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With nuclear weapons, the Nazi idea of total war is alive and flourishing

With nuclear weapons, the Nazi idea of total war is alive and flourishing  https://www.thenational.scot/community/19938923.nuclear-weapons-nazi-idea-total-war-alive-flourishing/

Brian M Quail, Feb 20,2022 -VLADIMIR Putin is overseeing exercises involving the launching of ballistic missiles, according to the RIA news agency. This news comes with a numbing inevitability. From the very beginning of the nuclear arms race this was predictable.

At the end of 1945, in Operation Paperclip, more than 1,600 rocket scientists, engineers, and technicians were sneaked away from Germany to the US. These unrepentant Nazis (notably Werner Von Braun) all received US citizenship and gave America dominance in the nuclear arms race. Four years later, the Soviet Union responded by developing their own Bomb in 1949, and our race to nuclear extinction began.

This was a terrible fulfillment of the prophetic words of Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who said: “Even if we lose, we will win, because our ideas will have penetrated the hearts of our enemies.” The Nazi idea of total or genocidal war is alive and flourishing in our nuclear war plans. Faslane is our superBelsen.

We rabbit on about deterrence. But there is a fatal flaw in the theory of deterrence. The enemy must feel genuinely threatened by us. So I must develop characteristics in my weaponry that make this fear real. Greater kill power, stealth delivery systems, undetectability etc are thus inevitable. But if I develop characteristics of usability, the weapons become more, er, usable, and just another tool in the box.

The only escape from this nightmare is to not play the mad game. “No” is the hero’s word. I referenced World War Two when sourcing our woes. In truth, our problem is older, much older. We read in Deuteronomy: “I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that you and your children may live.”

Our progress in the technology of industrialised killing is mind-blowing. When I was young, a bomb could be dropped from a plane. Now you can rain guided missiles from outer space. We have hypersonic weapons, drones that kill without human involvement, all sorts of new ways of killing people. So every day we are choosing death.

At this, the eleventh hour, can we not repent and choose life? We must stop blaming the other because “I have seen the enemy, and he is us.” We can renounce our gods of metal and abandon our nuclear idolatry. We could join the non-nuclear majority, sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and have a future – if only we have the courage to change.

February 22, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized