James Galbraith: Former NATO Generals' "Radical Manifesto" Violates Key Principle Of International Law

Guardian :

Five former Nato generals, including the former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, have written a "radical manifesto" which states that "the West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the 'imminent' spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction."

In other words, the generals argue that "the west" - meaning the nuclear powers including the United States, France and Britain - should prepare to use nuclear weapons, not to deter a nuclear attack, not to retaliate following such an attack, and not even to pre-empt an imminent nuclear attack. Rather, they should use them to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a non-nuclear state. And not only that, they should use them to prevent the acquisition of biological or chemical weapons by such a state.

Read the whole story: Guardian

Comments

[gcallaghan]

From under what rock did these asswipes crawl? This "manifesto" has Bush and Cheney's paw prints all over it. It's another lame brained attempt to sway world opinion on Iran. Look for a counter proposal coming from Russia, North Korea, Iran and China authorizing nuclear strikes against countries threatening nuclear strikes against non-nuclear nations.

[ibsteve2u]

This article is perfectly useless without pictures of the generals.

[jerrypenguin]

Has it ever occurred to anyone that nuclear technology is almost a century old? Nuclear technology of the 1930's and 1940's produced an effective weapon of mass destruction. The computer technology of the time was the ENIAC. I'm confident that any group of reasonable intelligent people, given enough vacuum tubes and a place to plug it in, could produce an ENIAC. Could not the same be done for a 1940's nuclear weapon?

A pre-emptive nuclear strike on every back ally garage and every cave suspected producing an old time nuclear weapon is absurd. There has to be a different answer.

[Pdubya]

NEW WORLD ORDER.

think about your vote.

hard.

[wadenelson1]

If any of these fruitcakes thinks that using nuclear weapons is going to result in WORLD PEACE, they are horribly, horribly mistaken.

There are 2 Billion Muslims all OVER this world, and Americans won't be safe to step foot ANYWHERE if we were to take such idiotic action.

Attempting to deny a despotic dictator WMD's is how we got ourselves into the mess we're in today, one that threatens to bankrupt our country financially, since it already has morally.

Jesus Christ in a Chicken Basket, what are these guys thinking.

[drauz]

There are many aspects of the NATO Stars manifesto that I find disturbing. But, without getting into polemics, there is an overarching (& revealing) point to consider.

What is intrinsic to nuclear weapons (& WMDs) that requires their combat destruction ONLY by nuclear weapons? It seems to me that a stronger case (in every way; military science, political mgmt, public health, the enviro) is that non-nuclear weapons would better achieve their stated end.

Which leaves me with the conclusion that these guys are either a) big-time A-Bomb enthusiasts &/or b) have a yet-to-be-revealed agenda.

In any case, we mortals can measure "success" by how rapidly nations abandon non-proliferation policies in order to rapidly develop WMDs. Of course, they will believe that course the best means to defend themselves from those implementing the General's approach.
Great... just great.