General Lee Butler(Ret.) was the first commander of U.S. nuclear forces (a “Cold War Warrior” as the NYT put it) to call for their abolition. He shocked the nation, military establishment, and the world with his statements. In a magazine profile the Washington Post described the former four-star general as

one of the most effective advocates of this cause, an improbable ally of liberal peace activists whose views on nuclear arms were rejected for years by the American political mainstream

In 1998, General Lee Butler would give a speech at the National Press Club titled, “The Risks of Nuclear Deterrence: From Superpowers to Rogue Leaders” which followed up the speech he first gave at the National Press Club in 1996 which sparked the abolition debate.

His 1998 speech brings attention to the fact that one nation unilaterally holding nuclear weapons does not make a region safer, especially in a region such as the Middle East where there are deeply rooted religious, political, and social rifts between the holding party and other polities. Such an arrangement ends up causing nuclear weapons to proliferate much faster and make the nation with nuclear weapons (in this case Israel) and all other regional nations (the Middle East states) less safe than before for a variety of reasons:

• Attacks may be incited by Israel between itself and Arab nations pursuing the weapons for their own defense
• States who acquire the weapons may attack Israel, sparking regional conflicts and then reactions from the United States and other relatively powerful nations with vested interests in the region (US client states in Europe, Russia, China, India, etc.)
• The weapons could fall into the hands of extremist, militant groups who would use them to attack Israel, other Arab states, or the United States and its allies (or even Russia by Chechnya militants)

And so on.

However, such a fact which is overly apparent is ignored by those in power who time and time again choose expansion over security, dominance over peace, “stability” over sovereignty.

Joining the unpeople and the large majority of the American public is the majority of the Israeli public which supports a nuclear free zone within the Middle East. To be specific, 64% of the Israeli public as of 2011 and a comparable majority of the population believes it would be best if neither had nuclear weapons (65% said it would be better if they both had none; 19% said it would be better if they both had nukes).

Despite this the Israeli government (along with the American government) ignores what the public wants, instead pursuing geopolitical goals such as illegal expansion of Israeli territory, the stability of Iran, and the satisfaction of internal blocs of power such as the military-industrial complex.

Most notably, its ability to concede Iran is not pursuing nukes nor has no wish for nukes while stating in the same breath that Iran must give up its nuclear weapons or Israeli officials consistently claiming Iran’s nukes are just around the corner.

Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani, has insisted, recently, that

[Iran] will never pursue nuclear weapons

Only time will tell if Washington will listen to Iran after nearly a decade of the same thing being uttered over and over again.

Former Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy (pictured below) also wrote an interesting op-ed for the New York Times titled: “Iran’s Achilles Heel: To Weaken Iran, Start With Syria” in which he made the case for an attack on Syria (back when no one cared about the troubles in Syria; last year) would deny Iran its strategic ally in the region and a geopolitical hub it allegedly used to access proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

As Halevy coldly stated, the only concern is

not whether he falls but whether the Iranian presence in Syria will outlive his government. Getting Iran booted out of Syria is essential for Israel’s security. And if Mr. Assad goes, Iranian hegemony over Syria must go with him. Anything less would rob Mr. Assad’s departure of any significance.

No mention of the possible humanitarian crisis or the possible meltdown of the region if Syria falls to any one of the numerous factions, extremist or not, that wish to take power if Assad falls.

Obama forgot to declare, however, that there is literally no evidence Iran is pursuing, let along contemplating, a nuclear weapon. Disregarding the fact that since 2003, repeatedly it has been conceded Iran has no nuclear weapon ambitions, the West has been decrying its nonexistent nuclear weapon and Israel has been threatening to “curb its [nonexistent] nuclear goal”.

All the sites that Israel could and would target are in fact either nuclear reactor facilities, research facilities for nuclear power, or mines for uranium. Shortly put, none of its targets are operations bent on weaponized uranium and most are not even completely built let alone far along the path of creating uranium usable for widespread, low-cost energy.

Not only has John McCain sung a jingle called “Bomb Iran” where he powerfully calls for the destruction of the nation, not only has he defended his sick joke by arguing detractors should “get a life” for not finding his call for genocide funny, but the man has also tweeted to the world racist jokes about Iran such as:

https://twitter.com/SenJohnMcCain/statuses/298456316538662912

Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, responded later that day:

I’m ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country’s scientists

(McCain should take tips on jokes from Ahmadinejad, no?)

With good reason, the Drug War cost taxpayers 29 billion USD and about 8.8 billion went to research, treatment, and prevention (data collected here, source here).

The Drug War is a profitable enterprise, after all, for all those involved.

Perhaps the drug warriors are addicted to a sinister drug that has stayed with man from his earliest days:

Myths

Myths that drug use can be examined independent of environment, that the user is entirely to blame, that drug use is due to a weak will, that addicts are mindless zombies, and the whole plethora of mindless drug warrior myths bundled up within the rhetoric. Warriors such as Stephen Baldwin, Drug Czards, and the like declare the War on Drugs as necessary or a “wild success” when in reality there are only a very narrow spectrum of results which are positive for the Drug War.

The United States not only uses it with regards to Iran but in nearly every international situation with a foreign non-power. Such was the case with:

• Syria (Obama): President Barack Obama personally insisting “it is only the credible threat of force” which ushered in diplomatic negotiations to disarm Syria’s chemical stockpile.

• Iran (Obama & Bush): Despite it being over ten years with no evidence Iran has been pursuing a nuclear weapon with neither the US government, its intelligence agencies, or Israel procuring any evidence of nuclear weapons, the United States still maintains that “force is still an option” if Iran does not stop its nonexistent nuclear weapons program.

• Syria (Bush): Bush threatened the use of force against Syria if it did not cooperate with a probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.

• Iraq (Bush): The United States, after manufacturing false evidence to suggest Saddam was pursuing “weapons of mass destruction” (but only after a propaganda campaign to imply he was responsible for 9/11)

It is the very nature of a state capitalist economy to receive massive state subsidies for basic economic function, but the only variant between state capitalist economies is what the vehicle for subsidy of research and production will be. Within the United States, it is the military system (i.e. the Pentagon and DoD and this arrangement has yielded most of what we cheer on as “private enterprise” innovations (high technology such as transistors, computers, the Internet, the aeronautical industry, pharmaceutical drugs).

The prison industry is similar in that not only is it booming but it is a state funded enterprise. As Noam Chomsky explains:

And it’s state industry, publicly funded. It’s the construction industry, the real estate industry, and also high tech firms. It’s gotten to a sufficient scale that high-technology and military contractors are looking to it as a market for techniques of high-tech control and surveillance, so you can monitor what people do in their private activities with complicated electronic devices and supercomputers (i.e. with our tax dollars)

In fact, he goes on to reveal that the prison-industrial complex will soon go the way of most “free enterprises” in the United States and benefit highly from direct military system subsidies since:

the major defense-industry firms are interested…this is a terrific work force. We hear fuss about prison labor in China, but prison labor is standard here. It’s very cheap, it doesn’t organize, the workers don’t ask for rights, you don’t have to worry about health benefits because the public is paying for everything. It’s what’s called a ‘flexible’ workforce, the kind of thing economists like: you have the workers when you want them, and you throw them out when you don’t want them.