Reflections By Comrade Fidel

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE SURVIVAL OF HOMO SAPIENS

During the ceremony commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution I expressed my opinion that “The Cuban Revolution, on our small and ignored island, was newly born, but coming into this world just 90 miles from the powerful empire, caused it to test the arrogance of the dominant superpower in our hemisphere and in a large part of the world.” I promised to speak about the statements I had made to the United Nations two days previously. I warned that our struggle would be “long and hard.” For the time being, I must postpone this task. Another subject at the moment is more important.

Our people, as many around the world know, are characterized by their high level of knowledge, which they have achieved during the past five decades, after the country emerged from its semi-colonized and mono-crop producing state and its considerable levels of illiterate and semi-illiterate people with low general education levels and scientific knowledge. The Cuban people had to be fully informed about what nuclear energy could mean for the fate of the human species.

“I think —I said verbatim on September 28— that it might be a good idea to make known some of these ideas about what a nuclear weapon is. I have seen images about what critical mass is, and what its use as a weapon represents: that is to employ the energy that drives the universe for war.” At “3,000 degrees Celsius, practically all metals and materials…” melt. “What would happen then at 10,000 degrees? […] Well, an atomic explosion produced by critical mass could reach millions of degrees.

To give an idea of the destructive power of this type of energy, I would like to add to this Reflection something that Harry S. Truman wrote in his diary on July 25, 1945 about a test made in the state of New Mexico: An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling, to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 a mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.”

In the current stage of the world, when some 200 countries have been recognized as independent states with the right to participate in the United Nations —ridiculous legal fiction—, the only chance to forge a ray of hope is by leading the masses, in a rational and calm way, to the understanding that all the inhabitants of the planet are facing a grave risk.

Within our limited relations, we have had the opportunity, in less than three weeks, to receive two eminent figures. The first one was Alan Robock, an emeritus researcher and professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey. While working with a group of courageous colleagues, the US scientist proved the Nuclear Winter theory and advanced it to its current level. Only 100 of the 25,000 strategic nuclear weapons that exist today would be enough to cause this tragedy, he explained.

The Nuclear Winter theory has shown that “If such weapons did not exist, they could not be used. And at present, there is absolutely no rational argument for their use. If they cannot be used, they must be destroyed. By doing so we would protect ourselves from accidents, mistaken calculations or any bouts of insanity.”

“…Any country that at present may be considering the nuclear option must acknowledge that by adopting such a decision, it would be endangering not only its own population but the entire world.

“… The use of nuclear weapons in the event of a total attack against an enemy would be suicidal due to the anomalous cold and darkness caused by the smoke from the fires generated by the bomb.”

Robock quoted Einstein: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

My reply to the noble scientist was: “It makes no difference if we know about this, what is needed is for the world to know.”

On October 2, another eminent figure of great authority and prestige arrived in our country, economist Michel Chossudovsky, the director of the Center for Research on Globalization and chief editor of the renowned and increasing influential Website Global Research. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Ottawa and a consultant for several international institutions, including the United Nations Development Program, the African Development Bank, the United Nations Population Fund. He has an extensive list of other connections and merits that would take a long time to mention.

One of the first activities of the Canadian economist and writer was a lecture he gave to students, professors and researchers in economics, at the Manuel Sanguily Theater, University of Havana. He presented his lecture and answered all questions in perfect Spanish; a commendable effort. I noted down the main ideas from his presentation, especially those related to the risk of war employing atomic weapons.

“…in the Universities of North America, the neoliberal economy represents totally fictitious realities. It is very difficult for economists […] to analyze the economic reality […] there is no notion of the economic actor.”

“…the financial manipulation of covert operations by power groups, of the fraud entailed by this economic system […] is something beyond the control of individuals…”

“At present, I would like to focus more on the issue of the military venture underway. It is an alliance between the United States, NATO and Israel: a military project, but at the same time, an economic project, since it is a project aimed at economic conquest.”

“…these military operations meet […] objectives of an economic nature […] the major economic objectives are oil and natural gas […] from the eastern Mediterranean to the Chinese borders and the Caspian Sea, South of Saudi Arabia […] the Middle East-Central Asia. This region —according to statistics— contains around 60 percent of the world reserves of oil and natural gas.”

