Canada must prevent the prospects of World War III

U.S. presence in Iraqi region could trigger off "nuclear war" Professor wars

by Peter Chang

Should we as human beings be guided by wisdom associated with mutual respect for human rights and social justice toward peace? Or, should human beings instead, destroy themselves, by ignoring human rights, and choosing the path of militarism, over peace? Correspondingly, should the human race be inspired by the ideals of international law, associated with United Nations conventions? Or, should the human race continue to descend into a cycle of retribution associated with military provocations, that destroys the lives of men, women, children, and the ecosystems that sustain all life on our planet.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky in a published article about the U.S., Iraq, and Iran, warns of such a prospective nuclear war, unless there is a timely needed correction of dysfunctional U.S. foreign policy approaches. Michel Chossudovsky implicitly refers to continued American presence in Iraq as "de-stablising", as corroborated by a prospects of a worsening context for civil war in Iraq. He implicitly further presents the continued U.S. presence in Iraq as being an incentive for the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran in the first place.

According to Chossudovsky, the United States Congress ought to support a full military withdrawal of Iraq. Such a withdrawal should advisably be replaced by a "United Nations Peace Force". This "Peace Force" would be like a multi-national police-like entity, under the collective responsibility of the United Nations. Such a benevolent 'Peace Force' would remove a U.S. presence that is creating a culture of worsening violence, and dangerous regional instability.

A timely withdrawal by the United States from Iraq, and introduction of a United Nations peace making presences, would restore the rule of international law by the United Nations, toward corresponding Iraqi law and order, and remove any military incentive by Iran to seek nuclear weapons. Such a Peace Force would importantly seek to affirm a climate for human rights, and social justice, based upon a model of universal access to food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare. Unfortunately, the Iraq War as reported by many mass-media organizations, has presented an opportunity for U.S. commercial interests to unethically seek to profiteer from that Iraqi War, at the expense of fostering a vital social context that affirms peace.

The result of the apparent neglect to affirm human rights, and social justice, and a vital climate for full national sovereignty for the people of Iraq, apparently, according to Chossudovsky, is an ever worsening regional context of instability. The so-called "War of Terrorism" according to Chossudovsky and other activists, has become an apparent "War of Terror". In this "War of Terror", the loss of lives of Muslims, and other non-whites are being trivialized relative to the need to pursue a demonized enemy, à la George Orwell's book '1984'. In turn, Muslim groups (who view themselves as "freedom fighters" against an unwanted U.S. military presence, rather than terrorists), demonize all "Americans", and other peoples from "coalition partner" countries, as 'evil' infidels from barbaric regimes.

People in 'Western Societies' are being cajoled into surrendering their rights, to the very oppressive ideologies that these societies sought to prevent in a World War, that was started at that time by pre-emptive military invasion by Nazi Germany in World War II.

The worsening conditions for international insecurity ARE being created by the dysfunctional policy context of the so-called "War against Terrorism", which in turn is being used to legitimate the neo-fascist usurpation of human and civil rights in the U.S., and internationally.

America is a society that has been substantively propelled by great ideals associated with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". However, the United States was also created from a very violent Revolutionary war, which a multi-cultural constituency of United Empire Loyalists, who emigrated to Canada, sought to avoid.

America has enjoyed the principled leadership of many champions for that nation's constitutional ideals. These leaders sought to provide international leadership based upon the strength and power of American idealism, with the use of military force strictly in a defensive capacity à la World Wars I and II.

The America that re-built Europe after the ravages of World War II, inspired Americans including Dr. Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy toward a society that sought "equality and justice for all". That America recognized that a better life for all Americans is secured when the American ideals are defended, with words and passion rather than coercion and threats. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower who had also been guided by these ideals also referred to the threat of a "military-industrial" complex, against America's democratic fabric.

The current prevailing America, appears to have given up the multi-lateral consensus building power of American ideals, in favour of a path of political confrontation, and the sought use of military power, as a means to enforcing "unilateralism". In other words, America appears to be reverting to its violent Revolutionary foundations that United Empire Loyalists had sought to flee away from into Canada.

Americans collectively have, in the process, failed to protect the very idealistic values which their Republic was founded upon. Americans collectively are wilfully giving up their democratic values, to vested interests that seek to proselytize the cynical Orwellian demonization of a "common enemy", toward fascist police state social control.

