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Two Suns In The Sunset
by Selwyn Manning
Bush Advances Unilaterally Nuke Dominion:

In less than two years, G W Bush has transformed the United States from leading peace-maker to world totalitarian nuclear aggressor. The latest outlining of USA’s nuclear policy is the continuation of the Bush administrations push toward the brink of global warfare.

A secret Pentagon report calling for new nuclear weapons to be developed, more suitable for striking targets in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya, even China has been revealed.

The Nuclear Posture Review is a blueprint for developing and deploying nuclear weapons.

When campaigning for office Bush stressed he would slash the number of nuclear weapons and develop a military that would be suited for the post-cold war world.

But the Pentagon report shows the Bush Administration views nuclear weapons as crucial to advancing its position as the nuclear strike capable country with the most dire and destructive deterrent.

The report calls for earth- penetrating nuclear weapons to be developed, designed to destroy heavily fortified underground bunkers. It calls for improving intelligence and targeting systems needed for nuclear strikes and argues that the United States ought to resume nuclear testing.

The report outlines secret discussions and scenarios where the USA could use its "nuclear strike capabilities" against a foe.

The scenarios include:
· an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbours
· a North Korean attack on South Korea
· a military confrontation by China over the status of Taiwan
· or the USA wishing to destroy enemy stocks of biological weapons, chemical arms and/or other arms of mass destruction.

The USA clearly states that Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya – countries central to Middle East stability - are potential nuclear battle-grounds.

It is clear that the Bush Administration is broadening the opportunity for it to deliver a nuclear strike against a nation or group it considers an enemy.

Take the fourth scenario where it would use nuclear weapons to destroy stocks of weapons of mass destruction. Well, remember back to the investigations of the September 11 attacks? The FBI officially termed the use of aircraft as weapons of mass destruction. The intent of the report is clear.

It opens the way for the USA to deliver a nuclear strike against any nation, group, or [even obsessively] an individual, or even more worryingly any entity Bush terms an “Axis of Evil”.

This is particularly so, where the USA considers that the target is able or willing to deliver a weapon, via any means, conventional or otherwise, upon the peoples of the USA or those of its allied pact of trading nations.

Congress received the report in January. For Congress’ benefit the Report massaged fears by raising the Cuban missile crisis – placed that reference within a scenario where the United States may be targeted by nations suddenly becoming weapons-of-mass-destruction ready or where WMD fall into aggressive hands via coup de etat.

North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are among Bush’s “Axis of Evil”. The Report said, "All sponsor or harbor [sic] terrorists, and all have active" programmes to create weapons of mass destruction and missiles.

Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya do not have nuclear weapons. US intelligence however suggests Iraq and Iran are making “a serious effort” to acquire nuclear weapons. It’s a matter of debate as to whether North Korea has produced a nuclear weapon – although it may have enough fissile material for one or two nuclear weapons.

But the Report is not so much a report of findings, conclusions and recommendations. It is a stated position by the Bush Administration expressing its desire to design and advance a one horse nuclear race.

The US Department of Defense [sic] is refusing to expand on the Report – apart from a statement it issued on the news breaking: “We will not discuss the classified details of military planning or contingencies, nor will we comment on selective and misleading leaks… The Department of Defense continues to plan for a broad range of contingencies and unforeseen threats to the United States and its allies. We do so in order to deter such attacks in the first place.

“Of particular significance in the new Nuclear Posture Review is President Bush's decision to reduce operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons by two-thirds, a decision made possible by the new strategic relationship with Russia.

“This administration is fashioning a more diverse set of options for deterring the threat of WMD. That is why the Administration is pursuing missile defense, advanced conventional forces, and improved intelligence capabilities.

“A combination of offensive and defensive, and nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities, is essential to meet the deterrence requirements of the 21st century,” the statement concludes.

The leaked Report will further stress US/Middle East relations and complicate its relations with an already strained European Union.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney is to visit UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street today [Monday March 11], amid continuing speculation of forthcoming military action against Iraq.

