet's sole superpower against all competitors including China and the European Union, and (2) to extend US military, economic and political hegemony throughout the entire world to the point of creating a 21st century American Empire. (For those who blanch at the suggestion of empire, note that even Jimmy Carter, as you will see below, now deplores the quest for "American imperial dominance", a formulation that could have been lifted from the pages of Monthly Review.)

Even though there are irrefutable indications that Russia and D.P.R. Korea remain among the states foremost in the Pentagon's nuclear bombsights, as undoubtedly do Iran, Syria and others, China has become the principal target – not because it is a military threat but as a potential economic and geopolitical rival of the first magnitude.

China, which is itself threatened by the nuclear potential of American air bases in close proximity (thanks to the spoils of the Afghan war), the hellfire of ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles from the US, and the brimstone of submarine-launched missiles from the Pacific, is expected to overtake the US as the world's leading economic power in 35 to 40 years. Nuclear weapons intimidate as well as kill, and there may come a time when China will have to be "put in its place" one way or the other.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, written by Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, states the following: "During the past few years, the navy has significantly changed the homeporting of SSBNs [nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines] to meet new planning requirements.... The primary goal of the shift is to increase coverage of targets in China, according to navy officials. (Pacific-based SSBNs also target Russia and North Korea.)."

Until 2002, the US maintained 10 SSBNs in the Atlantic and four in the Pacific. Today there are nine missile submarines in the Pacific and five in the Atlantic. By 2008, the fleet of 14 SSBNs will share 336 Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles armed with 2,000 nuclear warheads. These ballistic missiles deliver their deadly payload faster than land- or air-launched missiles.

Launching the programme to cover the Pacific Rim with the improved Tridents, Rear Adm. Charles B. Young declared in August 2002 that the move "enhances system accuracy, payload, and hard-target capability, thus improving [US] available responses to existing and emerging Pacific theatre threats". Once again, those "threats" were unspecified.

Advance reports about the Pentagon's QDR indicate that the Navy's "greater presence in the Pacific Ocean" includes a permanent increase to at least six aircraft carriers – half the fleet. The report also requests the "return to a steady-state production rate of two attack submarines per year not later than 2012". Each submarine costs a minimum of $2 billion. In all probability, most of the new subs will prowl Pacific waters.

In addition to nuclear warheads, the Pentagon seeks to install 96 conventional warheads on 26 of its multiple-warhead Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles. The reason, Bloomburg News reported Jan. 17, "is to allow quicker pre-emptive attacks on deeply buried enemy command centres or stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)". William Arkin has written, "This weapon would give the US global conventional pre-emption – a first-strike capability – in 30 minutes to attack North Korean or Iranian WMD or leadership facilities." He posits that ballistic missile submarines are now "the front line of US offensive capabilities".

The Pentagon has scrapped its obsolete ground-based MX Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles, but is strengthening its Minuteman III force of 500 missiles with perhaps 800 warheads. Modernisation of the Minuteman, according to the Bulletin article, "continues under an ambitious $7 billion-$8 billion, six-part programme intended to improve the missile's accuracy and reliability and extend its service life beyond 2020". The Air Force is developing an entirely new ICBM which it hopes to have ready in 2018.

The US has recently modernised its fleet of long-range nuclear bombers, the B-2A Spirit and the B-52H Stratofortress. "Neither bomber is maintained on day-to-day alert as during the Cold War," report Norris and Kristensen, "yet the alert level has increased with the recent tasking of bomber wings in Global Strike missions." By 2018, according to the QDR draft, the Pentagon desires to "develop a new land-based penetrating long-range strike capability.

These bombers carry a mix of nuclear weapons ranging in size from 10 kilotons to 1.2 megatons. One nuclear kiloton emits the energy equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT. A 1.2 megaton bomb is the energy equivalent of 1.2 million tons (2.4 billion pounds) of TNT.

To convey what this means in practice we will quote from an article by Conn Hallinan that appeared on Portside Feb. 1. He was discussing the primitive atom bomb named "Little Boy" with the power of 13 kilotons that the U.S dropped from a B-29 named "Enola Gay" on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, a day that, like the Holocaust, must happen "never again": "The fireball that consumed Hiroshima reached 18 million degrees in one millionth of a second. It evaporated 68% of the city, demolishing structures built to withstand an 8.5 earthquake. It charred trees five miles from ground zero, blew out windows 17 miles from the city's centre, and killed 100,000 people [almost all civilians] in a single blow. Another 100,000 plus would follow in the months ahead."

By comparison, the most powerful weapon used against the US occupation army by the resistance in Iraq is the IED (improvised explosive device) – a homemade "roadside" bomb with only a few pounds of explosive material. The biggest ever of these weapons contained about 200 pounds of TNT.

