May 2, 2006
Kamloops Daily News


When will we learn that the journey down the path of
escalating conflict is a dead end road? We have traveled
this path before.

As long as one nation keeps a nuclear arsenal, others will
find it necessary. Iran learned from North Korea that if
you want to avoid being invaded by the U.S., get nuclear
weapons. It's the only threat that the world's surviving
superpower understands.

Like many who grew up during the cold war between the Soviet
Union and the U.S., I quickly realized how futile the arms
race is. The attempt by the superpowers to outdo each other
in military might ended in the collapse of one.

Nuclear weapons don't kill just your enemy. Atomic bombs
create radioactive dust that knows no boundaries. And if
the radioactive fall-out doesn't kill you, the nuclear
winter will. The dust that remains suspended in the
atmosphere will block the sun and crops fail, nations will
starve to death.

Even the most belligerent war-mongers who last walked this
path conceded that nuclear buildup was a futile exercise.
The logic of mutual assured destruction (MAD) was
irrefutable. The superpowers were forced to conclude that
the only thing to do was get rid of all nuclear weapons.

The thaw in the cold war was so encouraging that scientists
who tracked the march to destruction by a so-called Doomsday
Clock actually turned the clock back. Now it's forward to
where it was at the start of the cold war.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November, 1989, was a time of
great optimism. With the arch-rival of the U.S. gone, what
possible use would the remaining superpower find for a war
machine and weapons that could wipe out every living thing
on the earth many times over?

It was one of those rare times in history when it seemed
like anything was possible - - even the dismantling of
weapons of mass destruction. The dark cloud of nuclear
annihilation and was lifted. Children no longer had to
learn how to build bomb shelters and hide under their school
desks when the air-raid siren when off.

The reason for the arms race was gone. Military could be
reduced to a size necessary for rapid deployment to trouble
spots to keep the peace, make the peace when required, and
to arrest lawless leaders of rogue states.

The loss of a classic enemy brought alarm to the Washington
hawks. Their reason for being was threatened. It wasn't
enough to be the last superpower standing. What was to
happen to the military empire that they were the captains
of?

Colin Powell, who was then a General in the American forces,
fretted about the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Think hard
about it. I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of
villains," he worried

Dick Cheney, who was then the defense secretary, also
scrambled for good reasons for a massive military.

Cheney's first story was that the Soviet Union still had
weapons and could become a threat again. When it became
apparent that the Soviet Union had come apart and couldn't
be put together again, Cheney had to come up with something
else.

Then he claimed the opposite: the U.S. was threatened by the
weakness of Russia, not its strength. In other words, the
pieces of the former Soviet Union represented hostile
factions that could destabilize region. This was more
plausible but still couldn't justify the massive U.S.
military machine.

Cheney then presented what was dubbed the World War II
scenario. In this account, Europe and Asia would rise
against the U.S. as they did in World War II. The scenario
was dismissed when people started thinking "wait a minute,
he's talking about our allies; Germany and Japan."

The story that finally stuck was drafted by Cheney's
undersecretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz. The U.S. needed
to have military so large that no other power in the world
would even dream of taking them on. As the attacks of
September 11 demonstrated, a small dedicated force can throw
a superpower into turmoil.

We have heard the twisted logic for the arms buildup.
Military leaders have explained how we have to invade a
country in order to save it. It's time for public discourse
on the folly of this madness and why we should give peace a
chance.


David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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