The Cold War Was Ended-Now New Drums are Heard

[bescheid]

The main preoccupation of the Bush administration in having a missile defense system in central Europe is primarily aimed to deter eventual hostile missiles from Iran

by Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor
Washington (UPI) May 24, 2006

The Cold War is over. The Soviet empire has collapsed. The West has won. The countries of the former Eastern Bloc have nearly all turned to democracy and many have even joined NATO and the European Union. Nuclear weapons (at least some of them) have been dismantled. The world is a far safer place now. Or is it?
True, the demise of the Soviet Union and the destruction of hundreds of nuclear weapons, those left behind in the former Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and others, have made the world much safer than it had been since the end of World War II.

But that was before Sept. 11, 2001, before Iran's desires to join the nuclear club became public knowledge, and before the United States began thinking of positioning missile batteries in former European Soviet satellite states, and in Britain.

According to London's The Independent on Sunday newspaper, the United States is investigating the possibilities of setting up interceptor missile sites in Poland, the Czech Republic and in Great Britain. The report claims both former communist countries are keen to host the new missiles. But a senior Polish diplomat in Washington told United Press International he was not aware of any such deals.

And in the United Kingdom, still according to The Independent on Sunday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has agreed, in secret, to allow the Bush administration to site U.S. missiles on British soil. The newspaper refers to the deal as "part of the new 'son of Star Wars' program."

The paper reports that No.10 Downing Street "has given an agreement in principle to the Pentagon to station interceptor missiles at RAF Fylingdales, North Yorkshire." The newspaper called the basing of interceptor missiles on British soil "the most significant new military U.S. presence in this country since the withdrawal of cruise missiles 13 years ago."

But Prime Minister Blair and his Secretary of Defense Geoff Hoon refuse to discuss the matter in any detail.

The main preoccupation of the Bush administration in having a missile defense system in central Europe is primarily aimed to deter eventual hostile missiles from Iran. The Islamic republic's Shahab-4 ballistic missile -- meaning meteor, or shooting star in Farsi, is derived from the North Korean No-dong-2 missile. It has a range of 1,367-1,799 miles and can carry a 2,200-pound warhead. Iran has long denied building a Shahab-4.

This, in effect, would place the Baltic states, Poland, parts of Germany and Italy, as well as all of Israel, within reach of Iran's missile system.

"If the Americans attack Iran, the world will change... They will not dare to make such a mistake," former Iranian President Ali Akbar Haschemi Rafsanjani, once said.

"We view Iran's efforts to further develop its missile capabilities as a threat to the region and to the United States' interests, and all the more so in light of its ongoing nuclear program," said Adam Ereli, a U.S. State Department spokesman.

Regardless of the reasons pushing the United States to deploy interceptors in former Soviet satellite states, the fact is that it will not be well received in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin, already not best pleased with what he regards as the West's (read the United States and the EU) infringement on his domain, will not likely be overjoyed. So what can he do? How can he fight back?

Putin can get back at the Western alliance by doing exactly what the Soviet Union used to do; support the enemies of the West. In this case, support Iran. Now far more Machiavellian that jut supporting Iran would be to try and build a new alliance based on Iranian influence, but this time retracing the footsteps of Genghis Khan but in the reverse sense, going eastward from Iran to unite the former "Stans," under the influence of Islam.

Putin hopes he can copy the Reagan administration that supported the mujahideen, and the Israelis who created Hamas. Putin thinks he can use the Islamist card in his favor. But more likely than not, just as it backfired for the Americans, and just like it backfired for the Israelis, hence, so too, will it not work for Putin and it will more likely than not come back to haunt him.

Has the Soviet empire collapsed? Certainly. Has the West won? Undoubtedly. Have most countries of the former Eastern Bloc turned to democracy? Unquestionably. Are there fewer nuclear weapons in the world? Not for long.

Once Iran officially acquires nukes, well, it won't be long before Egypt, Saudi Arabia and maybe even Qatar start their own nuclear programs while rogue states, or yet more frightening, rogue individuals, will be looking to purchase WMD on the black bazaar. Is the world a far safer place today? Hardly. Is the Cold War over? Yes, but a tepid one is about to start.


Charles

[sciwriter]

Simply stated many non-white nations, e.g., China, India, Iran, N. Korea & Pakistan, don't want white nations to have a monopoly on nuclear weapons. IMO WW3 is a race war, i.e., the war of the face, not the faith. Carl

[justjohn]

From another forum. This says it very succinctly.


Revisiting the Radical Islamic Worldview

May 2, 2006

During the Cold War, there was a great clash of civilizations—communism vs. Western liberal democracy. And it threatened to destroy us in a nuclear holocaust. I was in the White House during those years. I can tell you, it was terrifying getting those daily briefings from the military. But the danger that we face from radical Islam today is even greater than the Cold War.
In the mid-1990s Harvard professor Samuel Huntington predicted that the twenty-first century would see a great clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. Nobody paid much attention. After all, we had just defeated communism. There was peace in the world. All was well.


Then came September 11, when we awoke to the fact that there are people out there who want to destroy us—not just defeat us, but annihilate us.