Even so, they have been effective enough for the new Pentagon budget to allocate spending over $3.3 billion, following a previous $2 billon, to devise a deterrent to IEDs, which so far has proved elusive. As the Pentagon invests astronomical billions on a technologically awesome array of modern mechanisms of death and destruction, it may be useful to recall that the operative weapon used to commandeer airplanes for the suicide missions of Sept. 11, 2001, was a dozen or so box cutters that cost a couple of dollars each – but we digress.

Considering Washington's calculated hysteria about Iran's desire to build nuclear power plants, which do not contravene the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is interesting to note that the US routinely violates the treaty in two major ways.

First, as mentioned earlier, it is contrary to the NPT to threaten non-nuclear states with nuclear weapons, as the US now does. Last Dec. 5, 16 Congressional Democrats sent a message of concern to President Bush about the new nuclear doctrine, which contained these words about the treaty: "This drastic shift in US nuclear policy threatens the very foundation of nuclear arms control as shaped by the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which has helped prevent nuclear proliferation for over 35 years. In the context of efforts to strengthen and extend the treaty, the United States issued a negative nuclear security assurance in 1978, reiterated in 1995, that the United States would not use nuclear force against NPT member countries without nuclear weapons unless attacked by a non nuclear-weapon state that is allied with a nuclear-weapon state."

Second, while pledging the nearly 180 non-nuclear nations which have signed the NPT to eschew developing nuclear weapons, the treaty further obliges the US, USSR, Britain, France and China to take steps toward nuclear disarmament. But according to David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: "The United States has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article VI of the NPT, requiring good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament – for more than 30 years. The United States [also] has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty."

By scoffing at the notion of nuclear disarmament in practice, by modernising its nuclear capability, and by embracing an aggressive first-strike policy, Washington is not only violating the NPT but is contributing toward the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "Nothing could be more calculated to goad other nations into nuclear proliferation," is how Jonathan Schell put it.

As long as the US maintains its huge arsenal, none of the eight other nuclear-enabled states is willing to significantly disarm. Meanwhile other countries begin to consider obtaining nuclear weapons as a defence against a possible American attack, a hardly illogical consequence of Washington's nuclear equivalent of sabre rattling. D.P.R. Korea's tiny nuclear capability, for example, was developed to defend itself against US threats, and as a bargaining chip in hopes of a negotiated peace with Washington, which never signed a peace treaty with Pyongyang after the Korean war almost 53 years ago. The USSR developed nuclear weapons because it feared Washington would vaporise Moscow the way it did Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lest it be forgotten that one of the principal reasons the US destroyed these two Japanese cities was as a warning to the non-nuclear Soviet Union. China obtained nuclear weapons for the same reason.

Britain and France built nuclear bombs so as not to be completely dominated by and dependent upon the reigning hegemon of the post-war capitalist world. India and Pakistan developed their weapons against each other, but the US has been winking and nodding toward them, just as it does toward Israel's nearly 200 nuclear weapons. These last three countries are in outright violation of the entire non-proliferation treaty, which they refuse to sign – and they remain American allies, while non-nuclear Iran is a potential nuclear target for the US and Israel for insisting on building a nuclear power station. Washington's hypocrisy about Iran's actions has reached the point on Feb. 4 where a spokesperson charged that Teheran was "threatening the world".

Arguing that the Bush Administration's Global Strike policy is a "negative trend for nuclear proliferation", Theresa Hitchens, a vice president at the Centre for Defence Information, noted in a 2003 report that the seeds for this policy were planted during the Clinton Administration. She was referring to then-Defence Secretary Les Aspin's "counter-proliferation" strategy, which was based on taking defensive and offensive measures against the acquisition of WMD by small countries. The use of US nuclear weapons in this endeavour was left open in what has been termed by the Arms Control Association as "strategic ambiguity".

Opposition to the Bush Administration's reckless nuclear strategy is generating domestic opposition but it is relatively small so far. There has been sufficient criticism, however, for the Pentagon on Feb. 2 to decide against publishing its long-delayed revised draft of the "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations", which was to provide a precise public statement on the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. Newspaper leaks over the last months, combined with some congressional opposition, convinced the Bush Administration to eliminate the report.

But as Hans Kristensen wrote for the Nuclear Information Project the day the report was withdrawn: "The decision to cancel the documents simply removes controversial documents from the public domain and from the Pentagon's internal reading list. The White House and Pentagon guidance that directs the use of nuclear weapons remains unchanged by the cancellation.

Former President Jimmy Carter has sharply condemned Bush's nuclear programme, which he implied was a product of US imperialism. On Nov. 20 he declared:

"There are determined efforts by US leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world. These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organisations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements, including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

"Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them and, therefore, abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms-control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of 'first use' of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space."