A spokeswoman for Mr Cheney said the men would be discussing "the progress of the coalition" formed in the wake of the 11 September attacks, exactly six months ago.

No doubt Cheney’s task will be to relax tensions within Britain – where a common feeling is that its Prime Minister Tony Blair has transformed the United Kingdom into a pet US poodle.

There, there’s a groundswell of opposition toward the USA’s advance into aggressive unilateral foreign politics.

This resentment will not have escaped Blair’s attention. With domestic politics requiring his attention – particularly in driving through policy designed to deliver in health and core social provision areas, Blair, as leader of a “social democratic” third-way government, will not wish to subscribe to disestablishing nuclear treaties and load the deterrence factor squarely in the corner of a gun touting player from Texas.

Europe too is tense.

Its member nations have long supported arms control via treaties such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other means of nuclear arms reduction. Such treaties have been torn to shreds by the USA’s nuclear re-arming ambitions. Clearly Bush eyes Europe with as much regard as a redneck would at a Red Sox baseball game.

Europe laughed at Bush in the months post his eventual swearing in. He was seen to be a bozo. Europe now faces the prospect of how to court the jester without staring down the barrel of a magnum44.

In December 2001 Bush scrapped the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) - in effect casting aside diplomatic restraints that prevent the superpower from pursuing an aggressive defence arsenal of its own weapons of mass destruction. "Today, I have given formal notice to Russia, in accordance with the treaty, that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost 30 year old treaty," Bush said on the Rose Garden lawn.

Spectator.co.nz reported on the issue in December.

We focused on how the Bush Administration would by March 2002 be ready to begin construction of silos and a testing command centre for a futuristic and expensive US anti-missile defence shield near Fairbanks in Alaska.

The announcement caused outrage from Russia, China, and members of the European Union. Bush then said: "Today, as the events of September the 11th made all too clear, the greatest threats to both our countries come not from each other, or other big powers in the world, but from terrorists who strike without warning, or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction… We know that the terrorists, and some of those who support them, seek the ability to deliver death and destruction to our doorstep via missile. And we must have the freedom and the flexibility to develop effective defenses against those attacks. Defending the American people is my highest priority as Commander in Chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses," George W Bush said.

Bush's words committed to reducing "offensive strategic nuclear forces". But left the US able to appease the Russians and also build up a massive "defensive" nuclear arsenal that could be utilised to annihilate an aggressive nation, state, organisation, or fractionalised group, that directs a threat toward the United States through terrorist means or otherwise - particularly if that threat is carried within a "weapon of mass destruction", yes that term has been broadened and used often.

Spectator.co.nz concluded: “So, as can be distilled from this - the United States is positioning itself to be in a position to retaliate with nuclear weapons should a repeat of the events of September 11 be again used by aggressive groups, states, nations and economies against the United States or its peoples… The message is clear: the US intends to rebuild a nuclear arsenal of 21st century sophistication. This is not deterrent policy. No other nation, state, organisation, group, or indeed individual could possibly match it. This announcement could just be the conception of the most dire threat to our existence that this planet has ever seen.”

US television has been airing the Bush Administration view, that the world changed after Sept 11 2001, and that we have to all think differently about “our” [the USA’s] defence.

One thing is clear: China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya may have once taken refuge in having signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Washington had promised that it would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Unless, that is, those countries attack the United States or its allies "in alliance with a nuclear weapon state."

Now, with Bush declaring the majority of those nations aligned to the “Axis of Evil”, there is clearly no binds that will resist the compelling will of one who views full scale retaliatory nuclear strike as the ultimate in the USA’s defence. Now might be a time to think about the consequences of this.

See also:
US Security Council Veto Condemns More to Death
America Reaffirms to Nuke-Age

---

Feedback - Letters to the Editor - Re: Phil of Auckland NZ writes on Barb Sumner Burstyn's Zero Tolerance column...