"Free Speech" today in America, for example, is quickly becoming as diminished as Cold War Soviet Union, where citizens were also wiretapped, and subjected to ensuing police state harassment.

Canada is a society that was founded upon the rejection of a culture of violence that was symbolized by American's Revolutionary 'War of Independence', toward values of 'Peace, Order, and Good Government', as expressed in Confederation's founding Constitution.

Canada has traditionally sought to help moderate the tendencies toward unilateralist foreign policy in the United States. However, the Stephen Harper-led-Conservative minority government, and is being led by a group that seeks to turn Canadians away from their national identity as a socially progressive society, into a path of corresponding militarism. Such an untimely disastrous break from our vital national identity as a non-militaristic-peace seeking society, is removing a vital international check against the reversion of America into its violent militaristic foundations. It was these foundations, which made Canada endure multiple attempts by America to engage in pre-emptive military attacks, toward the take-over of Canada, that included the War of 1812.

Countries like Iran and other opportunistic political adversaries of the U.S, rightly or wrongly, now appear to perceive that America will pursue military action, irrespective of international consensus that is fostered by United Nations leadership. The result is that the Middle East, and Iraq as the geo-political epicentre, is becoming an increasingly dangerous militarized milieu, on the geo-political borders of five very wary nuclear powers. The perception of American 'unilaterlism' supported by the U.S. foreign policy precedence of the pre-emptive strike against Iraq, is creating a dangerous foreign policy prism. The perception that the U.S. will ultimately resort to a military objective to gets its own way, has created a perception among U.S. potential adversaries like Iran, of an "inevitable" nuclear 'military solution', one way or the other.

The seeking of nuclear technological capability by Iran appears to many American leaders and other leaders of western Industrialized societies as a race toward nuclear weapons. However, Professor Chossudovsky supports the hypothesis that this apparent race for nuclear weapons is being spawned by the precedence of the U.S. pre-emptive strike in Iraq based upon alleged weapons of mass-destructive, and the continued presence of these military forces that is being perceived as a provocation against the sovereignty of Muslim peoples.

The race to seek nuclear weapons by any country as the result of the perception of an immediate threat to its sovereignty by a political adversary, in theory, constitutes threatening conditions for nuclear war. Iran's reported seeking of nuclear weapons in the face of the perception of an imminent American military threat, in turn would theoretically create a very dangerous "jumpiness" among suspicious regional nuclear powers, like Pakistan, India, China, and Russia; as well as fanatical groups, with increasingly destructive capabilities, who are arming themselves against a U.S. presence. The only rational way to deal with the threat of a country like Iran from seeking to create nuclear weapons, is to remove the incentive to create nuclear weapons because of the perception of a U.S. threat to its national sovereignty.

U.S. political elites have expressed concern about the threat that Iran would pose it was "allowed" to create nuclear weapons. However, the adoption of a U.S. "military solution" as the apparent perceived adopted path of achieving ultimate U.S. foreign objectives, is creating the very conditions toward an Iraqi civil war, that spawns into a regional war, that draws in already existing and "jumpy" regional nuclear powers into a horrific Nuclear War, that destroys the whole of human civilization.

A pre-emptive military strike is EXACTLY how both World War I and World War II was started. World War II began in a somewhat similar way, under similar "national security" pretexts, that was used to justify the pre-emptive Iraqi War; and notably with the destruction of civil rights, that America is now pursuing, (as Germany had in the 1930's). During both the pre-World War I and pre-World War II eras, the idea of a situation spiralling into a World War, was generally unthinkable.

As Professor Chossudovsky suggests, the prevention of conditions for a World War III would be facilitated by the replacement of the perception of an exploitative U.S. presence in Iraq, with a calming, well-organized and benevolent U.N. presence toward Middle East stablization. Such stablization would make the pretext of the "War against Terrorism" redundant, because the conditions for spiralling insecurity as the result of the current U.S. foreign policies would cease.

Humanity can decide to continue along its current path of belligerence, fear, and oppression, toward nuclear self-annihilation as the result of dysfunctional "War against Terrorism" policies. Alternatively, humanity can choose a context for peace that embraces civil and human rights, social justice, and mutual respect for national sovereignty.