Will the real rogue state please stand up? Is the Bush administration's policy to start a new arms race making the United States a rogue state?

When United State's new "nuclear posture review" was leaked last month, the Bush administration was furious that the Pentagon exposed a major change in principle and US policy toward nuclear weapons. A timely leak if it was intended or not.

The Pentagon classified document blurred the long-accepted distinction between nuclear and non- nuclear weapons. It looks ahead to the use of nuclear weapons against targets such as underground bunkers with "mini-nukes". Perhaps the most alarming part of the document was in the new reasons why we would use nuclear arms. The list included the vague "in the event of surprising military developments". What is that to mean, if Chinese builds troops in No. Korea then we will nuke them? Even more chilling, the Pentagon unashamedly seeks to embrace the moral ground - new kinds of nuclear warheads, it says, could actually "reduce collateral damage". But what about the radioactive real estate or the air that we breathe?

Such an assertion flies in the face of all scientific studies about the horrendous consequences of radiation, even from a low-yield nuke striking a deep underground bunker. It also ignores the huge dangers in lowering the nuclear threshold by treating nukes like any other war-fighting weapon, driving a wedge through the internationally accepted principle that nukes are so horrific that they are to deter war, not to escalate war.

By building up our arms the Bush administration is "extending the notion of casualty-free war to nuclear war". We must never adopt the frame of mind that nuclear weapons are casualty-free. The fact is that the Bush administration is using new weapons in Afghanistan ie the Daisy bomb which incinerates everything within a half mile of ground zero reveals the administration's eagerness to develop and deploy new weapons.

Three months ago Bush gave Russia the six month notice that the US is getting out of the ABM treaty, we have three months to go and the US will be developing new nuclear weapons. Then Bush created the Axis of Evil in his state of the union speech. Since then he has added 4 more countries to the Axis including Russia and China. The pentagon has leaked the story about the expanded use of nuclear weapons which included the scenarios to use the weapons as an Arab-Israeli conflict, a war between China and Taiwan, in an attack from North Korea on the south, or in an attack by Iraq on Israel or another neighbor.

The bomb is the use of nuclear weapons, the fuse is the rhetoric from our leaders. Some of the key points to the current saber rattling fuse are:

John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, replied: "I don't think we are of the view that the "negative security assurances", (the official policy of the US, whereby Washington pledges to not use nuclear weapons unless that state attacks the US or its allies) approach is necessarily the most productive. It doesn't seem to me to be terribly helpful in analyzing what our security needs may be in the real world."

Bush, "If you are not with the US you are with the terrorists"
"Some governments will be timid in the face of terror, and make no mistake: If they do not act, America will."
"The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
"Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. Iraq continues to bar U.N. weapons inspectors from its nuclear, chemical and biological facilities."
"They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."
"Military power is the only basis of true security, the U.S. can rely only on itself, and allies are an optional extra."

Cheney, "We did not seek this war, but it found us prepared."
"We're dealing with a terror network that has cells in 60 countries. Such a group cannot be … reasoned with through diplomacy. For this reason, the war against terror will not end in a treaty."
"… Americans find it reassuring to have a Commander in Chief who tells the truth and who means exactly what he says. (applause) As the President said, the United States will not permit terrorist states and their terrorist allies to threaten us with weapons of mass destruction."

Is the United States headed toward a unilateral, pre-emptive strike against rogue states? Or is this simply saber rattling to gain economic leverage in world markets? What may well be some of the results of a US policy that starts a new arms race?

1 It will cause China to divert massive resources from developmental and economic purposes. It would slow up or halt economic expansion. It will reduce living standards and could cause unrest. As with the USSR, there would be pressure to fragment the Republic.
2 Heightened international tension enables the US military/industrial complex to demand huge financial backing. ($100 billion: while 80% of the World's folk live in substandard housing, and 50% are underfed.)
3 The US will have massive foreign markets for its weapons.
4 Those US citizens with wealth (the Bush backers) will become yet wealthier.

The extent of the danger that the US poses on the world is recognized internationally. In May 2001, long before the current renewal of the arms race the US was voted out of the UN Human Rights Commission, where the US has been a member since 1947. The reason was for its' aggressive imperialist conduct in the Far East and the Middle East, as well as its unilateral revocation of the environmental and ballistic missile accords. Whatever the reason, the united States is the 'rogue' of all 'rogue' states.

E_mail:  the Tribal Messenger

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