Why? There has been a lot of hand-wringing in the West about why they hate us. "Maybe if we just got out of the Middle East," some say, "or elected a new government, or abandoned the war on terror, maybe they would change their minds."
Well, what the pundits don't realize is that this is a clash of civilizations. Armies of suicide bombers ought to tell us that their worldview matters more to them than life itself.
The hard truth is that members of Islam's radical branches have no interest in coming to terms with non-Muslims, or even moderate Muslims. To put it bluntly, they don't care whether we're nice or not. To this breed of radical Muslim, there are only two options: convert or die.

Does that sound drastic? Sure. But it's a fact.
The history of Islamic hostility toward the West goes back centuries. Radical Muslims are still smarting over the defeat of their armies south of Paris in the year 732, not to mention the catastrophic defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna on September 11, 1683. That's right, September 11. Bin Laden chose his date for a reason. He was avenging the defeat of Muslim armies more than four hundred years earlier. September 11 has roots in an irrational hatred of the West.

There was a brilliant but paranoid Egyptian writer by the name of Sayyid Qutb, imprisoned in Egypt in 1956. In 1970, he published a book, In the Shade of the Koran, attacking the West as totally corrupt. Qutb knew what he was talking about. He lived in the United States for a time and saw our decadence. He also read Western philosophers like Heidegger and Derrida and other intellectuals who hated the West. And he read all the anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic literature.

Qutb's In the Shade of the Koran unequivocally advocates the killing of "infidels." He was executed by the Egyptian government, but his brother, Muhammad Qutb, escaped Egypt, went to Saudi Arabia, and became a professor at the university. One of his star pupils was none other than Osama bin Laden. Don't tell me worldviews don't matter. This same worldview now influences millions of radical Muslims—up to 10 percent, according to some accounts, 100 million. What we're seeing in the Middle East today are not isolated acts of terrorism, but a widespread, well-organized, hatred-fueled movement.

Now, politicians don't like to say politically incorrect things like this, but it's true. We in the West had better understand that we are in a life-and-death struggle with a worldview that wants to destroy us. To see anything else would be tragically blind.

[kaima]

Interesting commentary, John. I wonder who wrote the original, as they say they were in the White House. It seems tehy could not have been Republican, as I don't know a neo-con today who would talk in a complimentary fashion about "western liberal democracy". The emphasis today is on us (the US) being a republic and us being capitalist.

Hmmm... the Sept 11 1683 is intersting, but Encyclopedia Britannica dates the end of the battle as Sept 12. Close enough for gummn't purposes, I suppose. History is inaccurate. Another report puts the decisive battle as October 9, following the relief of Vienna.

O, I suppose if September 11 goes all the way back to the relief of Vienna, then we have Poland and Sobieski to blame for our troubles today....

Interesting observations on and by Sayyid Qutb. According to Wikpedia he was in teh USA in the late 1940's & early 50's, just about what we Americans consider the "golden age" of modern values and practices, in short, the "good old days" that so many wish to return to today! Here is how Wikpedia describes some of his observations on America: "Qutb was extremely critical of the racism he witnessed in the United States, as well as the openness between the sexes in American society (he was aghast at activities such as the then-popular "sock hop"). Qutb objected to what he viewed as the primitiveness in America. He noted with disgust how some Americans had little respect for the dead, and how youth flirted and danced at church gatherings. Qutb also found American society superficial and centered around material goods. "
Some of his writings appear at www.islaam.com/Scholar.aspx?id=73

It seems some facts are jumbled either in what you quoted or in Wikpedia. This is what they have to say about the brother: "It is widely known that Qutb's brother, Muhammad Qutb, moved to Saudi Arabia where he became a professor of Islamic Studies. One of Muhammad Qutb's students and an ardent follower was Ayman Zawahiri, who later became the mentor of Osama bin Laden."

Personally, I am more scared of fanatical Christians than I am of fanatical Muslims. I live too near many of the former, and have met none of the latter. Muslims I have known as friends and co-workers were good to superb citizens.

Kai
Salaam and Shalom

[justjohn]

Kaima,

Your statement is correct.

I too am more afraid of radical christians than radical muslims.

Look where they have taken us to date. Know a lot of the former. Don't know anybody from the latter.

[kaima]

PS, I like your quotation of Chesty Puller, ""All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time."

Gen USMC- Chesty Puller"

but it didn't match what I remember from his comments at Chosin Resevoir, so I checked with a few sites and other variations are "chesty puller: "ok troops, were surounded, thats simplifies our problem" "

another has the statement as ""We're Surrounded... That Simplifies Our Problems".
".

He was one of those fortunate ones.

Kai

[bescheid]

Thank you guys for your excellent contributions, each direction of travel is individual. But, each direction of travel points to the same situation. And that is the problem of groups of various reasons with only one primary agenda. The destroyers (fanatics, terrorist) must by default, maintain an agenda of hate. This is their primary reason of being.

If good is to triumph over evil, then good had best be careful.

The other destroyer of nations, is the slow systematic destruction of the economies. And this is presently under way. The more resourceful economies will survive longer. The weaker economies will began to demonstrate a more rapid decay.

The prime destructor factor, is the withholding of fuel energy. For what ever the reason or fault, the end means is still the same. those nations with the most abundant resources, will have the upper edge of those less fortunate. {but, then, this subject needs to be a different thread}

The terrorist do not have to work so hard for our destruction, time will do their work for them. Fortunantly, these groups so far, are too stupid to figure this out, or perhaps they have.

Charles