Dear Barbara, To me and probably the majority of Kiwis, the feeling is that the really nasty (and relatively few) dudes they actually do catch should pull down serious time.

Thank you for a timely reminder that strident appeals and knee-jerk reactions should not be the basis for one's point of view. I recently received ACTs "survey" on the proposed changes to Govt legislation on sentences and prisons.

I don't know if it's true, you know, that it's safe for us to come out now, but it is nice to read and to think it might be.

So all you men who went into shock in the 70's and early 80's and stayed there, good news, the wars almost over, you can come on out now.

Personally, mine never left. My actions and words changed completely. At 49, having learned alot during "the war", I am not un happy, but not happy.

You're article on "Restoring testosterone" would have to be the biggest load I've ever read.

Thank You, but... ...it's not enough. I'm referring to your article "Restoring Testosterone", in which you tell men that we can come out now because it's safe.

Someone called "Bill" from Vermont USA writes: Barbara Oh yes, there are a lot of pissed off men.

And women, in their smugness, don't realize.

Men are pissed because they have spent history toiling and building and providing - and it all went wrong, somehow.

Now men are sued, jailed, destroyed by divorce, denied their children, the homes they built or paid for, financially punished and sentenced to poverty after a life of work.

Men are the dummies in all the commercials and stupid movies, it goes on.

You've opened a locked box, Pandora.

Keep it up. Bill [Vermont, USA].

Evan Keil writes: Ms. Burstyn, I want to thank you for your recent article entitled "Restoring Testosterone".

While I disagree with many of the qualifications of being "a man", I am pleased at any time that a person recognizes their own prejudices and takes any step to reconcile them with the world at large. You have done just that.

More importantly, you did so in a balanced way. You did not place blame on any one group, nor did you accept sole responsibility, but simply stated a recognized error in judgment.

I sincerely wish that more people on either the side of radical feminism or radical masculism could perform such a sobering act.

The fact is that both men and women suffer from perceived stereotypes, and their struggle against those stereotypes can too often become inflated to a struggle against the entirety of the opposite gender.

Both sides of this battle over illusory injustices become so entrenched within their beliefs of solitary persecution that they begin to actually enforce the beliefs of the other side.

I've seen this at work on a men's activism site to which I belong. Your article was linked there as an example of someone doing "the right thing".

Unfortunately, half of the men on the site have reacted with anything from scepticism over your honesty to outright accusations of feminist agendas relying on swaying public opinion. Those who express their gratitude for your article, however short it may be, havebeen met with hostility from both the other men on the site and from radical feminists who use the opportunity to make horrible speeches comparing us, as men, to child-pornographers.

It is comforting to me that someone, yourself in this case, can recognize something in herself which is a problem, something that contributed to an unbalanced world view, and act upon it in a positive manner.

It is inspiring. It reaffirms my faith in humanity. I thank you for it.

The problems of sexism, on either side, are deeply rooted and trained into society at a the great cost of solidarity. As you have stated, both genders are responsible. It is a complicated issue, and for many a passionate one. For whatever reasons, passion includes blindness and blind faith.

To that end, passion can be a detriment. There are very, very passionate people on both sides of this issue.

That said, let me extend my apologies, however unrequired they may be, for any attacks that are made against you for this article.

Radical feminists and masculists alike are currently swarming around your article like angry bees, trying to find a place to light and sting.

I pray that you do not get stung, and more importantly that the poison of their words does not taint your clarity. People are passionate. They are blind.

As has been said before, "They know not what they do."

Thanks again for writing this article. I look forward to reading more.

Evan Keil
Credere è di vedere By believing, one sees.

So I really appreciate it when a women talks about all that stuff thats always whirling around in my own head. Thanks for speaking up!

Jay Turley - Arizona USA.

I have watched, all of my cognizant life, feminism grow from a small movement to the monster it has become.

The sisterhood ran me and every other man off who wasn't the hollow charicature of a man that you describe in your article.