“If we compare this to the US reserves; they are 30 times greater. The United States has less than two percent of the world reserves […] and they are unleashing a war […] to control these resources in the name of their oil companies […] the configuration of economic power behind this war is made up of oil companies such as British Petroleum, Chevron, Exxon […], the big Anglo-American oil companies that are there and have interests in those regions.”

“British Petroleum […] was formerly the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, but this Anglo Persian Oil Company was a project of conquest both of Iran and Iraq after the Second World War…”

“If you add the Muslim countries to Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, they represent 70 percent of the global crude oil reserves […] The United States is carrying out a religious war against the inhabitants of those countries where there is oil. […] It is a holy crusade against the Muslim world, but the religious objective is only a pretext, the justification to unleash such a war. […] The statements made by Obama, by Hillary Clinton […] lead us to believe that the United States, with all its military power and military spending of nearly 1 trillion dollars a year, is waging a war against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

“…contradictions of this discourse always come from official sources […] the CIA recently published a document revealing that Al Qaeda has less than 50 members in Afghanistan […] That war is not against Muslim terrorists; but the pretext for the war is to fight in favor of democracy and to remove the evil.”

“It is interesting to note that military documents read: ‘If you know what you want, let’s go and get them, they are evil.’ There is lots of rhetoric […] it is a discourse that nobody will question, because the authority, President Obama, comes and says, ‘We must look for Bin Laden, we do not know where he is, but if necessary […] we will go after him with our nuclear weapons.’”

“After September 11, the doctrine of preventive war and preventive nuclear war was formulated […] stating that it was fair, based on the objective of fighting terrorism, to use our nuclear weapons against them. And media distortions presented Bin Laden even as a nuclear power […]the so-called non-state nuclear powers […] non-state nuclear powers are allied with Iran which, they say, is a nuclear power even though there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

“…The United States and its allies are threatening Iran with the nuclear weapon using the justification of the non-existing nuclear weapons in Iran, and the pretext is that Iran constitutes a threat to global security.”

“This is the current discourse. Unfortunately this discourse has already been supported by some governments, […] all the NATO governments and Israel are supporting the option of a preventive nuclear war against Iran […], and that Iran supports Bin Laden and that it is necessary to impose ‘democracy’ on Iran by employing the nuclear weapon.”

“…We are genuinely facing a situation in which the future of humanity is affected, because a nuclear attack on Iran —as is already being announced, and war preparations have been underway since 2004— would signify, in the first place: that during this war in the Middle East, Central Asia, currently limited to three theaters Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, we will witness the escalation of this military process with the possibility of a war scenario that would be the third world war.”

"The Second World War was a series of regional wars [...] war in Europe [...] war in the Pacific [...] war in Africa [...] several theaters [...] Today it is the integration of communication systems and the centralization of the military command in one place: the US Strategic Command in Nebraska [...] With the militarization of space using the system of satellites, the so-called intelligent missile systems, there was a regionalization of military operations [...] under US military planning, but coordinated. [...] US Central Command [...] Central Asia and the Middle East. [...] SOUTHCOM based in Miami. [...] Africa Command [...] which is based in Europe, not Africa [...] There is a series of regional commands, but the dynamics of global war is very different from previous wars [...] a coordination in real time, unhurried, a single command, the air defense system of all the countries belonging to NATO, the US and now Israel, is integrated. [...] we are in a vastly different world, with extremely sophisticated weapons; in addition to nuclear weapons we also have electromagnetic weapons, and the coordination of all these operations. [...] NATO now also has an integrated military command, an extremely coherent alliance, which can launch operations anywhere in the world. [...] yes they do have the capacity, in terms of weapons of mass destruction, which is incredibly sophisticated.”

"All of this is a contract for a few companies that produce the weapons, in the United States they call it the Defense Contract, the companies that have agreements with the Defense Department [...]US military spending represents 75 percent of the revenue from household taxes, not the entire income of the Federal State, but the income generated from what individuals and families pay each year [...] more or less $ 1.1 trillion, and military expenditure is about $ 750 billion [...] more or less, 75 percent. [...] these are the official figures, in reality, military spending is much higher than that.”