Since 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has featured a "Doomsday Clock" as part of its front cover. When and if the clock hands reach midnight, it will indicate that nuclear war is about to destroy the world. The worst years for the clock were when it reached three minutes to midnight in 1949, when the USSR joined the US as a nuclear power, and 1984 after President Ronald Reagan greatly accelerated the arms race.

The best year was 1991, when the Doomsday Clock was moved back to 17 minutes to midnight as the Cold War ended and the US and USSR signed the long-stalled Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) coupled with further unilateral cuts in tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. Soon afterward the Soviet Union dissolved, leading many Americans to believe that the US would finally get rid of its nuclear sword and shield "down by the riverside", but that was based on an unrealistic understanding of imperialism.

By 2002, the clock hands moved forward to 7 minutes before midnight – the same position it was in during the intense Cold War year of 1980 – mainly because the Bush Administration rejected a series of arms control treaties and said it would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The Doomsday clock has remained the same until now: too close to the utilisation of nuclear weapons for comfort, assuming one is even aware of the danger.

The great physicist, pacifist, and socialist Albert Einstein deeply regretted his intellectual contribution to the construction of nuclear weapons. (He had feared Nazi Germany would acquire them first.) In the post-Hiroshima years, Einstein was a strong advocate for complete nuclear disarmament until the day he died in 1955. In May 1946 he wrote, "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

The drift to catastrophe continues, less flagrantly than during the Cold War but no less potentially apocalyptic for being relatively covert. Washington has become considerably more aggressive now that the counter-balance of Moscow's powerful presence no longer exists. The size and content of America's nuclear arsenal, combined with its quest for world hegemony, and its unjust, illegal and immoral policy of pre-emptive war, have made the US the most dangerous state in world history.

The large activist US antiwar movement has essentially relegated the matter of nuclear weapons to a low priority 15 years after the end of the Cold War in order to concentrate on stopping the war in Iraq. But if we do not wish the hands of the Doomsday Clock to tick closer to midnight, it will be incumbent upon the peace forces to pay far more attention to Washington's disastrous nuclear policy.

A domestic constituency exists for complete nuclear disarmament. According to an Associated Press poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs 10 months ago, 66% of Americans believe no nation, including the US, should possess nuclear weapons. Polls in many nations are in agreement. Most people in the world fear nuclear weapons and want them destroyed.

The longer we wait, the longer "we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe". While continuing the struggle against the unjust Iraq adventure and the Pentagon's 20-year Long War, let's raise that fighting banner too long in disuse – Ban the Bomb! In the unforgettable words at the melancholy conclusion of "On the Beach", the popular 1959 anti-nuclear film, "There is still time". But it is ticking away, more quickly than we think.

On February 16, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for the formation of a front of countries to oppose Venezuela, claiming it is a destabilising influence and threat to its neighbours. Rice's declaration has been denounced and opposed throughout Latin America, including by the representatives of various governments. President Hugo Chavez has declared that while the US tries to form this front, Venezuela will form its own front of nations opposed to US imperialism. Venezuelan workers through their main labour central UNT issued the following statement February 17:

We, the Workers, Repudiate Imperialist Aggression against Venezuela

In the face of the declarations of the Secretary (of State) of the US empire, Condoleezza Rice

Venezuelan workers utterly reject the US empire's intention of promoting an International Front against Venezuela, all the more so since the intent is to manipulate the international community by stating it is necessary to support "the transport strike" supposedly underway in Venezuela, which exists only in the imagination and evil intentions of Bush's aggressor government.

This attempt to be seen to be supporting workers allegedly protesting against the legitimate and democratic government of President Chávez is an old trick the United States used in Chile when they promoted a truckers' strike against Allende's government. That was part of the plan leading to the coup d'etat and establishment of Pinochet's bloody dictatorship.

Thus, the workers respond emphatically in the face of this new aggression by the US empire. As was the case during the oil strike, we will not let them use and manipulate workers. We will oppose any attempt by the pro-coup and pro-imperialist employers' organisations to paralyse enterprises and services and pass this off as a workers' strike, in line with the US propaganda against the country.

We reject any attempt by company unions or employers disguised as workers who, as a part of a scheme designed in Washington, try to paralyse transportation precisely when working families are about to enjoy the Carnival vacation.

We call upon all country's labour centrals and organisations to unite their efforts against this new attempt at aggression against the workers. The National Union of Workers (UNT) will immediately call upon all the Latin American labour centrals to right away prepare an international response on the part of the workers against this reactionary scheme of imperialist aggression against Venezuela. We also call upon the workers of the United States and their labour organisations to reject this aggression and manipulation the Bush government wants to carry out against the workers and against Venezuela.

Reject this New Imperialist Aggression!
Defeat the Attempts at Sabotage Against the Country!
International Unity of the Workers to Block the Empire's Schemes Against Venezuela!
Bolivar's Homeland Must Be Respected!