The rest were tolerated to have someone to kick around. That seems to be the best we can do anymore.

We're still expected to pay for everything and solve all the problems and face danger if need be, but leave your feelings and expectations at the door on your way in, and, by the way, please leave quietly by noon as well and place your wallet on the dresser as you leave.

That is the message I get from far too many so called thinking women.

Most of whom also strike me as lonely and frustrated at the fact that they have been unable to have it all, most importantly, a fulfilling marriage.

Surprise, surprise! Welcome to the real world of accountability and scarce resources.

I expected your article to be uplifting, but instead I was angered by it.

The damage in our society is severe and already done.

You have made sport of it. Some of you ladies may choose to be nicer to us brutes (how generous and kind hearted!) but that won't correct the hateful laws that have been passed in America that turn family courts and sexual accusations into star chamber proceedings.

It won't restore the self esteem of millions of neglected and misraised boys from the bias of single mothers who can't control them and therefore fear them, the school system and the universities who pump energetic boys full of Ritalin, ostracize the fathers in their lives and seek to turn boys into officially certified eunuchs. Those that don't fit the mold are to be shunted off to prison, it would seem.

It won't restore ruined lives or careers. It won't change the pang of fear and suspicion I feel when I talk to women at work, especially attractive ones, because I am only a false accusation away from being ruined professionally or weorse going to jail. It won't heal the damage from endless slights and bruising criticism everywhere in newspapers, movies, TV, magazines, and advertisements.

Most importantly, it won't make my very expensive but tenuous investment in marriage and a family any safer and until that happens, relationships between men and women in English speaking countries will remain strained to very strained. It won't make me or other men whole again.

If women criticized each other as much as they criticized men, they'd be cringing neurotics.

Your article seemed to be merely a way of saying We ladies have come to realize that being lonely is worse than being with you". "I'd like a date again and you lads can call me if you like; I'll even make you tea.

That is how the article sounds to my ears, I'm afraid, in spite of your apparently genuine attempt at liking us again. At least I was a bit relieved when you said you were afraid of lesbians.

I have often wondered about that with thinking women.

In 1995-96, the women's media was playing the lesbian card to the hilt and still does with steady but lower intensity.

The message was/is: "You men better shape up or we'll start dumping you for our girl friends.

They know better how to satisfy us sexually than you do anyway". Feminists saying they like us again is a bit like Hitler telling Jews he won't gas them anymore and wants to be their friend. The trust has so long since been destroyed that it can probably never be restored. It is the tragedy of your generation of women and the greatest vindication of those men who 30 years ago said women weren't fit to lead. I will be leary of my personal involvement with women for the rest of my days and most experienced men feel that way anymore, they just don't talk about it.

The problem is that women can be nice today, cruel tomorrow and whatever they decide, we pay the price.

Men have been saying for about ten years now that this reverse discrimination must come to an end. I hope that day is finally here, but I'm not holding my breath. However, we are pissed off!!!!

The kettle is starting to boil. I'm deeply saddened by the smugness of your article in spite of its chirpy tone and attempts at reconciliation.

Its a drop of water on the hot stone of hate that has become the women's movement and as such, seems condescending. I'm sorry if I say so, but say it I must, because I think it is important that the word finally start getting out, even if we have to criticize those women who claim to be our allies in the process.

Unlike the feminists I encountered, I will attempt to be rational and fair in my criticism. It is meant to be friendly as well as an opportunity to express my feelings for once, in an open and honest way.

Thanks for the sentiment, but even your list of positive things about men has a condescending ring to it, while making an attempt to appear humorous.

I have never met a woman who was my intellectual equal, but not for want of trying. I have met many with unjustifiably large opinions of themselves, however. Too many thinking women confuse strength with bossiness.

That is the real reason why men avoid those so called strong women.

Feminists call excessive control and criticism emotional abuse. Saying that men fear strong women is absurd.