"... The US now has a military spending that is a little more than 50 percent of the military spending of all the other countries combined. [...] Its economy is also extremely biased in favor of a war economy, with all the consequences of the collapse of social services, health care.”

"The state of poverty that exists in the United States, both due to the crisis and the military economy, is extremely serious. It is not the product of a lack of resources, but rather the result of a transfer of wealth into fewer hands, a stagnation that is caused by the compression of living standards and also by the state’s allocation of almost all of its income to sustain the war economy, on the one hand, and the so-called bank bailout." 

 "... in the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union there was a kind of understanding [...] I do not know how to say it in Spanish ... an understanding that it would not be used because it was recognized as a weapon that could wipe out society as a whole. 

"First came the doctrine of preventive nuclear war, based on the reclassification of nuclear weapons as conventional weapons [...] During the Cold War there was the red telephone, they had to say who was in Moscow ... At the time there was a recognition that it was dangerous, right? " 

"... in 2002 it was as follows: There was a propaganda campaign within the armed forces saying that tactical nuclear weapons were safe for the civilian population [...] safe for the surrounding civilian population, without causing damage to the civilian population around the site of the blast. This classification was used for the nuclear bomb they called the mini-nuke —mini-nuke means small nuclear bomb. [...] According to this ideology, this scientific falsification, the new generation of nuclear bombs was presented as being very different from the strategic bomb [...] I have a pack of cigarettes; I do not know who smokes here, ‘Smoking can damage your health.’ [...] The same thing the Pentagon did, they changed the label; with the backing of bought or co-opted scientists, they have changed the label on the nuclear bomb. [...] ‘This nuclear bomb is safe for civilians, it is a humanitarian bomb.’ I'm not exaggerating; you can consult the documentation about it. [...] this is internal propaganda, it is propaganda in the armed forces themselves; these are the words they use ‘safe for the surrounding civilian population’ […] as you know, it’s as if you were using a video camera, there is a manual for this bomb. 
"Another factor: it is not the commander in chief, that is to say the US president, who decides to use the nuclear bomb. The nuclear bomb, reclassified by the Senate in 2002 with that category —a small bomb, which is up to six times the Hiroshima bomb—, is now part of the arsenal of conventional weapons [...] in military terminology it is also in the armory, the tool box. [...] it is in the tool box of the commanding general, three stars [...] the guy says: [...] 'here's the mini-Nuke, he’s reading the manual [...] It says right here that you can use that nuclear bomb. '" 

"I'm not exaggerating, once the propaganda is in the military manuals, it becomes a line of conduct, and the problem is as follows: the inquisitorial discourse is so sophisticated, so advanced that it could lead to decisions that are extremely severe for the future of the human race, and therefore we need to come together and unite against that military project, that war project."

"I mentioned the $ 750 billion in military spending, and the $1.5 trillion used to bail out the banks, these are the operations that were implemented in 2008-2009 [...] if military spending is added to the payments made to the banks, we come to a figure that is greater than all state revenues. In one year, state revenues are around $ 2.3 trillion. A large portion of this amount is used to finance the war and fraud, a product of the economic crisis [...] if we look at the program implemented under the Bush [administration] ... it was $ 750 billion, and afterwards another similar scheme was implemented at the beginning of the Obama mandate [...] a trillion or so [...] the total of these rescue operations, by various means, is estimated between 6 and 8 trillion dollars, which would be three or four times the annual income of the US Federal Government. " 

"... The State is going to go into debt and those who are monitoring the state are the banks, right [...] the same people who are the recipients of the rescue operation in turn are also the creditors of the state, and that circular process is called financing your debt [...] the banks say: 'Well, they have to give us money, because we have to finance the debt from the fiscal deficit, due to both spending on defense and rescue operations. " 

“We are in an extremely serious situation regarding the US fiscal structure, which is leading to a de facto privatization of the state, because there is no money to fund health, education, public works, whatever. Then, gradually, it is a privatization of the state and also the privatization of war. This is already underway; an important part of this war is being carried out by private companies, mercenaries, which are also linked to the military or industrial complex." 

To be continued tomorrow. 

Fidel Castro Ruz

Octuber 7, 2010

8: 47 p.m.