Every man seeks a strong woman for wife. he just doesn't want a wife who will castrate him. he wants to be loved and appreciated and he wants that love to be genuine, not merely an expression of her ambitions to have it all.

I am fit for a good bit more than lifting heavy objects and taking out the trash. I am also very self sufficient around the house and don't really need a woman, but life is empty without them.

If only they had been as generous to us as we men have been with our tolerance of women's caprices and flaws.

Women in the English speaking countries have done severe damage to their relations with men, that it will take generations to restore it, if it can ever be done, as far too many women seem to believe that they are better off with a matriarchy and defend their new found superiority jealously, in spite of the obvious destructiveness to our society and in most cases their own happiness.

I can only conclude that it is to stroke their grossly inflated egos and to continue along some Betty Friedan dictated life path because they think they have to.

If I ever have children, and especially a son, I find myself saying that I will warn him of women's ways the way your mothers warned you not to sell out to men.

I am afraid for myself if I have a daughter, because I will not want to impose on her the poison that was imposed on me by the women's movement.

No one deserves it. I was around when they did it, so the women's movement can't deny they did so to me, like they can with younger men, who have enjoyed the full force of feminist propaganda.

When I was 25, saying these things was unimaginable for me. That is the extent of the damage caused by your movement's excesses. I could not in good conscience tell my hypothetical son to marry and raise a family anymore.

That is a very painful fact for me to have to accept.

That is the real reason why men are commitment shy and reluctant to form relationships or start families. It has become a recipe for emotional and financial suicide.

It will be very difficult to control the impulse to warn and perhaps stop the cycle of resentment and anger, I'm afraid, because of the obsessive need of the women's movement to blame everything they don't like about the world on men and mens' corresponding anger and resentment.

We never promised you rose garden and you didn't get one. If you expected one, the problem of your generation of women's lives lies with those expectations, not with men.

If you want to help us, stop talking at us and shout at the sisterhood.

Shout to your friends and tell them what has happened and why. Tell them what they need to do to stop it, but being nice for a day or two because your in the mood isn't sufficient and a mockery of fairness and decency.

Display the moral superiority that I so often hear women claim for themselves and talk sense into your corrupt sisterhood.

Remember, we're physically stronger and the sisterhood won't be able to create Gynotopia without getting men to do their dirty work for them. You need our physical strength to enforce your agenda. The white boys may be tamed, but the Feminist message hasn't ruined all of us. That is a precarious position to be in once chivalry dies.

Does the women's movement really want it to?

Thank you for letting me speak from behind the veil of the lace curtain. We men don't get much opportunity to say these things, although they have been stewing for years.

I am saddened by all of this, I'm afraid. That is the worst of it, the shattered dreams and ideals. Godspeed.

Best regards, Jeff McMullen - Germany.

You could sub-title it The Failure of SNAG - Letters to Barb Sumner Burstyn - POV

Thanks, some deep topics are covered there, in a positive chatty way. You could sub-title it The Failure of SNAG. You've nailed the modern man's dilemma exactly - how to be post-SNAG, keep the few useful SNAG qualities, and not revert to brute.

I'd like to be equally flippant in my comments but since you've opened up a few complex issues I find it hard not to be serious.

Most men would climb over broken glass to make their woman heppy, if they only knew what that was. Too often what we're told will make her happy, once achieved, turns out to be not quite enough.

But, men have an equal responsibility to define for each other the behaviour expectation.

To be a fulfilled man (my POV) is to enjoy buying flowers, making compliments, being open to affection, as much as to enjoy a beer with the guys, a hard charge into a front-row or a quick drag-off against some smart-alec driver at the lights.

When we've learnt to revel in our emotional responses we find much more to share with women than to feel apart from, hence the whole Venus-Mars thing becomes a load of superficial light-hearted rubbish.

I like in your writing the idea that be accepting the differences we will get the best from each other, we can enjoy being men again, in the full sense.

Vive la difference!

David